Blood donations:
Crisis prompts FDA to loosen rules for gay, bisexual men.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will reduce the time gay and bisexual men must be celibate in order to donate blood or plasma, a change that comes amid a national blood shortage brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
FDA officials said Thursday that gay and bisexual men will be eligible to donate if they have not had sex with another man for three months. The change takes effect immediately.
Under the agency’s previous rules, male donors had to “defer” giving blood or plasma for a year after having sex with another man. In 2015, the agency lifted on outright ban on donations from gay and bisexual men.
“Based on recently completed studies and epidemiologic data, the FDA has concluded that current policies regarding certain donor eligibility criteria can be modified without compromising the safety of the blood supply,” the agency
said in a statement.
Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups had already been pushing the agency to lift what they call a “homophobic” vestige of the AIDS crisis. Those calls have amplified amid the coronavirus outbreak.
State Sen. Scott Wiener, DSan Francisco, said that while the FDA’s new threemonth celibacy requirement is an improvement from the oneyear ban, the policy “is still irrational and discriminatory.”
“My blood could save someone’s life,” Wiener told The Chronicle. “The FDA is stuck in 1985. The FDA is not looking at the actual science and knowledge we have about HIV.”
Wiener will host a #GiveForAGay blood drive on Tuesday, asking eligible donors to make an appointment to give on behalf of their gay friends. San Francisco Mayor London Breed has volunteered to donate on Wiener’s behalf.
Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said the change would add tens of thousands of eligible donors.
Marks said the new policy will remain in effect after the pandemic, and that the FDA will evaluate whether to eliminate the ban entirely. He said the agency is studying whether it could replace the ban with an HIV risk assessment based on a questionnaire for potential donors.
“This is not the final resting place,” Marks said. “But we do need a little bit more science to get there.”
The FDA said its policy change comes as the coronavirus poses “unprecedented challenges to the U.S. blood supply” because social distancing measures and canceled blood drives have reduced donations needed to treat a host of conditions unrelated to the virus.
Eligible donors can still give blood and plasma through the Red Cross by scheduling an appointment. Blood banks have imposed extra sanitation and staffscreening measures.
Wiener said the FDA’s revised policy for gay and bisexual donors still reinforces “factfree discrimination,” noting that sexually active heterosexuals are not subject to celibacy requirements. He pointed out that all blood donations are screened for HIV, and fragments of the virus can be detected in blood within 10 to 14 days of infection.
“Why treat gay and bi men differently than straight people?” Wiener asked.
Rick Zbur, executive director of Equality California, the LGBTQ advocacy group, said the FDA’s change is a “step forward” but does not go far enough.
Zbur said the policy has prevented many gay and bisexual men from helping family members in need of blood. About three years ago, his sister needed a transfusion for surgery, but Zbur said he wasn’t allowed to donate even though they share a rare blood type.
“There’s no real reason why I couldn’t give blood,” he said, adding that the celibacy rule is “based purely on fear and discrimination.”
The FDA’s new policy also reduces the waiting period from one year to three months for two other groups: women who have had sex with a man who has had sex with another man, and people who have gotten a tattoo or body piercing.