By Cara Murez and Robin Foster
HealthDay Reporters
THURSDAY, Dec. 1, 2022 (HealthDay Information) – U.S. Meals & Drug Administration insurance policies which have restricted blood donations from males who’ve intercourse with males could quickly ease.
In the meanwhile, FDA coverage doesn’t permit blood donation from males who’ve had intercourse with different males previously three months. That is already a shorter timeframe than previously, when the company required a one-year hole.
The company is now contemplating switching to questionnaires that target particular person threat, reasonably than blanket limitations, CNN reported.
“The FDA stays dedicated to gathering the scientific information associated to different donor deferral insurance policies that keep a excessive stage of blood security,” the company stated in an announcement issued Wednesday. “We anticipate issuing up to date draft steerage within the coming months.”
Data collected by means of a donor eligibility questionnaire and blood surveillance “will doubtless assist a coverage transition to particular person risk-based donor screening questions for lowering the danger of HIV transmission,” the company added, CNN reported.
The FDA modified these pointers in 2020 as the necessity for blood donations grew throughout the pandemic, CNN reported.
“Whereas right this moment’s stories of an overdue transfer from the FDA is a crucial step, our neighborhood and main medical specialists is not going to cease advocating for the FDA to carry all restrictions in opposition to certified LGBTQ blood donor candidates,” Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO and president of GLAAD, an LGBTQ media advocacy group, stated in an announcement.
Different nations have already made comparable strikes: Since 2020, males in a long-term relationship with one other man have been allowed to donate blood in the UK, although different males who’ve intercourse with males should nonetheless wait to donate for 3 months.
A Wall Avenue Journal report on Wednesday cited sources acquainted with the FDA plan, saying that males who’re in monogamous relationships with different males could be allowed to donate blood. Those that have had a brand new sexual accomplice and have had anal intercourse previously three months wouldn’t be allowed to make a donation, CNN reported.
“As LGBTQ leaders and medical specialists have been saying for years: bans and restrictions on blood donations from homosexual and bisexual males are rooted in stigma, not science,” Ellis stated.
Medical and blood donation organizations voiced their assist of the plan.
“The AMA [American Medical Association] relentlessly advocates for eliminating public insurance policies that don’t align with scientific proof and greatest moral practices, which is why we now have urged the FDA to make use of rational, scientifically-based deferral durations for donation of blood, corneas and different tissues which can be pretty and constantly utilized to donors in accordance with their particular person threat,” AMA President Dr. Jack Resneck Jr. instructed CNN.
The American Purple Cross stated Wednesday it “believes blood donation eligibility shouldn’t be decided by strategies which can be based mostly upon sexual orientation and is dedicated to working with companions towards reaching this purpose.”
The Purple Cross added that it has been concerned within the FDA-funded ADVANCE research to find out whether or not a questionnaire that assessed particular person dangers in homosexual and bisexual donors may change a blanket time-based coverage.
Extra info
The U.S. Division of Well being and Human Companies has extra on donating blood.
SOURCE: CNN; statements, Nov 30, 2022, GLAAD, American Purple Cross
