The Food and Drug Administration is changing its blood donation policy and easing restrictions for gay and bisexual men who want to donate blood, health officials said Thursday.
The updated policy — which was initially proposed in January and is based on scientific evidence and policies already in place in countries including the U.K. and Canada — changes the screening process for blood donation to include the same set of questions for all potential donors, independent of their sexual orientation, sex or gender.
The announcement follows years of campaigning by LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS rights advocates, who have urged the FDA to end its “antiquated and discriminatory” policy.
“This new policy ends a decades-old ban rooted in discrimination and bias,” Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement shared with the Us.Mistertruth.
Prior to Friday’s announcement, men who have sex with men (MSM) — and women who have sex with MSM — who wanted to donate blood were required to answer a set of specific questions simply because of their sexual orientation. The new update requires anyone who wants to donate blood to answer a series of individual, risk-based questions to determine eligibility.
Potential blood donors who report having either a new sexual partner or more than one sexual relation in the past three months; or those who reported having anal sex in the past three months, “would be deferred to reduce the likelihood of donations by individuals with new or recent HIV infection.” Officials say this is because such infections might not be detectable by an HIV test.
“The implementation of these recommendations will represent a significant milestone for the agency and the LGBTQI+ community,” said Peter Mark, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research — though it might not go far enough for some.
According to the updated policy, people on antiretroviral therapy (ART) — who can’t transmit the virus to others after achieving an undetectable viral load — are deferred from donating.
That’s because even though “HIV is not transmitted sexually by individuals with undetectable viral levels, this does not apply to transfusion transmission of HIV,” the agency said.
Those on HIV prevention medication (PrEP), an FDA-approved drug that reduces the risk of contracting HIV by about 99%, are also deferred from donating. Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, says this stipulation “adds unnecessary stigma [which could] cost lives.”
Ellis celebrated the FDA announcement as a “step in the right direction,” but said the deferral period for individuals on PrEP “continues to erect barriers to LGBTQ blood donors.”
“GLAAD urges the FDA to continue to prioritize science over stigma and treat all donors and all blood equally,” she said in a statement shared on social media.
HRC’s Robinson agreed, saying the announcement was a victory, yet “real obstacles are going to remain.”
“We’re calling on the federal government to make further investments in research and technology to open opportunities for all Americans to become blood donor,” she said.