More gay and bisexual men will be able to donate blood after the Red Cross announced Monday it would follow recent guidelines from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
File image of American Red Cross blood donor center in Shoreview, Minn.More gay and bisexual men will be able to donate blood after the American Red Cross announced Monday it would follow recent guidelines from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.stating that all potential blood donors must answer a series of individual, risk-based questions to decide eligibility.
The FDA originally banned donations from gay and bisexual men during the 1980s HIV/AIDS crisis. In recent years, the FDA relaxed these rules, but had not lifted them completely. Medical groups and LGBTQ organizations have criticized the FDA's previous rule from 2015, which relaxed a complete ban on donations from gay and bisexual men, but asked men to abstain from sex for at least one year before donation.
"With the nation's blood supply at its lowest point in a decade, and the American Red Cross declaring its first-ever national blood crisis earlier this month, it is time for the Food and Drug Administration to do something the AMA and others have urged for years: remove its discriminatory ban that prevents many gay and bisexual men from becoming blood donors,"There are nearly 11 million blood donors and more than 14 million units of blood transfused in the U.S.
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