During the Hoboken community Vitalant blood drive held at Hoboken Rec Center on June 25, 2021 in Hoboken, New Jersey, a worker with Vitalant places a needle on the arm of a blood donor as he prepares to donate blood.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
The American Red Cross announced on Monday that gay and bisexual men are now eligible to donate blood without any restrictions based on their sexual orientation or gender. The new guidelines, implemented by the Red Cross in accordance with the Food and Drug Administration, utilize an individual risk assessment for all potential donors. The Red Cross is responsible for supplying approximately 40% of the nation’s blood.
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Under the new FDA guidelines, men in monogamous sexual relationships with other men can donate blood as long as they meet other screening criteria. Previously, men who had sex with men had to abstain for three months before donating. Now, the three-month waiting period applies to anyone, regardless of sexual orientation or gender, who has had sex with a new partner or multiple partners and has engaged in anal sex.
The Red Cross acknowledges that the waiting period based on a history of anal sex appears to unfairly target gay and bisexual men and is working with the FDA to make the blood donation guidelines more inclusive. The FDA recently dropped a nearly 40-year policy that categorized men who have sex with men as high risk for HIV transmission, a move that was long opposed by gay rights groups and leading medical associations.
The American Medical Association criticized the FDA policy for unfairly targeting gay men based on their sexual orientation rather than considering individual risk factors. While gay men faced restrictions on blood donation, even if they practiced safe sex, straight individuals who engaged in unprotected sex with multiple partners were still allowed to donate. The FDA’s original policy, implemented in the 1980s during the AIDS crisis, did not adapt to advancements in technology for screening blood donations and remained in place until 2015.
The FDA revised its guidelines in 2015 to allow men who have sex with men to donate blood, but they still had to abstain for a year. Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the agency shortened the abstinence period to three months due to a blood shortage. Individuals taking pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV infection must wait three months after their last dose to donate blood, while those receiving long-acting PrEP injections have a two-year waiting period. Anyone who has tested positive for HIV is permanently ineligible to donate blood.
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