![]() Prompted by the COVID-19 epidemic, the FDA in December 2020 signed off on a pilot study for three major blood centers, the American Red Cross, Vitalant and OneBlood, to do just that. Other countries, like Italy and Spain, already use individual risk assessments for prospective blood donors. In an added benefit, it would educate all prospective blood donors about behaviors that increase HIV risks-GMHC’s mission for 40 years. Blood Donation Policies,” with the law firm Davis, Polk & Wardwell, which laid out ways to effectively assess prospective blood donors for risky behaviors, instead of based on identity.Īsking about high-risk behaviors, like anal sex without a condom or sex with partners of unknown HIV status, Cianciotto said, would better screen donors for potentially HIV-infected blood. GMHC first proposed this policy solution in 2010, releasing a report, “A Drive for Change: Reforming U.S. blood centers, the American Medical Association, and other HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ organizations, GMHC has advocated for screening blood based on behavioral HIV risk factors instead of screening out any man who has sex with another man. GMHC’s roleįor decades, GMHC has been fighting the discriminatory ban because it falsely stigmatizes gay and bisexual men as carriers of a “gay disease.” Along with the American Red Cross and other U.S. This window is significantly less than the three months of celibacy required by the FDA. Its rationale for continuing to use a donor history questionnaire for screening is to address the seven-to-10-day post-exposure period, where the tests might not detect HIV in a donor’s blood. With these tests, the FDA places the per-unit risk of HIV infection from a blood transfusion at about 1 in 1.47 million. However, all blood is screened by both an antigen test for HIV antibodies and a highly sensitive nucleic acid test that can detect the actual virus within seven to 10 days of exposure. The FDA relaxed the ban to a one-year deferral period in 2015, and then in April 2020, shortened that to three months of celibacy in response to blood shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. When HIV and AIDS was incorrectly labeled a “gay disease” in the early 1980s, the FDA imposed a lifetime blood donation ban on any man who’d had sex with another man since 1977, along with sex workers, intravenous drug users and people living with HIV. Gay and bisexual men who take PrEP, an HIV-prevention medication, are also very low risk, yet they too are deferred from donating blood.ĭespite enormous advances in scientific knowledge about HIV transmission and the advent of highly accurate blood screening tests, the FDA has not changed its policy targeting gay and bisexual men. Yet, I am screened out simply because of who I am,” he said. “I am at very low risk for exposure to HIV, based on my behavior. The FDA’s blanket deferral includes many HIV-negative people with a low-to-zero risk of HIV infection, and it inaccurately suggests all gay and bisexual men are living with HIV.įor instance, although Cianciotto and his husband are not in an open relationship, the three-month celibacy period still applies. People living with HIV also can’t donate. Otherwise, the FDA defers people based on behaviors-doing commercial sex work or injecting drugs-that increase the risk of HIV infection. Gay and bisexual men are the only group singled out for the three-month deferral because of who they are. “It suggests there is something inherently wrong and ‘dirty’ about gay and bisexual men that makes them diseased and dangerous to others.” The ban does harm by perpetuating the stigma that HIV/AIDS is a “gay disease,” said Jason Cianciotto, GMHC’s vice president of communications and policy. MSM must be celibate for three months to give blood because of a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policy dating back 40 years to the onset of the AIDS crisis. blood supply is dangerously low because of a sharp drop in donations during the COVID-19 pandemic.Įven so, gay and bisexual men, clinically referred to as “men who have sex with men” or MSM, are still being told that their blood is too “dangerous” to donate. The American Red Cross issued an urgent appeal for blood donations in January, warning that the U.S. ![]() National Resource Center on HIV & Aging.Transgender, Gender Nonconforming, & Non-Binary People.Older Adults and Long-Term Survivors of HIV/AIDS.Training, Education, Capacity-Building, & Research.
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