Each blood bank making its own additional restrictions allows for discrimination based on stigma and prejudice, not science. Blood banks can determine additional restrictions like banning people on PrEP, punishing our community for good prevention behavior and undermining one of the best tools we have to stop new HIV infections. That’s right, many individuals who know their status and are taking pre-exposure prophylaxis (also known as PrEP) are not allowed to donate. What’s worse, in many instances, those who take medication that is more than 99% effective at preventing the transmission of HIV ( pre-exposure prophylaxis) are not allowed to donate at all. We need a policy that allows every viable donor the opportunity to donate, regardless of sexual orientation. This policy is rooted in stigma, not in science.īy discriminating against men who have sex with men, the FDA is also hurting people who need blood and blood products like plasma, especially black and brown communities who are facing much higher COVID-19 fatality rates. The lifetime ban has been modified, but gay men are required to abstain from sex for at least three months before donating blood. Since the blood donation ban went into effect in 1985, the medical community has revolutionized our ability to screen donated blood for various infections like HIV and Hepatitis C.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) implemented a lifetime ban on all blood donations from men who have sex with men.
Yet, even as we face critical shortages during this global pandemic, one group of people in our country continues to be discriminated against: men who have sex with men.ĭuring the HIV/AIDS crisis, the U.S. While the Texas economy slowly begins to reopen, the need for blood donations, especially from those with COVID-19 antibodies, remains extremely high. The following opinion piece originally ran in the Austin American Statesman on May 7, 2020. simply wasn’t done by any previous government. "This should have been done 10 years ago, 15 years ago. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose Liberal party has been promising to end the blood ban since 2015, called Thursday "a good day" and the blanket ban "discriminatory." Helen Kennedy, executive director of the LGBTQ advocacy group Egale Canada, welcomed the decision and the end to a "discriminatory" policy. But advocates and medical experts argued this was an outdated and stigmatizing assumption that did not reflect current risk factors. The prior rationale for the bans was that men who have sex with men had higher prevalence of the human immunodeficiency virus. The government gradually whittled down the required abstinence periods to five years, three years, and - starting in 2019 - three months. This follows an evolution of policy from a lifetime ban on blood donations, imposed in the mid-1980s, from men who had engaged in sex with men since 1977. "Today's authorization is a significant milestone toward a more inclusive blood donation system nationwide, and builds on progress in scientific evidence made in recent years," Health Canada said in a statement. The change is expected to take effect by Sept.