Gay and bisexual women don’t have to wait. Right now the FDA requires gay and bisexual men to abstain from sex with other men for three months just to give blood regardless of their overall health. It made me feel like…why is my blood not good enough when I’m relatively healthy?” “And I said you know what, I’m not eligible. “I came to the “Have you done this this and this” and one of the questions was having sexual relations with men,” Lyman said. Todd Lyman experienced it first hand just a few years ago when he tried to donate blood for the first time at a local blood drive. Thus, absent another scientifically-validated way of identifying individuals at highest risk of transmitting HIV, a time-based deferral for MSM since last sexual encounter is the one deferral policy that has been demonstrated to be effective in a setting with similar HIV epidemiology to the United States.But there’s one group that, for decades, has faced barriers to donating. “The risk of HIV among MSM is more than twenty-fold higher than that of men who have sex with multiple female partners and women who have sex with multiple male partners. “As a group, in the United States, MSM have the highest HIV risk: according to CDC, two-thirds of new HIV infections occur in the approximately 2% of the population who are MSM,” states the new guidance. The FDA justified its new policy by pointing to the higher rate of HIV infection experienced nationally among the MSM population. RELATED: FDA to bar teens, children from indoor tanning Requiring gay and bisexual men to remain celibate for a year before donating, therefore, is arguably 50 weeks longer than necessary. currently screen every donor sample using a process known as Nucleic Acid Testing (NAT), which can pick up HIV in a unit of blood as soon as nine days after the donor was infected. The last 30 years, however, brought significant advancements in HIV detection and prevention, making even a 12-month deferral policy overly cautious, many argue. It was 1983, after all - the height of the AIDS epidemic - when little was known about the disease other than the fact that it was decimating large swaths of the gay population. At the time of its implementation, the lifetime ban made sense. Under the old policy, any man who’d had sex with another man - even once - since 1977 was barred from donating blood for life. Blood donation policies should be based on science, not stigma.”ĭemocratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley also weighed in with his disapproval on Twitter:
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“In practice, the new policy is still a continuation of the lifetime ban and ignores the modern science of HIV-testing technology while perpetuating the stereotype that all gay and bisexual men are inherently dangerous. “Heterosexuals are given no such restrictions, even if their sexual behavior places them at high risk for HIV,” said Louie in a statement on the 12-month deferral. Kelsey Louie - CEO of the GMHC, an HIV/AIDS prevention and advocacy group - offered a similar rebuke. It simply cannot be justified in light of current scientific research and updated blood screening technology.”
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"While it's a step in the right direction toward an ideal policy that reflects the best scientific research, it still falls far short of a fully acceptable solution because it continues to stigmatize gay and bisexual men. “This new policy prevents men from donating life-saving blood based solely on their sexual orientation rather than actual risk to the blood supply," said David Stacy, government affairs director for the Human Rights Campaign, in a statement. The new regulation, they argue, amounts to medically unnecessary discrimination based on sexual orientation. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) formally lifted its longstanding ban on blood donations from men who have sex with other men (MSM) on Monday, releasing guidance instead requiring the MSM population to remain celibate for a year before donating blood.Īlthough the change overturns one of the last remaining federal bans on LGBT Americans, critics of the policy are still unhappy with the 12-month deferral for gay and bisexual men.