Letting gay men donate would not increase blood supply
Jun 12, 2012, 5:34 PM | Updated: Jun 13, 2012, 5:46 am
Under a policy enacted in 1983, any man who has had sex with another man since 1977 is banned for life from donating blood.
Experts say changing a decades-old law that bans gay and bisexual men from donating blood for life would not increase the supply, as some lawmakers have suggested.
Senator Patty Murray, D-Wash., sent a letter to Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Monday, calling the legislation outdated and discriminatory. The letter was led by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill.
The policy was first enacted in 1983, at the height of the AIDS crisis, to address the risk of transmission through blood transfusion. To this day, any man who has had sex with another man since 1977 is banned for life from donating blood.
“In the 27 years since, we have seen vast advances in blood screening technology, policy changes in other nations, and staunch opposition from the nation’s blood banks who have called the current ban ‘medically and scientifically unwarranted,'” the letter read.
Murray noted that the policy turns away healthy, willing donors at a time when the country’s blood banks routinely face shortages.
But according to experts, a change in the law would have a small, almost immeasurable impact on the blood supply. Dr. James AuBuchon, president and CEO of the Puget Sound Blood Center, said gay males would still be subject to a deferral period of one, if not five years.
“Let’s say it was a year, then that individual would have to be abstinent for a year before they could donate blood,” he said. “There are probably relatively few people that would be abstinent for the time or period that would be required.”
He estimates that less than one percent, if not one-tenth of one percent of gay males would be allowed to donate blood even if the law were to change.
AuBuchon said the deferral period is necessary to protect the blood supply from donors who are unaware that they have been affected with HIV. Although each sample is tested twice for the disease, in can take several weeks or months after transmission for a test to be positive.
It is estimated that under current Federal Drug Administration standards and screening of blood donors, just 1 in 50,000 blood donations test positive for HIV. The majority of those are from heterosexual women who were unaware they had been infected, AuBuchon said.
