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There is an obvious option to increase blood donations

2022-01-21T19:32:24.668Z


To increase the scarce numbers of blood donors, it is necessary to repeal an obsolete and discriminatory health policy.


The UK repealed a rule that banned homosexuals and bisexuals from donating blood 0:42

Editor's Note:

Ushma Neill is Vice President for Science Education and Training at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and Managing Editor of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Follow her on @ushmaneill.

Lala Tanmoy (Tom) Das is a doctoral student at New York's Weill Cornell Medicine who has been banned from donating blood for being gay.

Follow him on @TanmoyDasLala.

The opinions expressed in this comment belong solely to their authors.

See more opinions.

(CNN) --

The American Red Cross, which supplies 40% of the country's blood, has announced that the nation is facing its worst blood shortage in more than a decade. According to a Jan. 11 statement, the nonprofit has had less than a day's supply of critical blood types in recent weeks. As a result, it has had to limit the distribution of blood products to hospitals. In some cases, up to a quarter of hospital blood needs are not being met, leaving many patients in limbo with potentially life-saving transfusion needs.


This shortage is due to a number of aggravating factors: pandemic-related lockdowns, a decline in blood drives in schools and colleges over the past two years, winter weather conditions, and covid-related staffing constraints have caused the cancellation of blood donation campaigns.

However, there is a potential solution to help alleviate some of the current shortage: removing the archaic, discriminatory and unscientific US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) restrictions that underlie blood donation from men who have sex with men.

When it was recognized in the early 1980s that HIV primarily affected gay men and was transmissible through blood products, blood safety officials took the step of excluding gay men from the blood donation. And following the development of a screening test, the FDA began testing the blood supply for HIV and imposed a lifetime ban on donations from gay and bisexual men.

Forty years ago, safety precautions were justified: it took several months to know if an individual had contracted HIV after sexual intercourse.

But this is no longer the case, as new laboratory tests can detect the presence of HIV with great precision from 10 days to just over a month after transmission.

With the evolution of HIV testing capabilities, the deferral windows have changed: the lifetime ban was shortened to one year of celibacy in 2015, then reduced to three months in April 2020. But the current requirement of three months of celibacy before donation remains unnecessary, given our ability to ensure that a sample is HIV-free in a much shorter time frame.

  • Is it easier to buy guns than donate blood for homosexuals in the US?

In addition, the integrity of the blood supply is guaranteed by the steps that are required before any biological product can be transferred to another human being. The Red Cross notes that all donated blood is tested for infectious agents, such as Trypanosoma cruzi (commonly known as Chagas disease), hepatitis B and C viruses, HIV, human T-lymphotropic virus (HTLV), West Nile virus, Zika virus, babesia, and syphilis. With these kinds of precautions, other countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Russia, South Africa, Spain and Hungary, which follow similar safety procedures, have removed any deferral of donations from men who have sex with men. And with the scarcity of blood seeping throughout the global ecosystem, this very month,the French Minister of Health, Olivier Veran, announced: "We are ending an inequality that was no longer justified." Starting in March, gay and bisexual French men will no longer have restrictions on donating blood.

In the United States, it is estimated that there are more than 7 million men who have sex with men, many of whom identify as gay or bisexual. And this is likely an underestimate, as same-sex sexual activity is often underreported. An analysis by the Williams Institute, a public policy research institute based at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law, suggests that lifting the ban on blood donation could increase the total annual supply of blood between 2% and 4%, which would translate into 345,400 to 615,300 pints of blood per year.

And to counter people who cite HIV's "silent window," the period between infection and test-detected markers of infection, as a reason for perpetuating the postponements, France's public health agency argued: "This [silent window] risk is currently estimated at one in 11.6 million donations, that is, one potentially HIV-infected donation every four years."

The continuation of these donation deferrals for men who have sex with men not only limits the much-needed supply of blood donors, but perpetuates the stigma that primarily associates gay and bisexual men with HIV.

In practice, the discrimination is all too obvious: a heterosexual man can have high-risk sex with women for years, and after three months of celibacy or monogamous sex, he can donate blood.

However, a homosexual man in a monogamous relationship, who practices safe sex with his partner, can never donate unless he observes celibacy for three months.

This blatant double standard is the classic definition of intolerance.

  • Is the culture of hate and intolerance taking hold in the US?

It is also offensive that, despite decades of research on HIV prevention, FDA policy notices on same-sex male-to-male contact have failed to incorporate the role of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medications. . In fact, there is unequivocal data showing that when taken consistently, PrEP is nearly 100% effective in preventing sexual transmission of HIV. And men who have sex with men remain the majority of PrEP users, warranting a change in the dialogue about HIV and sexual contact.

Current strategies, or lack thereof, to mitigate this crisis seem shortsighted and reactionary.

Instead, in the context of modern screening methodologies and informed decisions made by other countries, we urge the FDA to abolish the deferral time for men who have sex with men;

this is a view now shared by the Biden White House.

At a time when the nation calls for unity and community, this policy rooted in fanaticism is ripe for repeal.

Excluding an entire group of people does not answer the needs of the US, not in a pandemic, nor outside of it.

blood donation

Source: cnnespanol

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