The policy still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense given that A- it doesn’t take a year to detect HIV and B- it’s not having sex with another man that puts you at risk, it’s having sex with any individual you are not in a monogamous relationship with, whatever gender or sex you and your partner(s) is(are).
But hey, it’s definitely a step in the right direction!
Definitely a step in the right direction. I think the requirement of a year is similar to that imposed on people who traveled to countries with some tropical diseases that have a long period of latency or people exposed to blood or someone with a transfusion.
Also, from the FDA’s site:
Dr. Nelson in that article has his head on straight. It is regrettable that others don’t.
Now if they could just lift the ban on us Brits - I haven’t come down with mad cow disease yet!
That is also a ridiculous ban, swim. My mom is under that one and she never even really ate meat when she lived there! Good grief it’s been over 20 years. I’m pretty sure she’s not getting it…
I lived in England for 2.5 months in 93 (when I was all of 2). Good thing my mom didn’t try to extend our stay another few weeks…
Yea, my son has never lived there. He was born there (we were living in Egypt) & visited for several weeks at a time. He can’t give blood. My daughter can as She is younger and spent less time there.
That’s true, BB.
The problem is that we know when HIV shows up in your system if you’re infected. We have really, really good data on that. I’m just a fan of using science, good science, to determine eligibility especially with something that’s as desperately needed as blood. It’s just really frustrating 
Alternatively, I am 100% in favor of giving every single person who wants to donate blood a rapid HIV test if it means that we can expand the criteria of who can donate. It can be done while the blood is being extracted. That way you’re screening everyone not just those who happen to fall into a what is labeled a risky population, regardless of their own behaviors.
I can’t give blood because of the British Mad Cow thing. Someone else I know is also, although she was a vegetarian at the time! 
@romanigypsyeyes, I am totally out of date on HIV testing. How much would it cost to test every donor for HIV? would there be crippling consent and notification issues? Can any of the blood components be used if the test is positive?
Don’t they test the blood anyway for HIV? I feel like it would be pretty negligent not to, right, since somebody could have HIV, not know it, and be considered low-risk for it and pass all of the screening questions or somebody could lie.
Romani, I would defer to the CDC on epidemiology issues. Are there any studies we should be aware of? You can’t just say we know when HIV shows up in the system! And testing alone is not going to solve the problem… Hence questionnaires and restrictions.
Here is the issue with testing a sample of blood from a donor. It takes on average 1.5-2 weeks or so after the exposure for HIV tests to give meaningful results. At the early stages of infection, a freshly infected donor might have just a few copies of the virus in the volume of blood that a typical donor would give. If the tested aliquot does not have a copy, them the test will be negative. Meanwhile, the much larger donated sample might have enough virus to infect a person. To simplify even further, it is like taking a bucket of water from a barrel with 2 goldfishes and, after not seeing any fishes in the bucket, concluding that there are no goldfishes in the barrel.
I think it is very reasonable to restrict or be extremely careful about getting donations from high risk groups. After all, the priority should not be any issue of fairness, but the safety of the recipients. If gay and bisexual men are at high risk for HIV, then obviously they should be very careful.
I attempted to donate blood for a friend’s baby many years ago, and was immediately rejected. When they asked me to write down any other countries I had visited in the last year, and I said there’d been at least 20, they told me not to bother any further. While I was unhappy, because I wanted to help the baby, I wouldn’t have wanted to put her at any risk whatsoever. Because it wasn’t about me, it was about the safety of the baby.
@bunsenburner:
The problem with the ban (besides the obvious one, that they rely on men telling the truth), is that they are singling out gay and bisexual men, as if only they can get HIV. Do they ban women of color in the US from donating blood if they have had sex in the past 12 months, given that HIV rates are pretty large in that community? How about monogamous gay men, let’s say married gay men, who only have sex with each other and are hiv -…should they not be able to give blood, assuming like most married people they have sex once in a while? The problem with the ban is it assumes that all men who have sex with men are promiscuous and having unprotected sex. Take a look at the HIV infection rates in rural areas of this country, should they ban people from those areas from giving blood? Given that HIV can be transmitted singling out men having sex with men is the old idea that AIDS somehow is a gay disease.
