The move was met with criticism from gay rights groups who-along with the medical community-have been pushing against the policy for years.
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“Although some may argue that a 12-month ban is better than a grossly outdated lifetime ban, the updated policy is still discriminatory and not rooted in the reality of HIV testing today, said Dan Bruner, Whitman-Walker Health Senior Director of Policy”.
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The new policy, announced Monday, allows these men to donate blood on the condition that they are HIV-free and have not had sex with another man for at least one year.
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Attn report said, According to federal health officials, men who have sex with men, or MSM, can give blood so long as they were abstinent for 12 months prior to donation.
According to the agency, several countries including Australia and the United Kingdom now have the 12-month ban on blood donations by MSM.
FDA said that specific deferral questions and advances in HIV donor testing has helped the agency reduce the HIV transmission rates from blood transfusion from one in 2,500 to one in 1.47 million.
The FDA said research was not available “for shorter deferral periods” or for no deferral period at all.
For example, there’s now a maximum one-year deferral policy in the United States for blood donations by men who have had sex with an HIV-positive woman or commercial sex workers.
Dr. Peter Marks of the FDA said the change is “backed by sound scientific evidence” and will “continue to protect our blood supply”.
“It continues to stigmatize gay and bisexual men“, said David Stacy, of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest US gay rights group.
But gay rights advocates take issue with the policy saying a monogamous gay couples must still wait to donate while a promiscuous straight man, who might have dozens of sexual partners within a year, is able to donate any time. “The policy is based on fears that are decades old”.
The change will also better align the FDA’s donation policy for gay and bisexual men with its policies regarding other people potentially exposed to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, officials said. The ban had been implemented in 1983 at the onset of the AIDS crisis.
“These published studies document no change in risk to the blood supply with use of the 12-month deferral”, the agency said.
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It’s not flawless, but it has the potential to add another 190,000 donors to the pool, and if every blood donation can be used in three different procedures, that’s more than half a million lives saved.
