Thanks in part to efforts by 18 US Senators, including Sen. Al Franken, the Food and Drug Administration has announced they will be reexamining their long-standing ban on blood donations from men who have had sex with men since 1977 at a June meeting by the Blood Products Advisory Committee, the part of the FDA that sets regulations for donated blood. As the LA Times has reported, the American Red Cross and the industry group representing the nation’s blood banks have called for a loosening of restrictions to permit gay and bisexual men who’ve abstained from sex with other men for a year to donate blood.

“The FDA has been actively engaged in reexamining the issue of blood donor deferral for men who have had sex with other men (MSM),” FDA spokesperson Shelly Burgess wrote in an email to TheColu.mn, “taking into account the current body of scientific information, and we are considering the possibility of pursuing alternative strategies that maintain blood safety.”

Three weeks ago, Franken and his colleagues sent the FDA a letter arguing that the ban is outdated and scientifically unsound, in light of extremely sensitive HIV tests currently used to screen blood and the increasing rates of HIV among non-IV-drug-using heterosexuals, who are currently allowed to donate. The FDA maintains that the ban, last revisited in 2006, is nothing more than a concession to the higher rate of HIV among gay and bi men than among heterosexuals, and current tests aren’t up to the task of ensuring blood safety, even though the Agency admits they have a less than one-in-one-million chance of missing HIV in a sample of blood.

Currently, Burgess says, the FDA is not seeking public comment on the issue, since their reexamination has not yet resulted in a proposed rule.

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