![can gay men donate blood in usa can gay men donate blood in usa](https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150515124546-blood-donation-stock.jpg)
“These types of restrictions weren’t really making sense in the era of modern diagnostic technology.” “This wasn’t something we needed to keep anymore,” Dr. Maloney and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrats of New York, sent a letter to the agency calling for a revision of the policy. to reduce the deferral period for men who have had sex with men to three months, noting similar moves in Britain and Canada. In November, the American Red Cross called for the F.D.A. to lift or change its constraints on blood donations from gay and bisexual men. “The reasons that people need blood transfusions aren’t really going to be impacted by this,” he said.Įven before the pandemic, there had been a chorus of voices calling for the F.D.A. Amesh Adalja, an infectious diseases physician at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, noted that there were still “gunshot wounds happening all over the country, there are people in car accidents.” “Blood donors help patients of all ages - accident and burn victims, heart surgery and organ transplant patients, and those battling cancer and other life-threatening conditions.”ĭr. “Maintaining an adequate blood supply is vital to public health,” the F.D.A.
![can gay men donate blood in usa can gay men donate blood in usa](https://pics.me.me/thumb_president-of-the-united-states-makes-the-following-announcement-due-2241413.png)
Still, doctors and organizations that support blood donation have emphasized that they need donations to maintain a stable blood supply. Organizers have put into place new measures to keep donations flowing, including checking the temperatures of staff members and donors, providing hand sanitizer and increasing the spacing between donors. Some possible donors and volunteers have avoided blood donation centers because of social distancing guidelines. The move came as thousands of blood drives nationwide were being canceled alongside the closures of schools, churches and other institutions during the outbreak. The revisions on Thursday lowered that period to three months as well.
![can gay men donate blood in usa can gay men donate blood in usa](https://i0.wp.com/post.medicalnewstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2021/03/donate_blood_GettyImages923775802_Header-1024x575.jpg)
also previously recommended that women with male sexual partners who have had sex with men in the past year not donate blood. “This is a victory for all of us who spoke out against the discriminatory ban on gay and bisexual men donating blood.” Americans can hold their heads up today and know that our voices will always triumph over discrimination,” Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and chief executive of GLAAD, said in a statement on Thursday. advocates applauded the agency’s latest move on Thursday, but said they would work to lift the waiting period entirely. said the new recommendations would remain in place after the pandemic ends. In support of its change on Thursday, the agency said in a statement that based on recent studies, it had “concluded that current policies regarding certain donor eligibility criteria can be modified without compromising the safety of the blood supply.” re-examined the ban over the years, but had maintained that the restriction was necessary to keep the blood supply safe and untainted by H.I.V.
![can gay men donate blood in usa can gay men donate blood in usa](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/7527/production/_112019992__107317099_blooddonor976.jpg)
That ban was enacted in 1983, early in the AIDS epidemic when little was known about the human immunodeficiency virus that caused the disease. introduced it in 2015 to replace a lifetime prohibition on blood donation by gay and bisexual men. The earlier 12-month waiting period was intensely criticized as discriminatory and antiquated when the F.D.A. The Food and Drug Administration announced on Thursday that it was significantly loosening its recommendations for blood donations from gay and bisexual men, reducing the amount of time men who have had sex with men should wait before they give blood to three months from one year in hopes of ameliorating a drastic drop in supply during the coronavirus pandemic.