The FDA considered recent studies and other data, as well as the experiences of other countries, in making its decision, the agency said. "While many gay and bisexual men will be eligible to donate their blood and help save lives under this 12 month deferral, countless more will continue to be banned solely on the basis of their sexual orientation and without medical or scientific reasoning." "The revised policy is still discriminatory," the group said in a statement. The risk of getting HIV from a blood transfusion in the United States today is about 1 in 1.47 million, FDA said.Īn advocacy group called National Gay Blood Drive said it supported the decision, but said a fairer policy would assess HIV risks from sexual behavior in a more individual way. That would mean asking detailed questions about anal and oral sex, rather than considering all male-to-male sexual contact equally risky, spokesman Jay Franzone said. The Food and Drug Administration's official stance is that blood donation centers should not accept blood from gay men who have had sex with other men in the past year.
"We have taken great care to ensure this policy revision is backed by sound science and continues to protect our blood supply." "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. But the change puts the policy for gay and bisexual men in line with other potential donors at increased risk for HIV, such as recent transfusion recipients, FDA officials said. It sounded great at first, but now Im puzzled because the reasoning seems contradictory. While the new policy lifts a ban in place for more than 30 years, since the early days of the HIV and AIDS epidemic, it effectively stops sexually active gay men from donating. Nations Largest Blood Centers Conducting Innovative Research That Could Help Lead to Additional Changes in Donor Eligibility for Men Who Have Sex with Men. After the terrorist attack on a gay night club in Orlando, OneBlood, a blood bank in Florida, announced it would let all gay men donate blood (no 1 year abstinence policy). Gay and bisexual men in the United States are no longer barred from donating blood, under a policy change announced Monday by the Food and Drug Administration, but there's a big catch: Men still cannot donate if they have had sex with other men in the previous 12 months.