While the threat of AIDS in the gay and bisexual community is statistically greater than other groups (new HIV infection rates are still highest in the gay community), with these rules there is still risk, because it would allow, for example, a woman who has had unprotected sex to give blood, and if she happened to have had sex 2 or 3 days before and got infected, the blood supply would be tainted, because the testing they do on the blood wouldn’t pick it up (it also raises question, would there be enough of the HIV virus after a recent infection to actually infect someone who gets that blood, and I ask that as a genuine question, I just don’t know how infectious blood from recently infected person is.
Personally, I think the rules should be that if you have had unprotected sex with someone other than a monogamous partner within the last X months, you shouldn’t be giving blood. In reality, these rules rely on the person giving blood being totally honest, and given how sensitive HIV testing on the donated blood is these days, how rapidly after infection they can detect it (it is around 2 weeks), the fact that as far as I know they haven’t had an HIV infection from donated blood is IMO because the screening process of the blood is working, not because of these kind of rules that rely on self reporting. Again, if they are really trying to screen out people likely to be hiv infected, then it should be about having unprotected sex in a given period with someone you are not monogamous with and should not be about gay or bi or straight, if you have unprotected sex with someone you don’t know the status of, you shouldn’t give blood.
Yes, BB, but the exact same thing can happen with a straight couple.
I’m not saying there shouldn’t be a waiting period. I’m saying it shouldn’t be a whole year.
3-6 months after exposure and you’re testing with as accurate results as you’re ever going to get (depending on which test they use). If they set that as a waiting time, fine by me, but it should apply to everyone and not just MSMs. Being gay doesn’t suddenly make you more at risk. Anal and/or unprotected sex does. And that is not limited to MSM couples.
I will link studies but probably not until Wednesday.
Finishing up a final due tomorrow that’s probably going to make me do an all-nighter so I’m going to sign off CC for tonight.
I suppose this also means the end of the lifetime prohibition on blood donations by trans women who have ever had sex with men, given that trans women have historically been classified as “gay men” for purposes of the ban.
Although I personally see this step as phony progress, given that it’s still focused on membership in a broad class, rather than on risky behavior. And even under the new rule, it’s still impossible for any gay or bisexual man who’s the least bit sexually active ever to donate – even if they only have sex once every six months, and it’s always safe sex, within a monogamous relationship or, now, marriage.
Romani, you have a good heart and a strong intolerance for injustice. I really appreciate that. Barriers need to broken one step at a time. When the statistics will come in and show that there is no difference in HIV risk connected to blood donated by heterosexual population and MSM, the 1 year requirement will be lifted.
“Being gay doesn’t suddenly make you more at risk. Anal and/or unprotected sex does”
But gay men are more likely to engage in anal sex. And as you say that is where the risk is coming from.
Risk management is not discrimination. It takes into account the prevalence and the incidence of infections as well as many other parameters - objectively. What we need to work on is the underlying reasons for the higer risk: stigma that leads to lack of sex education, access to health care, etc. When we make sure all MSM have access to counseling and quality care without being shamed about their sexuality, there will be no difference in risk. One step at a time. Take a look at this, for example:
http://www.amfar.org/uploadedFiles/_amfarorg/On_the_Hill/SummaryPtsLancet2012.pdf
@bunsenburner:
I agree with Romani, the current ban is not based in risk remediation, it is based on the concept that HIV infection is almost entirely the work of gay/bi men, and it is idiotic. The fact is, that the US blood supply has not had a documented case of HIV transmission in the past several decades, yet to be honest the FDA guidelines for blood donation are such that as a risk remediation tool, they are dubious. Even granting that gay/bi men are the largest group of new HIV infections (sadly, this is true), have you looked at the stats for other groups? The second largest group of new infection rates, for example, is black women, yet the FDA rules don’t say anything about black women (they tend to get it from unprotected sex with IV drug users, some of it is from men who are down low). Likewise, one of the largest focuses of new HIV rates these days is in rural areas (mostly due to drug use and sex with someone who is a drug user), yet the standards don’t screen out that either…yet the blood supply has not had one documented instance of hiv transmission. More importantly, the ban is self enforced, how many people do you think have donated blood who by the rules shouldn’t have, and how many of them were potentially HIV +… what that tells me is that banning gay/bi men who have had sex (especially for the ridiculous 12 month period) is not why the blood supply is clean, it is because the testing is likely picking up the hiv tainted blood.
