Sep 30, 2005  |  By: ELIZABETH WEILL-GREENBERG  | COMMENTS     

Earlier this month, Italy’s health minister condemned a Milan hospital for turning away a blood donor because he is gay, calling it “very serious and unacceptable,” according to news reports. But, unlike Italy, the United States Food & Drug Administration continues to impose a nationwide ban on blood donations from any men who have had sexual contact with another man since 1979.

The FDA began its ban in the early 1980s but reconsidered it in September 2000. It ultimately voted against softening the ban to allow gay and bisexual men who had not had sex with men for the last five years to donate.

“Although a potential donor may practice safe sex, persons who have participated in high-risk behaviors are, as a group, still considered to be at increased risk of transmitting HIV,” the FDA Web site states, in its explanation for the ban.

An FDA spokesperson told the Blade, “The FDA definitely takes a conservative approach in working to ensure the safety of the blood supply. We’re very much aware that some of these policies eliminate some safe donors.”

The U.S. is far from alone in its ban on accepting blood donations from gay men. Several developed countries have imposed a similar ban, including Canadian Blood Services, the Irish Blood Transfusion Service and England’s National Blood Service.

According to the Irish Blood Transfusion Web site acknowledges, “this policy causes considerable offense: it is clearly discriminatory against gay men. … The IBTS accepts that they are being discriminatory; we discriminate against several groups in the community insofar as we refuse to allow them to donate blood.”

There has not been a comprehensive inventory of countries and their blood donor policies with respect to gay and bisexual men, said Richard Burzynski, executive director for the International Council of AIDS Service Organizations.

The Red Cross Web site states that a person is at risk of HIV infection and should not donate, if, among other factors, “you are a male who has had sexual contact with another male, even once, since 1977.” Women who have had sex with a gay or bisexual man are deferred for one year, according to the Red Cross site.

However, the Red Cross, which supports the FDA policy, makes no mention of unprotected sex or multiple partners. The Red Cross was not available for comment.

Critics of the policy say that behavior — such as safe sex, IV drug use or accepting money for sex — not sexual orientation should determine who can donate.

“The FDA rule doesn’t ask about protected or unprotected sex,” said Jon Givner, HIV Project Director at Lambda Legal. “It doesn’t look at the level of risk, it looks at the partners involved.”

The Department of Health & Human Services also excludes gay men from donating bone marrow, according to Givner.

However, in Italy, blood donors are screened based on risky behavior, such as having more than three sexual partners in the last year.

Science ahead of policy

The American policies are outdated and do not reflect advances in testing, Givner and other critics have said. For instance, heterosexual women are internationally one of the fastest growing groups of those infected with HIV. According to the CDC Web site, in 1992, women accounted for about 14 percent of adults and adolescents living with AIDS and by the end of 2003, they constituted 22 percent.

“My view and the view of many of my colleagues is that a lifetime deferral [for gay men] is not supported by the science anymore,” said Dr. Louis Katz, medical director at the Mississippi Valley Regional Blood Center in Iowa. Katz is also a member of the American Association of Blood Banks transfusion transmitted diseases committee and serves on the blood products advisory committee at the FDA. The AABB, the Gay & Lesbian Medical Association and America’s Blood Centers oppose a lifetime deferral.

Because HIV and AIDS testing have improved significantly since the early 1980s, a lifetime ban is no longer necessary, Katz said. However, he noted, it is difficult to create a strategy that would work. For instance, a one-year deferral would require that gay men become celibate for that entire time.

“How many gay men are going to become abstinent to become blood donors,” Katz asked.

Protests against the ban ebb and flow domestically and internationally. In 2000 when the FDA was reconsidering its ban several groups stepped forward to condemn the policy. Last spring, many college students protested and, in some cases, successfully kept the Red Cross off campus for its support of the ban. And, just last month, an Australian ...