FDA to end ban on gay & bi men donating blood

Blood Donation at Hospital
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) just announced that it is taking steps towards allowing gay and bi men to donate blood in the U.S. by switching to risk-based rules for blood donation.

The FDA finalized recommendations for determining donor eligibility by using the same questions for everyone who wants to donate, similar to how the U.K., Canada, and France currently determine risk. The policy will not exclude gay and bi men or women who have had sex with a bi man but instead focus on the number of sexual partners a potential donor has had in the previous three months.

“We are moving now to an inclusive policy for blood donation,” said Dr. Peter Marks of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. “We will continue to work to make sure that we have policies that allow everyone who wants to donate blood to be able to donate blood within what the science allows to make sure that the blood supply remains safe.”

In 1983, the FDA banned all men who had sex with another man since 1977 from donating blood, as well as women who had sex with any man who had also had sex with a man.

In 2015, the FDA lowered the lifetime ban to…

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