Ban on blood donations from gays to be reconsidered

March 14, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON

After a nudge from the U.S. Senate, federal health officials announced that they will re-examine a 27-year-old set of restrictions on blood donations by gay men.

The restrictions, enacted at the height of the AIDS-HIV epidemic in the United States, impose a lifetime ban on men donating blood if they’ve had sex with another man at any time since 1977.

In recent years, the American Red Cross, the American Association of Blood Banks and America’s Blood Banks, which collectively represent almost all blood banks in the country, have recommended loosening the restriction’s to allow men who have abstained from gay sex for one year to donate blood.

The American Medical Association also has proposed revising the donation policy but recommended a five-year instead of a one-year waiting period.

Gay rights groups also have pushed for a change in the donor policy, arguing that it stigmatizes gay men and does not adequately address threats to blood safety posed by high-risk behaviors by heterosexuals.

Changes in the rule have been opposed by hemophilia advocacy groups.

People with hemophilia, a bleeding disorder, are heavy users of blood products, and about 10,000 were infected with HIV in the late 1970s and early 1980s, before the current limits were put in place. Thousands of those infected subsequently died.

“Safety for the end user is the most important consideration. It is appropriate to review precautionary measures such as this when new science, epidemiology data or technological advances are available. We look forward to participating in the review,” Mark Skinner, president of the World Hemophilia Federation, said in an e-mail.

A group of 18 senators, led by John Kerry, D-Mass., wrote to the Food and Drug Administration, urging it to revisit the policy on donations by gay men, calling it “outdated, medically and scientifically unsound.” Improvements in testing technology allow for a revision in the donation rules without harming the safety of the blood supply, their letter said.

The FDA last examined the donation protocols in 2006 but left the restrictions in place.