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30 May 2007

US FDA reaffirms ban on gay blood donors

The US government has reaffirmed its policy that bans anyone who ever had sex with another man from donating blood for life despite recommendations by the American Red Cross and two other blood donation centres to lift the ban.

The US Food and Drug Administration has reaffirmed its 1983 prohibition on gay men donating blood. The policy was implemented to prevent the spread of HIV through transfusions when the AIDS epidemic began in the United States and blood tests were still rudimentary and prone to error.

The decision was announced on the agency's Web site on May 23 more than a year after the Red Cross and two other blood groups criticised the ban as "medically and scientifically unwarranted."

In March 2006, the groups sent a proposal to replace the lifetime ban with one-year deferral following male-to-male sexual contact.
Experts from these blood centers have assured FDA about the advanced technology that has come up for testing HIV virus or any other serious disease. With the help of strict testing methods any kind of deformity in the blood can be figured out.

Under current procedures, all men are asked to declare if they have had sex, even once, with another man since 1977. Those who say they have are prohibited from donating blood. Anyone who has used intravenous drugs or been paid for sex is also permanently barred from donating blood.
The drug agency says those men are at increased risk of infection by H.I.V., which can be transmitted by blood transfusion.

New and improved tests, which can detect HIV-positive donors within just 10 to 21 days of infection, make the lifetime ban unnecessary, the blood groups told the FDA.

In a document posted Wednesday, the FDA said it would change its policy if given data that show doing so wouldn't pose a "significant and preventable" risk to blood recipients.

The FDA said HIV tests currently in use are highly accurate, but still cannot detect the virus 100 percent of the time. The estimated HIV risk from a unit of blood is currently about one per 2 million in the United States, according to the agency.

The ban on gay and bisexual men donating blood has since been lifed in Italy, Sweden, South Africa, Portugal and Spain. Australia only bans donations from people who have had gay sex in the last year while the Netherlands is reviewing their blanket exclusion of gay men. The Swiss government has recommended that blood donor policy should be based on differentiating between risky and non-risky behaviour, regardless of sexual orientation.

United States

Reader's Comments

1. 2007-05-30 22:56  
Sad to speak, people are still thinking of being gay or BI has direct correlationship with HIV infection.

Why not ban straight men for donating blood for life or for the next one year if he had sex with a woman?

It is prosmicuity, not identity. What a sad world this is! Oh my God, why are we forsaken by them?
Comment #2 was deleted by its author
3. 2007-05-30 23:29  
Oh yes, how about gay virgins? Aren't their blood much safer than straight non-virgins?

It is very hurtful when I filled in those questionaires regarding about gay sex just before blood donation. Why they don't mention about straight sex making it fair for both sides? Typical questions should look like:

For males,

1) Have you had unprotected sex (oral, anal, virginal) with any female for the past one year?
2) Have you had sex (oral, anal, virginal) with more than one female partner for the past one year?
3) Have you had unprotected sex (oral, anal, virginal) with any male for the past one year?
4) Have you had sex (oral, anal, virginal) with more than one male partner for the past one year?

For females,

1) Have you had unprotected sex (oral, anal, virginal) with any male for the past one year?
2) Have you had sex (oral, anal, virginal) with more than one male partner for the past one year?
3) Have you had unprotected sex (oral, anal, virginal) with any female for the past one year?
4) Have you had sex (oral, anal, virginal) with more than one female partner for the past one year?

That's about it. Don't put in more questions on sex, or use words like gay, lesbian, etc. If not, then the best question would be: Are you a virgin? This would ensure all blood samples to be safe.

Btw who will tell the truth when answering those questions?
4. 2007-05-31 13:31  
I am a gay man that regularly donates blood. If a guy knows he is neg, he can just lie about having sex with a guy for the greater benefit of doing a good charitable act
Comment #5 was deleted by its author
6. 2007-05-31 19:06  
We have this kind of ban in France too, but we hope it'll change soon, because according to the latest statistics, major HIV-carriers are heterosexual women, and not gay men.
7. 2007-06-01 00:44  
If I am not wrong, I did see some question asking males if they had paid anyone in cash or kind, for sexual intercourse...
8. 2007-06-01 14:59  
I completely disagrees with Kuman10127 about lying. There is no 100% guaranteed about blood tests so far on HIV and if there's anything wrong with the blood or worse case infected another person, the donor will be proscecuted and exposed being an irresponsible gay.

Why should we lie in the first place anyway? If they don't want our blood, too bad. We can always contribute to society in other ways and lying is not the way to go.
9. 2007-06-03 01:27  
The USA always was, is, and always will be a very very homopobic country with an inherently homophobic society!!!
10. 2007-06-06 17:30  
Very sad, we've been so and always stigmatized about this. It's not fair at all. Anyone can carry HIV even straight person consisting the majority of the world society.
11. 2010-07-06 08:58  
Most of the US is no longer homophobic but the government agencies have always followed orders just like any other country and for most of the last decade the US was ruled by a rather conservative and ignorant president.

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