The Red Cross lifts its blood donor restrictions for men who have sex with men
www.theverge.com
Donors are now screened based on individual risk factors.
  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    The nonprofit now asks blood donor hopefuls “the same eligibility questions regardless of gender or sexual orientation.”

    While the Red Cross has removed limits specific to men who have sex with men, it will require a three-month waiting period for anyone “to donate blood from last anal sex contact.” The Red Cross will also continue to refuse donations from people who are HIV-positive, even if their viral load is undetectable.

    The FDA’s new policy was announced earlier this year, and though it’s certainly a long overdue step forward, many gay men will still bear a burden.

    Many could be excluded, “even those who wear condoms or regularly test for sexually transmitted infections,” Benjamin Mazer wrote in The Atlantic back in February.

    Deferring potential donors based on sexuality has seemed increasingly unreasonable, wrote former American Medical Association president Gerald E. Harmon last year, given better HIV infection testing — as well as the fact that it’s not an exclusively male-to-male-transmitting virus.

    Earlier this year, it dropped that specific restriction (or expanded it to include everyone, depending on how you look at it) and allowed the United States to grow closer to joining a growing list of countries that allow gay and bisexual men to donate blood without restrictions.

    I’m a bot and I’m open source!