![can gay men donate blood in texas can gay men donate blood in texas](https://www.colgiral.com/wp-content/uploads/demo16189964592448/16189967472325-400x533.jpg)
“This is outdated, discriminatory guidance based in prejudice and stigma - not in public health - and it is contributing to our current national blood donation crisis,” the letter stated. Now, Commissioner Lara is urging the FDA and Department of Health and Human Services to put science before stigma, and repeal the three-month deferral period and any blood donation ban altogether for gay, bisexual, and Queer men. It wasn’t only until recently, propelled by the declining reserves due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that the FDA shortened the waiting period to three months. Rightly, many L GBTQ* rights groups shared that the new rule was unrealistic and didn’t go far enough. In fact, the FDA did ease restrictions in November 2014, simply adding that gay, bisexual and Queer men could be eligible to donate blood after being celibate for one year prior to donation. It’s no longer acceptable for us to accept the FDA’s ban established in 1983. We have highly effective HIV prevention tools at our disposal, including treatment as prevention (undetectable = untransmittable), regular HIV testing, and PrEP. We can ask targeted screening questions that can evaluate an individual’s risk of HIV infection. Starting in 1983, any man who had sex with men after 1977 was no longer eligible to contribute to our nation’s life-saving blood supply.įast forward to today, when we are able to test for both HIV antibodies and antigens in blood samples. FDA announced a lifetime blood donation ban for men who have sex with men. You might already know that in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and the Acting Commissioner of the FDA, Janet Woodcock, MD, to immediately and permanently lift the entire blood donation deferral period for men who have sex with men. Just this week, the California Insurance Commissioner, Ricardo Lara, along with four LGBTQ+ organizations in California, urged the U.S. Immediate request to lift blood deferral period Now, these policies are under new scrutiny. Gay and bisexual men, and other Queer men can be a part of the solution, although as things are now, outdated rules and policies prevent many perfectly healthy individuals from donating their blood. A surge in cases of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 has drained blood supplies at hospitals and blood banks. It’s also a critical resource, which cannot be manufactured and for which there is no alternative, that’s in short supply. Plasma from blood donations is essential in creating convalescent plasma therapies that effectively prevent severe illness and death in COVID-19 patients.
![can gay men donate blood in texas can gay men donate blood in texas](https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/gazette.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/8/9c/89c88fea-c910-11e9-85ae-178efdc179b1/5d659ec031533.image.jpg)
Have you considered the role that blood donations play in lifting us out of the COVID-19 pandemic? Masking, social distancing, quarantining, vaccinations, and blood donations.