Now any man who has abstained from male to male sex for the past 12 months may donate, which is also the position here in Australia. It added that since the start of the pandemic, blood donations are down 10 percent and blood drives at schools - where blood is frequently collected - have dropped 62 percent. 23, 2014 (HealthDay News) - Gay and bisexual men who have abstained from sex for one year will be allowed to donate blood in the United. It stipulated that if a man had had sex with another man after 1977 they could never donate blood. The organization said on Tuesday that it had less than a one-day supply of critical blood types, forcing doctors to make “difficult decisions’’ about who should receive life-saving blood transfusions. For instance, we can’t use platelets from female donors because of the increased risk of a rare but. Your biology can also affect the patient. If you’ve had sex with a male or transgender partner in the last 3 months, you’ll need to wait 3 months from that contact before you can donate. If they pass other blood donation criteria. Yes, but there are a couple of restrictions.
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This most recent surge of Covid-19 cases has again left the Red Cross struggling to find donors. According to current policies, people can donate blood if it has been at least 3 months since they last had sex with a male who has sex with other males. In April 2020 - amid the earlier pandemic-induced blood shortage and a slew of rebukes from lawmakers and advocates - the FDA decreased the donation deferral period for men who have sex with men from 12 months to three months of abstinence. It was not until 2015 that the ban was replaced with one-year abstinence requirement. In 1983, the federal government placed a lifetime ban on men who have sex with men from donating blood in an effort to keep HIV out of the blood supply. Restrictions on gay and bisexual men donating blood stem from the height of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. also pressed the FDA to reassess its current blood donation policy on men who have sex with men. Given advances in blood screening and safety technology, a time-based policy for gay and bisexual men is not scientifically sound, continues to effectively exclude an entire group of people, and does not meet the urgent demands of the moment,” the group wrote.įour Democratic members of the House Oversight Committee, in addition to two openly LGBTQ members of the House - Rep. “Any policy that continues to categorically single out the LGBTQ+ community is discriminatory and wrong.
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Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., one of two openly LGBTQ senators - urged the FDA to scrap the restrictions. In a letter to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and FDA acting Commissioner Dr. The only thing stopping them is bigotry and fear.” “They can change the policy - even temporarily - and they can do so today. “This is a crisis of the FDA’s own making,” said Jay Franzone, an LGBTQ advocate who remained abstinent for a year to donate blood in January 2017, abiding by former and more stringent FDA restrictions for gay and bisexual men. The chorus of criticism intensified this week after the Red Cross declared on Tuesday that the recent surge in Covid-19 cases had fueled the “worst blood shortage in more than a decade.”