The second annual National Gay Blood Drive was held Friday, which seeks to lift a FDA ban on gay and bisexual men from donating blood.

In 1983, during the AIDS epidemic, the FDA barred men who have sex with men from donating blood in the U.S. On donation application forms appeared, "From 1977 to the present, have you had sexual contact with another male, even once?" If answered yes, the donor was turned away and banned from giving blood for life.

The intent was to stop the further spread of HIV or AIDS at the time. However, National Gay Blood Drive organizer Ryan James Yezak said the policy needs to be revised. Yezak said the policy is outdated and prevents healthy men from donating to help save lives.

The FDA wrote on their website that according to the Center for Disease Control, MSM, the acronym for males who fall into this category, "as a group, men who have sex with other men are at a higher risk for transmitting infectious diseases or HIV than are individuals in other risk categories. From 2007 through 2010, among adult and adolescent males, the annual number of diagnosed HIV infections attributed to MSM increased, while the numbers of infections attributed to other risks among males decreased."

The National Gay Blood Drive was held in 60 cities throughout the U.S., where MSM are asked to attend a blood drive to show their willingness to donate, but also bring someone along who is currently eligible to donate in the man's place. Donors will fill out name tags with the name of the individual who couldn't donate, and in turn those individuals can write messages to the FDA. All of these materials will be sent to the agency to show support for eliminating the ban.

The group also organized a petition July 1 for support on the policy change and are hoping to get 100,000 signatures by July 30.

The American Red Cross is in favor of changing the life ban, and the FDA has written that it would consider lifting the policy if there were different scientific methods for screening donor blood.