Before the FDA released the revised guidelines, there was a movement among politicians to revise the restrictions. If I see that there's merit in it, we'll pursue it, and if there really is no merit, I'll try and explain to you why I think there's no merit,’ because they were on base on more things than they were off base on.”Ĭonsensus at present echoes this sentiment. … We came to an agreement that ‘I'll listen to what you have to say. “That was the beginning of the constructive dialogue between me and the activists. “There was a demonstration in the early years here at the NIH, and we had everybody on campus… I always remember looking out the window and seeing them demonstrating, so I asked our chief of police to go down and ask them to get 5 or 6 of their leaders to come up and talk to me about what it is that they were concerned about,” he said.
Fauci experienced the implementation of the blood donation ban firsthand, and in a series of 2005 interviews with PBS, he described his role in brokering a role for the activists who changed the FDA’s clinical trial process. Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984, has taking a leading role on President Trump’s coronavirus task force. Thirteen years after the lifetime ban was instituted, 1998 data from the Blood Donation Rules Opinion Study (BloodDROPS) showed that “the prevalence of HIV infection in male blood donors who reported that they were MSM was determined to be 0.25%, which is much lower than the estimated 11%-12% HIV prevalence in those reporting regular MSM behavior.” However, the lifetime ban remained until December 2015, at which time it was reduced to 1 year-meaning a male donor who had sex with another male had to abstain from doing so for 1 year if he wanted to give blood. The FDA reasoned this “indefinite deferment” was “due to the strong clustering of AIDS illness and the subsequent discovery of high rates of HIV infection in that population,” in background information presented in the newest guidance document. Men who had sex with men (MSM) after 1977 were barred from donating blood between September 1985 and December 2015, when there was a lifetime ban against donating, even if there had been one sexual encounter. You’re just as likely to get HIV whether you’re straight or gay.” I think it stems from the 1980s, when the virus first came out, when people didn’t really understand it. Just because I’m a gay man sleeping with another men does not make my blood any less clean. But, "whether or not you donate blood, that blood is tested and verified and checked before it’s even passed on. The revised policy matches that in the United Kingdom, which in 2017 implemented a 3-month deferral policy for gay or bisexual men who want to donate blood.įormer blood technician, now a fitness entrepreneur and owner of, Alistaire Nzekio, 34, of Hightstown, New Jersey, pointed out, “The whole reason is because they think men who sleep with men are at a higher risk of getting HIV," he said. According to the CDC, all donated blood products are tested for HIV and other pathogens, such as hepatitis C virus. Therein lies the rub: these guidelines have remained in place for years, long after processes exist to test blood products to determine if they are safe, no matter who donates. And it’s also outrageous to assume that gay men engage in more risky sexual behavior than straight men.” “It just always seemed so ridiculous to me. Harcup, 43, a gay man who lives in Florida. How do they know if a gay man is gay? How do they know for a fact if whether or not potential donors have had intercourse with members of the same sex? And how recently? How do they know that the supposed straight male donors have never had sex with another man before? How do they know if they’re not bisexual?” exclaimed James W. “Here’s the thing: it never made any sense to me as to how they legitimately policed that anyway. The original ban on donations was born during an era when HIV was not well understood and few men with AIDS survived. However, controversy still surrounds the FDA’s newest guidance, as some say it is continues to be based not on fact but on prejudice. Now, instead of 1 year, if a male has had sex with another male, he need only wait 3 months to donate blood. Red Cross figures in March showed a drop-off of 86,000 fewer blood donations across the United States, due to almost 2700 blood drives that had to be cancelled.
The FDA has announced a relaxing of its restrictions on gay men being allowed to donate blood, in light of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.