Medical Science Evacuates (FDA) Federal Drug Administration, opens Blood Banks to Gay Lobby
Associated Press is reporting:
The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday it favors replacing the blanket ban with a new policy barring donations from men who have had man-on-man sex in the previous 12 months. The new policy would put the U.S. in line with other countries including Australia, Japan and the U.K.
Activists, however, questioned whether requiring a year of celibacy from gay men before a donation amounted to a significant policy shift.
The lifetime ban dates from the early years of the AIDS crisis and was intended to protect the blood supply from what was a then little-understood disease.
The FDA implemented the lifetime ban in 1983, when health officials were first recognizing the risk of contracting AIDS via blood transfusions. Under the policy, blood donations are barred from any man who has had sex with another man at any time since 1977 - the start of the AIDS epidemic in the U.S.
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Christian Post is reporting:
The Food and Drug Administration has announced that it's easing restrictions on gay men donating blood, reversing a policy enacted during the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic decades earlier.
In a statement released Tuesday, the FDA said easing the ban came after several years of research into the matter.
"Following this review, and taking into account the recommendations of advisory committees to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the FDA, the agency will take the necessary steps to recommend a change to the blood donor deferral period for men who have sex with men from indefinite deferral to one year since the last sexual contact," stated the FDA.
In 1983, the FDA established a lifetime ban on blood donations from men who had had sexual intercourse with other men.
The ban came in response to the HIV-AIDS epidemic, as many were contracting the disease via blood transfusions from blood donated by HIV-positive individuals.
A notable example was professional African-American tennis player Arthur Ashe, who contracted the AIDS virus via a blood transfusion.
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