Sorority Urged Members to Lie in Blood Drive

[adpiucf]

What I don't get is why this made national news. It's just silly. It was just an email!

To me, it's like emailing students in high school, and saying, "Come cheer on our football team or ELSE!!!"

Or else, what? I won't be popular? Expelled from school?

I just don't understand why an email to a club got so much overexposure. Oh wait, never mind. It was a club with Greek letters. Which means that they drink, fornicate and pull more pranks leading to major bodily harm-- more so than any other students of that age. Of course!

This girl was a sophomore-- 19 years old. She was just trying to rally the troops to participate. Granted, her language and persuasive powers weren't well articulated, but she's just a kid. The media should give it a rest!

[mcellpe]

On the other hand, being 19 and having greek letters on your chest is no excuse for acting like an idiot. We should expect even 19 year olds to show some level of maturity, and GLO's should foster this, not make excuses for the lack of it.

[33girl]

Originally posted by valkyrie
This has me wondering about Greek Week events on campuses around the country -- what's the point of sororities and fraternities competing with each other, anyway?

It's supposed to be a friendly competition and a time for all Greeks to come together and at the great majority of schools, it is. I don't think we need to question the whole concept of Greek Week just because one person in one chapter got a little overzealous.

[aabby757]

I see this as being a big deal. And I don't think a fair comparison to send an e-mail about this versus one that says lie about donating blood.

This could have been a huge health care issues with irreversible consequences. I don't care if she was greek, to me that is a non issue. And, feel the media shouldn't either but I'm sure it adds that "spice" to the story.

She's 19, sure, we all make mistakes but she made a huge one and is now paying.

To me, this is a health care issue that needs addressing and not at all greek issue.

What she did was wrong. Imagine someone giving blood who is knowingly HIV or has Hepatitis but not strong enough willed to not give blood. That blood makes it in the blood supply and then we have a potential epidemic on our hands.

Not to be overly dramatic but it's possible. It just takes one bad move to get the ball rolling on another bad move, and so on.

[valkyrie]

Originally posted by aabby757
What she did was wrong. Imagine someone giving blood who is knowingly HIV or has Hepatitis but not strong enough willed to not give blood. That blood makes it in the blood supply and then we have a potential epidemic on our hands.

I don't know a thing about giving blood, but I would hope that they test it for diseases and don't just take the word of the people donating. Don't they? Anybody could lie or not know.

[SATX*APhi]

Originally posted by adpiucf
What I don't get is why this made national news. It's just silly. It was just an email!

To me, it's like emailing students in high school, and saying, "Come cheer on our football team or ELSE!!!"

Or else, what? I won't be popular? Expelled from school?

JUST an email?! Asking 170 girls to donate blood even if they were in no condition to do so is a very serious situation! In no way can you compare that to being told to cheer for a football team.

[WCUgirl]

Originally posted by valkyrie
I don't know a thing about giving blood, but I would hope that they test it for diseases and don't just take the word of the people donating. Don't they? Anybody could lie or not know.

I would hope so! I read an article the other day about how some 20% (or some number) of people infected with HIV don't even know they have it!

[adpiucf]

I just can't believe there would be members who are so gullible and weak-willed enough to take that email seriously. If you're recently ill, inked, or diseased... or you have an aversion to giving blood, I can't imagine that a little sophmore promising dire consquences for not rolling up your sleeve wouldn't get more than a couple of rolled eyes.

But apparently, I am wrong, and sick people can be persuaded to open their veins in the name of "Trophy."

I'm not excusing the sophomore-- I'm just surprised she was taken at face value. That's all. I'm impressed at the level of attention this has gotten from the media.

Question-- I seem to recall that when you go to give blood, they do a quick test on you first, to make sure your blood is normal. Don't they still do that? They're not going to release blood into the blood banks without first testing it. As someone else said, there are plenty of people walking around with diseases they aren't even aware of.

[KappaKittyCat]

I don't know a thing about giving blood, but I would hope that they test it for diseases and don't just take the word of the people donating. Don't they? Anybody could lie or not know.

They do test blood for diseases, especially for HIV and hepetitis.

I seem to recall that when you go to give blood, they do a quick test on you first, to make sure your blood is normal. Don't they still do that?

Yes, they do, but in this case "normal" = "non-anemic." You can't donate blood if you're anemic; their theory is that if you don't have enough red cells for your own body, you shouldn't be siphoning off for others.

