FDA Again Pushes Discriminatory Policy Allowing Only Celibate Gay Men To Donate Blood

Once again the FDA is ignoring science in favor of discrimination, allowing gay men who are celibate for at least a year to donate, while straight men who have unprotected sex can donate without similar restrictions.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today released new draft guidance for commentary that includes a recommendation expanding acceptable donors to include for the first time since the late 1970s gay men. The catch: ignoring science, only gay men who have been celibate – abstained from any sexual conduct – for at least a year would be eligible to donate blood. If a man who has sex with men has only had sex with women for the past year, he would also be able to donate blood.

Presumably, the FDA is attempting to protect the blood supply from HIV, but since HIV knows no gender or orientation, their logic is flawed.

For example, a five-year married and monogamous gay man who has only had sex with his husband would continue to be banned from donating blood, while a single heterosexual man who has unprotected sex with several different women weekly could have no restrictions on his ability to donate. 

The issue isn’t with whom a donor has sex, but if it’s protected or unprotected.

“The existing policy, implemented amid the HIV/AIDS epidemic, has been widely criticized by medical and LGBT organizations in recent years as outdated and a scientifically unjustifiable form of discrimination,” Buzzfeed reports. “Existing guidelines have also been used to ban transgender people from donating blood, regardless of their gender.”

WATCH: Alan Cumming Mocks FDA’s Latest Anti-Gay Blood Rules In Hysterical New Campaign

U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin told Buzzfeed “she was ‘encouraged that the FDA is moving forward with guidance’ to lift the lifetime ban, she said a one-year deferral should not be the final goal. ‘This is a first step in ending an outdated policy that is medically and scientifically unwarranted, but it doesn’t go far enough.'”

In 2013, Senator Baldwin, along with Senator Elizabeth Warren were joined by a bipartisan group of 84 of their colleagues in both the Senate and the House, asking the Dept. of Health and Human Services to end the gay blood ban. 

Last year, 80 Democrats in the House and Senate sent the HHS a similar letter, asking for the gay blood ban to end. 

In November, an HHS committee recommended the ban be moderated to include the one-year celibacy period.

In December for the first time the FDA recommended the one year change. 

“While the new policy is a step in the right direction toward an ideal policy that reflects the best scientific research, it still falls far short of a fully acceptable solution because it continues to stigmatize gay and bisexual men,” HRC Government Affairs Director David Stacy said in a statement. “This policy prevents men from donating life-saving blood based solely on their sexual orientation rather than actual risk to the blood supply. It simply cannot be justified in light of current scientific research and updated blood screening technology.”

HRC adds that the “American Red Cross, America’s Blood Centers, and the American Association of Blood Banks have characterized the blood ban as medically and scientifically unwarranted as far back as 2006.”

Ryan James Yezak, the Executive Director and Founder of the National Gay Blood Drive, took a similar position but a more moderate tone.

“We are pleased to see the FDA has issued the draft guidance & we look forward to organizing the National Gay Blood Drive in conjunction with the implementation of the revised policy,” Yezak said in a statement to The New Civil Rights Movement. “We will continue to encourage the FDA to move toward a deferral based upon individual risk assessment.”

 

Related:

Lifting Anti-Gay Blood Ban Could Save Nearly 2 Million Lives

 

This article has been updated to include the quote from the National Gay Blood Drive.

Image via Wikimedia