FDA eases blood donation ban on gay, bisexual men amid ongoing national blood shortage

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has introduced a new approach involving a screening questionnaire to allow both gay and bisexual men the chance to donate blood without needing to wait the previous abstinence requirement of three months. Unsplash

As the nation continues to see a decline in blood donations, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed to lift the current ban prohibiting gay and bisexual men from donating blood, allowing further freedom for the LGBTQ+ community.

According to the FDA, the agency has strongly discouraged men who have sex with men from donating blood, with a nationwide prohibition enacted in the 1980s to prevent HIV from spreading. The ban changed in 2015, allowing gay and bisexual men to donate blood if they haven’t had sexual contact with another man for an entire year.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the prohibition was changed yet again by the FDA from a 12-month abstinence requirement to a three-month abstinence requirement for gay and bisexual men to be able to donate blood.

With the new guidelines announced last Friday, the FDA’s current three-month abstinence requirement will soon be eliminated. Instead, gay and bisexual men who want to donate blood will have to be screened with a specific questionnaire that analyzes their risks for having or transmitting HIV. 

“The FDA has the right idea when it comes to giving back more rights to the LGBTQ+ community. However, these rights should never have been taken away from the community in the first place,” said Kari Lien, a junior creative writing and communication studies double major. “The FDA is finally responding to protests regarding this issue by adding in their new questionnaire, which is a good thing, but certain aspects of it still barr certain people from donating blood.”

The questionnaire itself will ask these potential donors about their sexual history, recent partners, if they had any new or multiple partners in the last three months and whether or not they had had anal sex with any new or multiple partners in the last three months. 

If a potential donor has had anal sex or been with more than one partner in the last three months, then they will be ineligible to donate blood. 

For many years, gay rights activist groups have opposed these restrictions on gay and bisexual men being able to give blood, stating that they are very discriminatory against the LGBTQ+ community.

“For the LGBTQ+ community as a whole, the lifting of this ban serves as a reminder of our presence and influence we continue to have,” said Jordan Boggess, a second-year graduate student studying education who is also the co-president of the Queer Student Alliance club on campus. “I think we can view this as a small victory, while not forgetting about the thousands of other injustices we have left to face. We must not let the fight end, until all the needs are met in the community.”

If the questionnaire is finalized, it would help to broaden donor eligibility by giving both gay and bisexual men the chance to donate blood, thus boosting the U.S.’s current shortage in their blood supply.

The FDA implemented their new questionnaire following a recent study, the Assessing Donor Variability And New Concepts in Eligibility (ADVANCE) study, of 1,600 gay and bisexual men. The study itself focused on evaluating alternatives aside from the three-month abstinence requirement for gay and bisexual men to donate blood, including the donor history question.

“The ADVANCE study is a first step in providing data that will help the FDA determine if a donor history questionnaire based on individual risk would be as effective as time-based deferral in reducing the risk of HIV in the blood supply,” the study’s press release stated.

The study was put on by participating blood centers, including Vitalant, OneBlood and the American Red Cross, and the study also partnered with various LGBTQ+ centers in Washington D.C., San Francisco, Orlando, Miami, Memphis and Los Angeles. Research for the study concluded on Sept. 30, 2022 after a year of research. 

“Even though this new policy does allow for more gender inclusivity and analyzing individual based risk, the law itself is still discriminatory since blood processing centers screen for AIDS and HIV, no matter what a person’s sexual history (is) anyways,” said Taylor Michel, a junior strategic and corporate communication and political science double major. “This is a good start in increasing representation for the LGBTQ+ community, but we must continue to protest for even more.”