The News
The Food and Drug Administration introduced on Thursday that it had formally ended the company’s wide-ranging prohibition on blood donations from homosexual and bisexual males, a longstanding coverage that had been denounced as discriminatory.
Instead, the F.D.A. is finalizing steerage that features a questionnaire for all donors that’s geared toward studying about their latest sexual exercise. The extra focused questions will give attention to whether or not somebody has had new or a number of intercourse companions or anal intercourse within the final three months.
Potential donors who had latest intercourse underneath these screening standards can be turned away.
The revised coverage would additionally preclude blood donations from folks taking oral PrEP to forestall H.I.V. an infection, a restriction the company mentioned was designed to keep away from false-negative outcomes throughout blood screening.
In the revised coverage the F.D.A. took its cues from Canada and the United Kingdom, which adopted related approaches. The U.S. company has been engaged on the change for months and mentioned it additionally reviewed knowledge from different nations and from a U.S. research inspecting this technique.
Why It Matters: There is a blood scarcity
Blood donations are sorely wanted. They fell throughout and after the pandemic with the lower in school- and office-based blood drives.
The outdated guidelines had been much more restrictive in screening out homosexual or bisexual males. The replace permits blood donation firms to make use of a extra evidence-based technique to cut back the danger of H.I.V. transmission whereas additionally maximizing donations.
“This shift toward individual donor assessments prioritizes the safety of America’s blood supply while treating all donors with the fairness and respect they deserve,” mentioned Kate Fry, the chief govt of America’s Blood Centers, which represents unbiased blood facilities that offer 60 % of the nation’s donations.
Background: PrEP standards had been criticized
GLAAD, an L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy group, applauded the change as an finish to “a dark and discriminatory past rooted in fear and homophobia.” But the group criticized the F.D.A.’s choice to show away donors taking PrEP drugs, saying the measure would add “unnecessary stigma.”
“The bias embedded into this policy may, in fact, cost lives,” GLAAD mentioned in an announcement Thursday.
The company mentioned that PrEP medication had been efficient in lowering the unfold of H.I.V. by sexual contact, however warned that blood transfusions may carry a better danger of an infection.
“Although H.I.V. is not transmitted sexually by individuals with undetectable viral levels, this does not apply to transfusion transmission of H.I.V. because a blood transfusion is administered intravenously, and a transfusion involves a large volume of blood compared to exposure with sexual contact,” the F.D.A. mentioned in a news launch on Thursday.
What’s Next: Blood facilities will replace insurance policies
Vitalent, a blood donation firm, has mentioned that it could undertake the company’s revised screening guidelines by updating its donor historical past questionnaire and pc methods and by coaching employees.
Source: www.nytimes.com