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The federal Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability ruled on Friday to uphold the long-standing ban preventing gay and bisexual men from donating blood. CNN reported that the policy faced review thanks to pressure from a group of 17 senators, led by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA). Despite the senators' efforts, the ban was upheld by a committee vote of 9 to 6, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Addressing the committee on Thursday, Kerry said he was joined by the nation's largest blood-banking organizations in opposition to the current policy. The American Red Cross, the American Association of Blood Banks, and America’s Blood Centers have all blasted the policy as “scientifically and medically unwarranted.”
"This is a discussion with real social significance for gay men," Kerry said before the committee. "They are clearly the target of this policy, which was initiated in the early '80s, when little was known about HIV/AIDS, except that gay men seemed to be contracting it almost exclusively. Today, this lingering policy carries with it a social stigma for this population that is still engaged in battles for civil rights on a whole array of fronts."In a unanimous vote the panel also called the policy "suboptimal," however, and recommended that distinctions be made between low- and high-risk potential gay donors in a report to the assistant secretary of HHS.
In 1983 the Food and Drug Administration, a subagency of HHS that regulates the nation’s blood supply collection, barred any man who’d had sexual contact with another man since 1977 from donating blood. FDA policy allows heterosexual men and women who have had sexual contact with an HIV-positive partner to give blood after a one-year deferral period.
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force executive director Rea Carey called the committee's decision "outrageous, irresponsible, and archaic."
