WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 (UPI) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday overturned a rule banning gay men from donating blood but will still impose some restrictions.
The FDA’s 32-year lifetime ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men was lifted, but a new policy will ban men from donating if they had sex with another man in the previous year. The lifetime ban was put in place amid the AIDS crisis.
The decision was made to “reflect the most current scientific evidence and to help ensure continued safety of the blood supply by reducing the risk of human immunodeficiency virus transmission by blood and blood products,” the FDA said in a statement.
The FDA said it will continue to reevaluate blood donor deferral policies whenever new scientific information becomes available.
The FDA said it helped reduce HIV transmission rates from blood transfusions from 1 in 2,500 to 1 in 1.47 million by using the “best available science together with use of donor education materials, specific deferral questions and advances in HIV donor testing.”
“The FDA’s responsibility is to maintain a high level of blood product safety for people whose lives depend on it,” the FDA’s Acting Commissioner Stephen Ostroff said. “We have taken great care to ensure this policy revision is backed by sound science and continues to protect our blood supply.”
The new policy states:
“As part of today’s finalized blood donor deferral guidance, the FDA is changing its recommendation that men who have sex with men be indefinitely deferred — a policy that has been in place for approximately 30 years — to 12 months since the last sexual contact with another man.”
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