One year ago, Congress defunded public media. Now that we're 100% community funded, please become a sustaining member or increase your existing membership today.
20 Attorneys General, Including California, Want Rules On Gay Men Blood Donors Eased
A donor gives at a blood drive held this week at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library. (Chris Carlson/AP)
Selena Simmons-Duffin | NPR
Our news is free on LAist. To make sure you get our coverage: Sign up for our daily coronavirus newsletter. To support our non-profit public service journalism: Donate Now.
Attorneys general from 20 states sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Wednesday calling on the agency to further ease rules on gay and bisexual men donating blood.
"The discriminatory restrictions against blood donations by healthy gay and bisexual Americans have persisted for far too long," they write.
Those restrictions began in the early days of the AIDS epidemic. In 1983, the FDA banned gay and bisexual men from ever being eligible to donate blood to protect people receiving blood transfusions from the possibility of getting infected with HIV.
In 2015, that lifetime ban was replaced by a waiting period -- men who have sex with men could donate blood if they had not had sex in the last twelve months.
Sponsored message
DON'T MISS ANY L.A. CORONAVIRUS NEWS
Get our daily newsletters for the latest on COVID-19 and other top local headlines.
Terms of Use and Privacy Policy
With the nation's blood supply in shortage due to the social distancing measures in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus, that deferral period was just shortened to three months.
But the attorneys general -- all Democrats, from California, Michigan, Virginia and nine other states -- argue that the shorter wait doesn't go far enough. Targeting gay and bisexual men is discriminatory, they say. Instead, blood donors should be screened based on risky behavior, as it is in other countries.
"The revised guidance still precludes many LGBTQ Americans from fully contributing to the blood shortages while still requiring a waiting period for healthy individuals," they write.
They cite a 2014 analysis from the Williams Institute at UCLA estimating that completely lifting the ban on gay men would produce 300,000 pints of blood annually, which could save a million lives.
Sponsored message
Another problem they cite: The new three-month waiting period prevents gay and bisexual men who have recovered from COVID-19 from donating plasma to treat others who are infected with the coronavirus. Preliminary studies suggest the treatment can improve recovery from COVID-19.
"America is in the midst of a public health crisis," Dr. Jack Turban wrote in Vox last week. "Old homophobic policies are making it worse: leaving trauma victims without donor blood and withholding plasma donations that could potentially save people dying from the coronavirus."
In the letter to HHS, the attorneys general ask the FDA to "immediately clarify" that gay and bisexual men who have COVID-19 antibodies can donate plasma.
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
MORE ON CORONAVIRUS
- Your No-Panic Guide To All The Changing Rules In LA
- Where To Get Financial Assistance, Food And Other Help
- Tracking The Spread Of COVID-19
- Have A Question? We Will Answer It
One year ago, Congress voted to defund public media, eliminating a critical $1.7 million from our budget every year going forward. But they couldn’t silence us, and we’re not going anywhere. LAist is now 100% community funded and that means we’re taking our future into our own hands and turning to you to keep local reporting strong.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief
