“It made people talk about it,” he said. “In a sense that’s a good discussion to get going.”

Discussion of the Red Cross’ policies toward gay males also came to Harvard last year when then-BOND leader Clifford S. Davidson ’02 sent a message to that group’s e-mail list encouraging people to lie about their sexual practices in order to be able to donate in the wake of Sept. 11.

That message led to several angry replies on the list and was also denounced nationally by several conservative organizations.

Benjamin said, however, that while the Red Cross would like to open up its blood donations, doing so would not be a responsible move. He cited higher transmission rates of HIV among gay men as the rationale behind the FDA policy.

But Murphy said he objects to that logic.

“We don’t feel that the reasoning the Red Cross uses is grounded in statistics or rigorously consistently applied,” he said.

While this week’s protests are unlikely to affect regulations, Benjamin said the Red Cross is working to lower risks of contracting disease through blood transfusions—which could, eventually, mean a policy change.

“It’s my hope that within the next five years we will be able to go to the FDA and say, ‘Do these deferrals really make sense?’”

To that end, the Red Cross is looking to adopt new medical technologies, Benjamin said. One advance would inactivate pathogens in blood, killing “million-folds of HIV and other infections,” Benjamin said.

Another technology would improve the specificity of the Nucleic Acid Test, the most sensitive test for HIV, he said.

“When we get to that point when we have the technology that allows us to change, we will change. We want to change—we want those people back,” he said.