FDA will ease ban on monogamous gay and bisexual men donating blood trends now
Gay and bisexual men will soon no longer have to abstain from sex in order to donate blood in the US, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Thursday.
The move comes after widespread calls from members of Congress, the American Red Cross and LGBT organizations to drop the ban put in place during the 1980s AIDS epidemic.
Men who had sex with another man (MSM) in the past three months, or women who had sex with one of those men, are not allowed to donate blood under current rules. This is because those men were struck hardest by America's AIDS outbreak decades ago.
These rules have widely been panned as homophobic by critics. The UK and Canada lifted similar bans in recent years. Calls to lift these rules increased last year when America was facing a critical shortage of blood.
The FDA will soon allow for gay and bisexual men who have had sex with another man in the past three months to donate blood, reversing rules set during the AIDS epidemic (file photo)
The FDA is expected to propose the changes in the coming days, before finalizing them after a short period for public comment.
Restrictions on MSM donating blood date as far back as 1983 in America. At the time, HIV and AIDS were new diseases that were running rampant among gay men, though the world did not have a strong understanding of the diseases.
An increased stigma was placed on gay men during this time, and fears of HIV and AIDS entering the blood supply led to restrictions going into place.
The prevalence of HIV has dropped significantly over time, though, as people are more aware of the condition now, how to prevent it, and many in the developed world now have access to technology that helps prevent transmission of the virus.
Last year, a group of 22 US senators - including Vermont Independent
