May, 14 2015, 12:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
CONTACT:Â Linsey Pecikonis, Equality California
PHONE:Â 323-848-9801Â
CELL: 818-394-0947
EMAIL: linsey@eqca.org
Assemblymembers Bloom, Garcia and Low Join EQCA In Urging the FDA to Develop Blood Donation Policies Based on Risk Assessment
Los Angeles
Yesterday, AJR 16, authored by Assemblymembers Richard Bloom, Eduardo Garcia and Evan Low and sponsored by Equality California, was introduced in the State Assembly in response to the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) new blood donor guidelines that continue to discriminate against gay and bisexual men. The new proposed FDA guidelines would continue to prohibit blood donation from all sexually active gay and bisexual men. Specifically, all men who have had sex with another man within the past 12 months would be prohibited from donating blood. The resolution calls on President Barack Obama to encourage the Secretary of Health and Human services to direct the FDA to develop science-based guidelines that focus on risk-assessment of individuals instead of the arcane and discriminatory standards that continue to discriminate against gay and bisexual men.
"We are extremely disappointed that the FDA continues to pursue a path of pretend reform. Equality California stands alongside and thanks Assemblymembers Richard Bloom, Eduardo Garcia and Evan Low in urging the FDA to repeal its current blood donation guidelines that continue to stigmatize and discriminate against gay and bisexual men," said Rick Zbur, executive director of Equality California. "The proposed one-year deferral policy still prohibits all sexually active gay and bisexual men from giving blood based on their sexual orientation. So a gay man who has repeatedly tested negative for HIV and who is in a monogamous relationship is prohibited from giving blood, while others who engage in high risk behaviors are allowed to donate. This is simply unfair. The FDA should change course and do the hard work to develop risk-based blood donation policies based on modern science and individual behavior."
"While the DHHS and FDA action is an important first step in lifting the lifetime ban on gay and bisexual men to donate blood, the current recommendation for a one-year deferral period for gay men is still discriminatory," said Assemblymember Evan Low. "I urge the departments to continue to explore safe alternative policies that would allow individuals in the LGBT community to donate blood as equal members of society."
"The 12 month deferral policy for gay and bisexual men to donate blood is ridiculous and not even based on science," said Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia. "Our resolution is about equality and that every single Californian should be treated fairly when donating blood to help save lives."
Equality California has advocated that the FDA replace antiquated blood donation guidelines that focus on sexual orientation with modern science-based guidelines that focus on risk factors associated with individual behavior. Outside of the United States, countries like Spain, Italy, Russia, Mexico and Portugal have adopted blood donation policies that utilize assessments of risk of an individual's behavior, instead of the sex of a person's sexual partners.
"The FDA's proposed one-year deferral policy continues to stigmatize gay and bisexual men," said Assemblymember Richard Bloom. "Today's blood testing technology and screening techniques are reliable methods for preventing transfusion-related transmission of disease. A one-year deferral is unnecessary and not based on science."
"These guidelines would continue to prevent countless gay and bisexual men from making life-saving donations to the nation's blood supply," continued Zbur. "Equality California is redoubling its efforts to change this unfair policy, and we thank Assemblymember Bloom, Garcia and Low for standing with us and for their important leadership."
In October of 2014, Equality California launched a mobilization campaign to urge the Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration to end the discriminatory lifetime ban on blood donations from men who have sex with men. Equality California's campaign called "Every Drop Counts" mobilized the LGBT community and its allies, who sent thousands of emails and letters to the FDA calling for an end to the ban. Equality California will continue to mobilize the LGBT community to call on the FDA to end this discriminatory ban. Equality California remains committed to working toward an outcome that minimizes the risk to our nation's blood supply and treats gay and bisexual men equally.
Equality California is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, grassroots-based, statewide advocacy organization whose mission is to achieve equality and civil rights for all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Californians.
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Critics Blast 'Reckless and Impossible' Bid to Start Operating Mountain Valley Pipeline
"The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over," said one environmental campaigner.
Apr 23, 2024
Environmental defenders on Tuesday ripped the company behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline for asking the federal government—on Earth Day—for permission to start sending methane gas through the 303-mile conduit despite a worsening climate emergency caused largely by burning fossil fuels.
Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC sent a letter Monday to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Acting Secretary Debbie-Anne Reese seeking final permission to begin operation on the MVP next month, even while acknowledging that much of the Virginia portion of the pipeline route remains unfinished and developers have yet to fully comply with safety requirements.
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Appalachian Voices noted that MVP's request comes days before pipeline developer Equitrans Midstream is set to release its 2024 first-quarter earnings information on April 30.
MVP is set to traverse much of Virginia and West Virginia, with the Southgate extension running into North Carolina. Outgoing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and other pipeline proponents fought to include expedited construction of the project in the debt ceiling deal negotiated between President Joe Biden and congressional Republicans last year.
On Monday, climate and environmental defenders also petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, challenging FERC's approval of the MVP's planned Southgate extension, contending that the project is so different from original plans that the government's previous assent is now irrelevant.
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David Sligh, conservation director at Wild Virginia, said: "Approving the Southgate project is irresponsible. This project will pose the same kinds of threats of damage to the environment and the people along its path as we have seen caused by the Mountain Valley Pipeline during the last six years."
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Others renewed warnings about the dangers MVP poses to wildlife.