Look at this a different way. Suppose there was no way to test the blood supply, would the current FDA bans make sense? Would it make sense to single out gay/bi men for a ban, but not anyone who has had unprotected sex? Even if let’s say that gay/bi men are 100 times more likely to be hiv + than versus heterosexuals, wouldn’t the risk prevention be to ban anyone who had unprotected sex?
Romani is right, if they wanted to make a ban, the rule should apply to anyone who has had unprotected sex in the prior X months, because while the risk with gay/bi men is higher, it is not zero for straights. Actually, the real guideline should be that someone who has had unprotected sex outside a monogamous relationship where the HIV status is known should not donate blood if they have had unprotected sex within the last X months. This would cover the risky behavior that can lead to HIV transmission, and not single out any group. The ban as written assumes that no gay/bi man can be monogamous or not engage in risky behavior, and it is insulting, as it would be to ban Hatians, people who have had sex with someone from Africa, black women, people residing in rural areas where drug use is rampant and so forth. Put it this way the FDA bans all IV drug users from donating blood, but the reality is that there are well off drug addicts who use clean needles, but the ban doesn’t say “if you are living in the inner city or a pure rural area and use HIV drugs, you shouldn’t donate”, they ban the risky behavior even though the risk of the well off suburban kid who is doing iv heroin is much less.
Suburban kids who use IV drugs and many others who anwer yes to certain questions also get a deferral, just like MSM. This is the old version of the document, but it will be updated with the new guidelines. Take a look:
Sex workers is another group that gets permanent deferral:
“Question: 33. From 1977 to the present have you received money, drugs, or other payment for sex?
Donor Eligibility: Donors who received money, drugs, or other payment for sex are indefinitely deferred. HIV and other diseases may be transmitted by sexual contact.
Note: Not all donors define “sex” or “sexual contact” in the same way. The donor must have read the educational materials provided.”
IV drug users are permanently deferred:
“Question: 36. Have you ever used needles to take drugs, steroids, or anything not prescribed by your doctor?
Donor Eligibility: Donors who are past or present needle-using drug users are indefinitely deferred due to potential transmission of infectious diseases.”
IV drug users have always been on there, as have sex workers,though the lifetime ban is idiotic (ie a sex worker can leave the life, a drug addict can get clean, and as long as they stopped within a certain period of time, screening would pick up if they were infected.
The point that Romani made is that any risky behavior should be flagged. If a straight person had anal sex within that period, there is a risk; if a person had unprotected sex with an iv drug user, they could get infected, and so forth. The risk let’s say of a guy having unprotected sex vaginally with a girl and getting HIV is a lot less than a gay guy having anal sex with someone unprotected, but they are both risks. Likewise, a gay couple who are monogamous and both are clean has basically the same risk factor as a straight couple who are monogamous, so why should they be excluded if the risk is the same?
Risk assessment and amelioration means looking at all risks, while you can assess levels of risk and perhaps focus on the big ones first, with something like HIV any risk of spreading it, whether large or relatively small, needs to be addressed.
In the case of sex, they could very easily make the rule “Have you had unprotected sex in the past 2 months with someone you were not in a monogamous relationship with? If so, you shouldn’t donate”, and it would cover all the bases. It is banning people from donating for risky behavior, not for who they are. Like I said, if they had the same kind of ban on black women who have had sex or someone who had sex with a black woman (again, the second greatest risk group for hiv infection next to gay men) in the past year, there would be hell to pay, and rightfully so. Rational risk assessment would be to screen out the behavior that causes the problem, and being gay or bi and having sex with another man is not the risk factor, unprotected sex with someone you are not in a monagamous relationship with is the risk; and whether it is 100 times more likely, let’s say, for a gay or bi man to get hiv infection from unprotected sex than in straight, non anal sex, the latter is still a risk.
Yes! This ^^^.
As an HIV counselor, I get to hear about a lot of different behaviors from a lot of different people.
There are absolutely risky behaviors and they should not be limited to certain populations. Anyone who has had, for example, unprotected vaginal or anal sex should wait for X period before donating regardless of sex/gender/sexuality.
I will look for those links if anyone wants them, but probably not until tomorrow. This is a no-more-research day for me today 
One of the odder blood donation questions asks whether, in the last 8 weeks, you have been in contact with anyone who has a smallpox vaccination (question 10 in the document linked above). Since smallpox vaccination was routine in the US until 1972, wouldn’t that mean, in the US, that contact with almost anyone over age 45 (or oneself, if one received such a vaccination) or so counts?