For 30 years, gay men have been prohibited from donating blood; the AMA has decided that it is time for that to change.
In 1983, the AIDS outbreak caused mass panic, but very little was actually known about the disease. What the FDA did know? Gay men were more likely to have contracted it.
Their reaction? A ban on blood donations by gay men.
Now, 30 years later, science has shown us that HIV does not “target” gay men. HIV and AIDS testing is standard practice for donated blood, and now only one in two-million blood transfusions results in an HIV infection.
“The policy was formed at a time in our history when we didn’t have a name for AIDS or HIV,” said Robert Valadez, policy analyst for the HIV/AIDS advocacy group Gay Men’s Health Crisis. “Our technology has advanced to the point where […] it is antiquated to keep this policy in place and to keep those units of blood from entering the blood supply.”
But while medicine has caught up, our blood donation laws have not. There is still a little check-box you have to mark if you’ve had homosexual sex, and that tiny little box is enough to get you turned down from donating.
“The lifetime ban on blood donation for men who have sex with men is discriminatory and not based on sound science,” AMA board member Dr. William Kobler said in a statement. “This new policy urges a federal policy change to ensure blood donation bans or deferrals are applied to donors according to their individual level of risk and are not based on sexual orientation alone.”
The U.K. and Australia have adopted rules that require a year of abstinence for gay men before they can donate blood. In 2010, the Red Cross, America’s Blood Centers, and AABB recommended to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services a very similar policy.
“We understand that it is problematic, but it would be movement from where we’ve been since the early 80s,” said Louis Katz, the vice president for America’s Blood Centers.
The AMA, however, is recommending that gay men be evaluated on an individual level and not as a high-risk group. With current science backing them, there is a good chance that we may see a change in the outdated policy, one which will allow gay men to donate their blood to help save lives.
Photo: Garrett Albright/Flickr