That was Diane Ogborn's plea Wednesday to the state Board of Education. She says Red Cross blood drives are too risqué for impressionable Utah high-school students, who must be protected from the saucy screening questions about sex that technicians must ask donors.

The 37-year-old Orem mother of four asked board members to halt Red Cross drives at public high schools. "They just ask very sexually explicit questions without parental consent," she said.

The board declined to put Utah's high schools off-limits, but agreed to develop a policy requiring blood-drive organizers to give parents plenty of advance notice on the kinds of questions their children will be asked if they give blood. The pending policy also could require parental permission - a step the Red Cross says blood banks already take.

Ogborn, who has donated blood regularly since she was in high school, argues state law clearly prescribes what kind of sexual content can be exposed to students, and who can expose it. For blood-drive technicians to ask questions such as "Have you ever had sex with a male who has had sex with another male?" goes too far, she said.

"As a parent, how I read it, it looks to me like it violates the law," she said.

The questions all donors fill out before giving blood also ask such things as "In the past 12 months, have you had any sexual contact with a prostitute or anyone else who takes money or drugs or other payment for sex?" and "From 1977 to the present, have you received money, drugs or other payment for sex?"

Such queries are necessary to screen blood for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. And they're legal, according to school board attorneys, even in public schools. While state law addresses the kind of sexual content that can be covered during regular instruction, the school board doesn't consider the Red Cross questions instruction. Therefore, they don't violate the law.

State schools Superintendent Patti Harrington said she sympathized with Ogborn. "That kids have access to that language concerns me, too," Harrington said.

But Julia Wulf, acting CEO of the Red Cross' Lewis and Clark Blood Region, notes her organization already informs parents about the nature of the questions. A parental permission slip - along with frank sexual definitions - is sent home with each student age 17, the minimum age allowed in Utah for blood donation. Anyone 18 and over does not need parental permission.

However explicit the questions and definitions, Wulf notes, they are required by the Food and Drug Administration.

"Our primary concern is the safety of the blood supply," she said. "Unfortunately, there are people who want to give blood who don't understand what is considered sexual contact."

The Red Cross sponsors blood drives in 75 Utah high schools each year. High school donors account for 5 percent of the 100,000 units the Red Cross collects annually in the state.

MountainStar and the Associated Regional and University Pathologists (ARUP) at the University of Utah also tap high school donors for blood and follow the same FDA-prescribed rules.

Judy Francis, blood bank coordinator for MountainStar, was incredulous after hearing about Ogborn's request.

"I've never heard anything like this," Francis said. "Every blood center in the United States relies on high school donations."

About 10 percent of the 25,000 units MountainStar draws each year come from Utah's high schools.

"Only 5 percent of the eligible population in the U.S. donates," Francis added. "If 10 percent of that total was taken away, where would we get the extra 10 percent from?"

Robert Blaylock, medical director of blood services for ARUP, says today's aging population is making blood even more critical.

"We're trying to educate people at a young age that blood donation is a good thing," he said. "To lose that opportunity while kids are in high school - to get them started on a blood-donation career - would have tragic consequences."

meddington@sltrib.com

rlynn@sltrib.com