For the first time in over 30 years, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to lift the long-standing ban on taking blood donations from gay and bisexual men. According to many medical and gay rights groups, the ban is no longer justified. (Which makes us wonder: Was it ever justified?)
The FDA instituted the policy in the early days of the AIDS crisis, when fear arose that the virus was only being spread among gay and bisexual men.
Earlier this week, FDA officials stated that instead of banning donations from gay men altogether, they were in favor of replacing the ban with a policy that takes blood only from gay men who have been celibate for at least one full year.
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), this change could increase the U.S. blood supply by 2 percent.
“There’s no doubt about it, that any way that you can safely add to the pool of donors to counter this chronic shortage of blood is a good thing,” says Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Some gay rights activists, upon hearing the news, appreciated the lift on the ban but still had some criticisms. “This is a huge step in the right direction and we embrace this initial change,” says Ryan James Yezak, founder and executive director of the National Gay Blood Drive in Los Angeles. “It does not go far enough but we support it.”
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation in Los Angeles claims that the improved policy will continue to “stigmatize gay men” by “reinforcing the idea that HIV is a ‘gay’ disease.”
Though the new policy has been praised, some people still argue that that the ban on blood donations from gay men should remain.
“Research presented to the committee confirmed the dramatically elevated risk of HIV infection among men who have sex with men,” says Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council in Washington. “This risk certainly justifies the highest level of vigilance, and political and social concerns must not be allowed to trump the public health.” According to Sprigg, the FDA was rushing to put an ease on the ban in an attempt to be more politically correct in the eyes of gay rights activists.
Dr. Peter Marks, deputy director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research says that the FDA plans to issue draft guidance on the new policy beginning in 2015 and they hope to receive a final rule “as expeditiously as possible.”