By Cara Murez and Robin Foster
HealthDay Reporters
THURSDAY, Dec. 1, 2022 (HealthDay Information) – U.S. Meals & Drug Administration insurance policies which have restricted blood donations from males who’ve intercourse with males could quickly ease.
In the intervening time, FDA coverage doesn’t permit blood donation from males who’ve had intercourse with different males prior to now three months. That is already a shorter timeframe than prior to now, when the company required a one-year hole.
The company is now contemplating switching to questionnaires that concentrate on particular person threat, quite than blanket limitations, CNN reported.
“The FDA stays dedicated to gathering the scientific knowledge associated to different donor deferral insurance policies that keep a excessive degree of blood security,” the company stated in a press release issued Wednesday. “We anticipate issuing up to date draft steerage within the coming months.”
Data collected via a donor eligibility questionnaire and blood surveillance “will doubtless help a coverage transition to particular person risk-based donor screening questions for decreasing the danger of HIV transmission,” the company added, CNN reported.
The FDA modified these pointers in 2020 as the necessity for blood donations grew in the course of the pandemic, CNN reported.
“Whereas right now’s reviews of an overdue transfer from the FDA is a crucial step, our group and main medical consultants is not going to cease advocating for the FDA to raise all restrictions towards certified LGBTQ blood donor candidates,” Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO and president of GLAAD, an LGBTQ media advocacy group, stated in a press release.
Different nations have already made comparable strikes: Since 2020, males in a long-term relationship with one other man have been allowed to donate blood in the UK, although different males who’ve intercourse with males should nonetheless wait to donate for 3 months.
A Wall Avenue Journal report on Wednesday cited sources conversant in the FDA plan, saying that males who’re in monogamous relationships with different males could be allowed to donate blood. Those that have had a brand new sexual associate and have had anal intercourse prior to now three months wouldn’t be allowed to make a donation, CNN reported.
“As LGBTQ leaders and medical consultants have been saying for years: bans and restrictions on blood donations from homosexual and bisexual males are rooted in stigma, not science,” Ellis stated.
Medical and blood donation organizations voiced their help of the plan.
“The AMA [American Medical Association] relentlessly advocates for eliminating public insurance policies that don’t align with scientific proof and greatest moral practices, which is why we have now urged the FDA to make use of rational, scientifically-based deferral durations for donation of blood, corneas and different tissues which can be pretty and persistently utilized to donors in accordance with their particular person threat,” AMA President Dr. Jack Resneck Jr. advised CNN.
The American Pink Cross stated Wednesday it “believes blood donation eligibility shouldn’t be decided by strategies which can be based mostly upon sexual orientation and is dedicated to working with companions towards reaching this objective.”
The Pink Cross added that it has been concerned within the FDA-funded ADVANCE examine to find out whether or not a questionnaire that assessed particular person dangers in homosexual and bisexual donors may exchange a blanket time-based coverage.
Extra data
The U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers has extra on donating blood.
SOURCE: CNN; statements, Nov 30, 2022, GLAAD, American Pink Cross
Recent Comments