FDA Cancels Ban on Blood Donations from Gay Males

The FDA now recommends that gay men be allowed to donate blood if they haven’t had sexual contact with another man for at least one year. According to Reuters, the United States follows the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand which also have the 12-month deferment period.

In order to arrive at the decision, the FDA said it “examined a variety of recent studies, epidemiologic data and shared experiences from other countries that have made recent MSM deferral policy changes”. The new questionnaire, as outlined by the FDA, would ask men if they have had sex with another man in the last 12 months.

“It continues to stigmatize gay and bisexual men”, said Mr Stacy, a spokesman the Human Rights Campaign.

“Relying on sound scientific evidence, we’ve taken great care to ensure the revised policy continues to protect our blood supply”, said Peter Marks, deputy director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

“I don’t think it makes any difference, but it might be a small step in the right direction”, said Parrish. “It simply can not be justified in light of current scientific research and updated blood screening technology”.

The FDA found that a one-year restriction would have no impact on the safety of the USA blood supply, but said eliminating all restrictions could increase transmission of HIV through blood donations by 400 percent.

And while the donation recommendation upgrade for gay men is significant – one year of abstinence up from “indefinitely deferred” – it is likely to face criticism from gay rights activists. “With the testing methodology used in the United States, there is a period of about nine days after an individual is infected with HIV during which the virus can not be detected, during which time the individual does not know that he or she is infected”, he said.

According to U.S. Census data, there are just over 2 million homosexual men aged 18 or over in the U.S. “The policy is based on fears that are decades old”.

Good news for blood banks across the nation and here in Las Vegas that seek to increase their reserves and donations. But many medical groups, including the American Medical Association, argued that the policy was no longer supported by science, given advances in HIV testing. Some in the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus, a caucus of openly gay members of Congress, have criticized the move as hypocrisy, because a straight man whose sexual encounters in the previous year have been varied could donate, while a gay man in a long-term relationship is out of the running.