Covid-19 survivor Andy Cohen guests on “The View” and talks about not being able to donate plasma because he’s gay

Thank you to Andy Cohen for speaking out about a federal policy that bans gay men from donating plasma.

Andy is a Covid-19 survivor and his plasma could be used to help save lives.

“I knew that gay men were not allowed to give blood,” Cohen said. “This has been something that has been going on for years. And it was something that I took as fact in the early days of HIV in the ’90s if I ever tried to give blood. The testing for HIV was far less sophisticated and accurate and fast as it is now. You can get an HIV test like that. It’s screened twice.”

Cohen was “hurt” when he signed up for a program with Mt. Sinai because they needed plasma from people who had survived COVID and was turned down.

“I just thought, ‘Well, this is crazy,’” he said. “Technology has come so far that you’ve got to be looking at this. Now I had another test last week for COVID to see what my antibodies were. And the doctor said, ‘Oh my God, your antibodies are so robust,’ which she found to be highly unusual four months after having originally testing positive for COVID.”

“Once again I thought, ‘What a loss.,” Cohen added. “Here I have these robust antibodies and I can’t share my plasma and possibly help anybody.’ So, extreme disappointment.I think that this is something that I’ve been speaking up about because I think that … we need help here.”