US FDA partially lifts gay men blood donation ban

Not everyone is thrilled with the decision by the U.S. government’s health arm to lift a ban on gay men donating blood for medical use, but some of the opposition is coming from sources one might not expect. These published studies showed no change in risk to the blood supply with the 12-month deferral.

While other countries have shorter deferral periods for men who have sex with other men, Marks said there’s been no similar studies conducted in “large countries”, and that most countries that have adopted a deferral period have stuck with the one-year limit.

“The FDA’s responsibility is to maintain a high level of blood product safety for people whose lives depend on it”, FDA Acting Commissioner Stephen Ostroff said in an agency news release.

The switch in policy could increase the US blood supply by 2 per cent to 4 per cent by making 2 million additional men eligible to donate, according to previous research by UCLA’s Williams Institute.

The agency said it would continue to evaluate new scientific data as they become available and make further modifications to its blood donation policy as needed.

He added that the new policy relies on “sound scientific evidence” and will “continue to protect our blood supply”.

“This change to the guidelines will not have any impact to safety of the blood supply”, said Andrea Fagan with the Indiana Blood Center.

“Ultimately, the 12-month deferral window is supported by the best available scientific evidence, at this point, relevant to the US population”.

The push for a new policy gained momentum in 2006, when the Red Cross, the American Association of Blood Banks, and America’s Blood Centers called the ban “medically and scientifically unwarranted”. She is also not fully satisfied with the new policy either because it isn’t based on individual risk factors and still unfairly singles out one group of individuals.

“The FDA is changing its recommendation that men who have sex with men (MSM) be indefinitely deferred…to 12 months since the last sexual contact with another man”, the administration announced Monday. 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 past year have been varied could donate, while a gay man in a long-term relationship is out of the running. The FDA first proposed lifting the ban last December.

Anyone who has ever tested positive for HIV, exchanged sex for drugs or money, or injected illicit drugs is still barred from giving blood.

The one-year deferral treats men who have sex with men the same as people in other groups that face an increased risk of having the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS.