The head of the Gay Alliance in Rochester calls it a "baby step in the right direction", but Scott Fearing still finds a new U.S. policy on blood donations openly discriminatory.
The FDA is lifting a 32-year old lifetime ban on blood donations for gay and bisexual men. The ban was put in place during the early years of the AIDS crisis and was intended to protect the blood supply from what was then a little-understood disease.
The new policy allows gay and bisexual men to donate blood, but only if they have been celibate for a year.
"So we're telling married couples that they must remain celibate for an entire year before they give blood,” Fearing said. “If we're going to say that, then we should say that to all married couples, then."
The new one-year abstinence requirement matches policies in Australia, Japan and the U.K.
The FDA considered eliminating all restrictions on blood donations from gay and bisexual men, but concluded that would increase the transmission of HIV through the blood supply by 400 percent.
The FDA concluded that moving to the one-year abstinence requirement would not change the safety of U.S. blood donations, based primary on data from Australia. That country has had a one-year rule for active gay and bisexual men for over 10 years.
Dr. Peter Marks of the FDA said the change is "backed by sound scientific evidence" and will "continue to protect our blood supply". He said there are no comparable data demonstrating the safety of abstinence intervals shorter than one year.
The U.S. blood banking system also bars donations from people who have had sex with a prostitute or an intravenous drug user in the past 12 months.
Fearing said he does not have any grievance with the Red Cross, only with the FDA policy.
"So when there are calls for boycotts on campuses or at workplaces, part of what we do is encourage them how they can work toward encouraging the FDA to make the change, and not to withhold financial support or even blood from the Red Cross, because that's an important part of what they do."
The push for a new policy gained momentum in 2006, when the Red Cross, the American Association of Blood Banks, and America’s Blood Centers called the lifetime ban on blood donations for gay and bisexual men “medically and scientifically unwarranted.”