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U.S. workers' rights advocates and groups celebrated on Tuesday after the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to approve a ban on most noncompete clauses, which Democratic FTC Chair Lina Khansaid "keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism."
"The FTC's final rule to ban noncompetes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market," Khan added, pointing to the commission's estimates that the policy could mean another $524 for the average worker, over 8,500 new startups, and 17,000 to 29,000 more patents each year.
As Economic Policy Institute (EPI) president Heidi Shierholz explained, "Noncompete agreements are employment provisions that ban workers at one company from working for, or starting, a competing business within a certain period of time after leaving a job."
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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has suggested it plans to file a lawsuit that, as The American Prospectdetailed, "could more broadly threaten the rulemaking authority the FTC cited when proposing to ban noncompetes."
Already, the tax services and software provider Ryan has filed a legal challenge in federal court in Texas, arguing that the FTC is unconstitutionally structured.
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Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, praised the FTC for "listening to the comments of thousands of entrepreneurs and workers of all income levels across industries" and finalizing a rule that "is a clear-cut win."
Demand Progress' Emily Peterson-Cassin similarly commended the commission "for taking a strong stance against this egregious use of corporate power, thereby empowering workers to switch jobs and launch new ventures, and unlocking billions of dollars in worker earnings."
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Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director at Open Markets Institute, highlighted that the addition came after his group, SBPC, and others submitted comments on the "significant gap" in the commission's initial January 2023 proposal, and also welcomed that "the final rule prohibits both conventional noncompete clauses and newfangled versions like TRAPs."
Jonathan Harris, a Loyola Marymount University law professor and SBPC senior fellow, said that "by also banning functional noncompetes, the rule stays one step ahead of employers who use 'stay-or-pay' contracts as workarounds to existing restrictions on traditional noncompetes. The FTC has decided to try to avoid a game of whack-a-mole with employers and their creative attorneys, which worker advocates will applaud."
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'Discriminatory' North Carolina Law Criminalizing Felon Voting Struck Down
One plaintiffs' attorney said the ruling "makes our democracy better and ensures that North Carolina is not able to unjustly criminalize innocent individuals with felony convictions who are valued members of our society."
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Democracy defenders on Tuesday hailed a ruling from a U.S. federal judge striking down a 19th-century North Carolina law criminalizing people who vote while on parole, probation, or post-release supervision due to a felony conviction.
In Monday's decision, U.S. District Judge Loretta C. Biggs—an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama—sided with the North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute and Action NC, who argued that the 1877 law discriminated against Black people.
"The challenged statute was enacted with discriminatory intent, has not been cleansed of its discriminatory taint, and continues to disproportionately impact Black voters," Biggs wrote in her 25-page ruling.
Therefore, according to the judge, the 1877 law violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.
"We are ecstatic that the court found in our favor and struck down this racially discriminatory law that has been arbitrarily enforced over time," Action NC executive director Pat McCoy said in a statement. "We will now be able to help more people become civically engaged without fear of prosecution for innocent mistakes. Democracy truly won today!"
Voting rights tracker Democracy Docket noted that Monday's ruling "does not have any bearing on North Carolina's strict felony disenfranchisement law, which denies the right to vote for those with felony convictions who remain on probation, parole, or a suspended sentence—often leaving individuals without voting rights for many years after release from incarceration."
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"It also makes our democracy better and ensures that North Carolina is not able to unjustly criminalize innocent individuals with felony convictions who are valued members of our society, specifically Black voters who were the target of this law," Brown added.
North Carolina officials have not said whether they will appeal Biggs' ruling. The state Department of Justice said it was reviewing the decision.
According to Forward Justice—a nonpartisan law, policy, and strategy center dedicated to advancing racial, social, and economic justice in the U.S. South, "Although Black people constitute 21% of the voting-age population in North Carolina, they represent 42% of the people disenfranchised while on probation, parole, or post-release supervision."
The group notes that in 44 North Carolina counties, "the disenfranchisement rate for Black people is more than three times the rate of the white population."
"Judge Biggs' decision will help ensure that voters who mistakenly think they are eligible to cast a ballot will not be criminalized for simply trying to re-engage in the political process and perform their civic duty."
In what one civil rights leader called "the largest expansion of voting rights in this state since the 1965 Voting Rights Act," a three-judge state court panel voted 2-1 in 2021 to restore voting rights to approximately 55,000 formerly incarcerated felons. The decision made North Carolina the only Southern state to automatically restore former felons' voting rights.
Republican state legislators appealed that ruling to the North Carolina Court of Appeals, which in 2022 granted their request for a stay—but only temporarily, as the court allowed a previous injunction against any felony disenfranchisement based on fees or fines to stand.
However, last April the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed the three-judge panel decision, stripping voting rights from thousands of North Carolinians previously convicted of felonies. Dissenting Justice Anita Earls opined that "the majority's decision in this case will one day be repudiated on two grounds."
"First, because it seeks to justify the denial of a basic human right to citizens and thereby perpetuates a vestige of slavery, and second, because the majority violates a basic tenant of appellate review by ignoring the facts as found by the trial court and substituting its own," she wrote.
As similar battles play out in other states, Democratic U.S. lawmakers led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont in December introduced legislation to end former felon disenfranchisement in federal elections and guarantee incarcerated people the right to vote.
Currently, only Maine, Vermont, and the District of Columbia allow all incarcerated people to vote behind bars.
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