A provocative postering campaign by the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Supporters Alliance (BGLTSA) has reignited campus debate over a Red Cross policy that excludes sexually active gay men from donating blood.

With the Harvard blood drive ongoing this week, BGLTSA members posted fliers throughout campus that resembled official Red Cross blood drive advertisements with the words “Gay Men Need Not Apply” stamped across them.

And the Harvard Blood Drive has joined BGLTSA in calling for the Red Cross to change its regulations. The two groups will meet this weekend to discuss possible strategies.

“It is a homophobic policy that needs to be changed,” said Neilesh Mutyala ’04, a blood drive coordinator.

The policy they are protesting—mandated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)—prevents men who have since 1977 engaged in sexual activity with men from donating their blood.

A FDA scientific advisory panel voted by a seven-to-six margin in September 2000 to maintain that regulation.

While Red Cross officials said the policy is currently necessary to lower the risks associated with blood transfusions, they said they are working on technological advances that could make these restrictions unnecessary in the near future.

“All of us in the blood community would like to change what we’re doing so that we’re not deferring so many donors,” said Richard J. Benjamin, chief medical officer of the New England Red Cross.

Benjamin said he is concerned that the posters have deterred potential donors from giving blood.

“[Blood donors] look at this and say, ‘We’re not gonna give blood!’ It’s so difficult to get people to come through the door in the first place—this kind of publicity is damaging our ability to give blood to our patients,” said Benjamin, who is also an assistant professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School.

But Michael B. Murphy ’03, co-chair of BGLTSA, said the goal of the protest was not to dissuade people from giving blood.

According to Mutyala, the Harvard Blood Drive has seen a decline in turnout this year. But Mutyala said this decline is likely unrelated to BGLTSA’s postering efforts.

Some students said they were confused by the posters, misinterpreting them as official Red Cross advertisements.

Murphy said the misconception was the result of a simple mistake—the initial run of posters did say they were made by the BGLTSA.

But Murphy said the mistake had unintended benefits.