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However, other processes, such as individual donor risk assessment, may provide a safe and effective path forward for more men who have sex with men (MSM) to donate blood without risk to blood safety.ĪABB is committed to maintaining the safety of the blood supply and building a strong altruistic culture that encourages continued blood donation. That’s why AABB has led efforts to make blood donation inclusive of non-binary donors and continues to champion the adoption of equitable, science-based eligibility processes that welcome LGBTQ+ blood donors, strengthen the blood supply and save lives.Ĭurrent Food and Drug Administration policy allows for gay and bisexual men to donate blood 3 months after their most recent sexual contact with another man if they meet all other eligibility criteria. At AABB, we believe that the ability to save lives through blood donation should be open to as many people as possible, irrespective of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
CAN GAY MEN DONATE BLOOD US FULL
Read the full story at donors give a gift for which there is no substitute. Other countries in the world including Italy, Spain, and Argentina have lifted any rules that may have historically prevented gay men from donating blood and it’s well beyond time for the U.S. and should be abolished even if there is not currently a blood shortage. “In particular, this policy highlights a major structural inequity in the U.S. “This policy is absolutely outdated and continues to stigmatize gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men,” she said. Krause said it’s time for blood donor restrictions on MSM to end. To keep this policy in place is to continue to stigmatize HIV in a way that is unwarranted in 2022.” “With modern technology, there is really not a major risk that HIV will contaminate the blood supply in the way that it could in the 1980s. Adalja, MD, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told Verywell. “These irrational restrictions are a relic from an era in which HIV was a major fear,” Amesh A. Meaning, if a blood donor happens to have HIV and doesn’t know it, testing should pick this up and remove their donation from the blood stockpile. Krause, PhD, MPH, instructor at the Rutgers School of Public Health and deputy director of the Center for Health, Identity, Behavior, and Prevention Studies, told Verywell. If a man who has sex with men is newly infected with HIV and waits three months to give blood from his last sexual encounter, testing should be able to detect the virus at that point, he explained.īut “all blood donations are tested not only for blood and Rh type but also for evidence of myriad infectious disease pathogens including HIV and hepatitis B and C,” Kristen D. The three-month marker is currently in place “because that was felt to be an adequate time to wait for HIV antibodies to develop in someone who is newly infected,” Richard Watkins, MD, an infectious disease physician and professor of internal medicine at the Northeast Ohio Medical University, told Verywell. In comparison, heterosexual men have a one in 524 risk and heterosexual women have a one in 253 risk. In the U.S., the estimated lifetime risk for HIV infection among MSM is one in six. The guidance was originally put into place over concerns that MSM have a higher risk than the average person of having human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Rutgers School of Public Health researcher Kristen Krause, an instructor in the Department of Urban-Global Public Health, discusses what this means for men who have sex with men (MSM), a population that is subject to such restrictions.
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The following is an excerpt from a story published by Verywell Health about current Food and Drug Administration restrictions on who can and cannot donate blood in the United States.