Since the 1980, there’s been a ban on gay and bisexual men donating blood.
The FDA put in this lifetime ban in the early years of the AIDS crisis, and it was supposed to limit the amount of the disease that could get into the blood supply, especially since at the time, no one really knew what AIDS was.
The current questionnaire requires gay men to state if they’ve had sex with another man since 1977, when AIDS broke out in the US. If men answer positively, they’re banned from giving blood.
The lifetime ban has now been lifted, but that doesn’t mean any gay man can give blood. Now, the questionnaire asks men if they’ve had sex with another man in the past 12 months.
Of course, this isn’t the change that activists were looking for. After all, the Human Rights Campaign says that any ban “continues to stigmatize gay and bisexual men. It simply cannot be justified in light of current research and updated blood screening technology.”
But the FDA says this isn’t necessarily true. This law reflects other laws in countries like Japan, Australia, and the U.K. A representative for the FDA said that the change is “backed by sound scientific evidence.” He says that if all restrictions were lfited, that would increase the transmission of HIV through the blood supply by 400%, a number which Marks calls “not acceptable.”
Others who are banned from donating are those who have had sex with a prostitute, or those who have used intravenous drugs in the past year.
By making this switch, 2 million additional men would be able to donate blood.
