Other countries, the letter states, have better addressed the issue by devising new protocols that ask people about recent risky behaviors irrespective of sexual orientation, which it described as “a much more scientifically rigorous and nondiscriminatory approach to maintaining a safe blood supply.
The FDA initially banned gay and bisexual men from ever giving blood in 1983, then revised the lifetime ban in 2015 to a year's sexual abstinence. The two-page bill, dubbed the Deliver for Our Nation at Times of. Gay and bisexual men represent about 70 percent of all new HIV infections in the U.S., according to the CDC. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) has introduced legislation in Congress that would loosen the ban on gay and bisexual men donating blood. Older tests looked for antibodies, which appear weeks and perhaps even months after infection. The National Union of Students LGBT Campaign runs a 'Donation Not Discrimination' campaign to have the blood ban revised, while also advocating continued donation by those who are not banned from donating.
Modern HIV tests look for antigens, which appear in the blood days after infection. Thursday's letter, distributed by LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD, stated that because new blood testing technologies can reliably detect HIV about a week after infection, it is “unscientific and based on outdated antibody-based HIV testing algorithms” to require gay men to abstain from sex for three months prior to donating blood.