The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to make it easier for homosexual and bisexual men in monogamous relationships to donate blood, even if they have not been sexually abstinent for 90 days.
According to the Wall Street Journal, people familiar with FDA planning said the new regulations would likely be implemented within the next several months.
Donating blood requires potential homosexual and bisexual male donors to fill out a risk assessment form. The Food and Drug Administration has not finalized the new questionnaire or associated guidelines.
Donor candidates will probably be questioned about their sexual history within the prior three months. If they haven’t had any new sexual partners in the past three months, they should be allowed to donate.
However, a potential donor would likely be prevented from giving until they had refrained for three months if they have had anal intercourse with a new partner in the previous 90 days. Anal intercourse is the most dangerous way to have sex in terms of contracting or passing on HIV, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For the past seven years, the FDA has gradually eased prohibitions on homosexual and bisexual males donating blood.
In the 1990s, during the height of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the government instituted a strict prohibition on blood donations from homosexual men; this restriction was repealed in 2015, although sexually active gay men were still obliged to wait a year before giving. In light of the national blood shortage caused by the 2019 coronavirus pandemic, the FDA shortened the usual 12-month waiting period to 3 months.
Following a survey of over 1,600 homosexual and bisexual males, researchers looked at whether a risk assessment questionnaire or a mandatory waiting time was more successful in preventing the spread of HIV in the blood supply. Vitalant, OneBlood, and the American Red Cross, three significant not-for-profit blood facilities in the United States, collaborated on the research.
According to the Journal, one FDA official said that in 90 days, doctors could determine whether or not a patient had contracted HIV.