Check out the blood-specific portion of the Red Cross's website.

[FAB*SpiceySpice]

Maybe this is crappy of me to say, but since this is my school and I know what the greek system here is actually like, I can almost bet money that Gamma Phi wasn't the only house that had an email or announcement like this. Maybe not all houses emailed it out, but I'm sure it got around one way or another. And Gamma Phi and this girls email just happened to be the ones who got caught. This competitiveness is just how our campus is though, I'm not saying that all this stuff is right or wrong, but like I said before I am NOT surprised in the least.

I read in one of the articles on CNN I believe that Gamma Phi Beta is going to lose all their blood points which totally totally sucks that they're all getting punished for what this one girl did. And their partner, a large house who doesn't do homecoming and usually wins or at least places in Greek week, well I doubt they're going to be too happy with them. It also said something about all the fraternities and sororities here are now going to have to go through blood safety education classes, which sounds really really boring, b/c we all already know the safety stuff. Some people just choose to ignore it obviously.

[WCUgirl]

Okay, for Greek Week, we collected can tabs. CAN TABS! Blood is just so....it's too much of a big deal to make into a contest. I can't believe that 1-such a big deal has been made out of it, and 2-the sorority is now going to lose all the pints that they did donate? This whole thing is bizarre....

[AGDee]

Has anybody else wondered how the two original newspapers even found out about this email?

I don't defend the woman who sent the email at all, but I surely hope that if a sister/brother sends an email to the whole chapter that upsets a member, that it is brought up in a meeting and discussed rather than sent to the media. It should have been brought to someone's attention and been handled internally.

Dee

[AXJules]

Originally posted by FAB*SpiceySpice
Maybe this is crappy of me to say, but since this is my school and I know what the greek system here is actually like, I can almost bet money that Gamma Phi wasn't the only house that had an email or announcement like this. Maybe not all houses emailed it out, but I'm sure it got around one way or another. And Gamma Phi and this girls email just happened to be the ones who got caught. This competitiveness is just how our campus is though, I'm not saying that all this stuff is right or wrong, but like I said before I am NOT surprised in the least.

I read in one of the articles on CNN I believe that Gamma Phi Beta is going to lose all their blood points which totally totally sucks that they're all getting punished for what this one girl did. And their partner, a large house who doesn't do homecoming and usually wins or at least places in Greek week, well I doubt they're going to be too happy with them. It also said something about all the fraternities and sororities here are now going to have to go through blood safety education classes, which sounds really really boring, b/c we all already know the safety stuff. Some people just choose to ignore it obviously.

Co-sign...when I found out, I was like, too bad that same email has probably been sent on 14 other chapter listserves at Mizzou...

And am I the only one who thinks part of the blame lies on the Red Cross? She wanted girls to go and donate even if they shouldn't, using the excuse that they could tell the Red Cross workers to use the "Do Not Use My Blood" sticker...why is that even an option? A few people mentioned it was so that you could discretely exclude yourself from giving if you didn't want to say why, but you go through a rigorous round of questions (the "Have you had sex w/a man before 1974" comes to mind) before you give, therefore making that sticker kind of useless.

[AXJules]

Originally posted by AGDee
Has anybody else wondered how the two original newspapers even found out about this email?

I don't defend the woman who sent the email at all, but I surely hope that if a sister/brother sends an email to the whole chapter that upsets a member, that it is brought up in a meeting and discussed rather than sent to the media. It should have been brought to someone's attention and been handled internally.

Dee

They said on the news it was sent to an individual "not in GPhi". I'm guessing, since it was on a listserve, it was someone who had deactivated or something like that.

[SiKeS]

I can see how it is wrong, but I don't think its huge enough to make national news...

I'm sure she saw it as a competition strategy: tell people it is an option, and it is much more likely that the squeamish ones won't think twice about objecting.. Tell them they have to, and get more points.

Not that this should be condoned at all, it is messed up.. But when competition is so high, people do stupid things. Similar things happen everywhere theres competition, most just aren't made national. I was part of a similar experience in high school for football when i was told that anyone (of age 18 or older) who did not give blood would not play... (money was donated to the program for % of eligable players who contributed) Sucks, but it happens.. Just don't think it is worth making national.

To prevent this, I think that so much emphasis should not be put on #s or %s of donations... People are gonna try to win, and to me it is pretty obvious that something like this would happen..

My 2 cents..
-Matt