On Monday, the federal Food and Drug Administration overturned a 32-year-old ban on blood donations from men who have sex with other men.
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“This new policy prevents men from donating life-saving blood based exclusively on their sexual orientation rather than actual risk to the blood supply”, the government affairs director at the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign (HRC), David Stacy, said in a press release. The FDA found no change in risk with the 12 month deferment in place; partly why it opted to adopt similar policy in the US.
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The change brings the United States into line with New Zealand, which reduced its deferral from five years to 12 months last December, after having shifted from a 10-year ban in 2009.
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“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 a statement.
The switch in policy could increase the USA 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 FDA has played it safe by building its revised policy around data collected by other countries who have also lifted donor bans.
“We had people come and donate blood on our behalf, and we worked with the Red Cross”, says Michael Quint of Portland, who organized a local Gay Blood Drive Event past year as part of a national effort to push the FDA to change its policy.
“Given how far we’ve advanced in the methods for detecting HIV, this FDA decision signals that the time has passed for blood donation policies that are based more on fear than science”, Christopher Johnson, spokesman for the Los Angeles-headquartered AIDS Healthcare Foundation told The Independent. It reads as follows: “AABB, America’s Blood Centers and the American Red Cross are pleased that the FDA has released its final guidance regarding deferral criteria for men who have had sex with men (MSM)”.
Although HIV testing has become much more sensitive in recent years, there’s a period of about nine days after an individual becomes infected during which the virus is simply undetectable in the blood.
The policy is still discriminatory, but it’s a step in the right direction.
The FDA concluded that moving to a one-year abstinence requirement would not change the safety of USA blood donations, based primarily on data from Australia.
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The FDA considered several strategies before choosing the current 12-month deferral, he said, including reducing the deferral time, using a risk-deferral strategy and eliminating all deferrals. It will take several months for blood banks to update their procedures to begin accepting donations from gay and bisexual men, the groups said.
