HIV infection no longer is an automatic death sentence. Testing for the human immunodeficiency virus has improved at all levels and the development of new drugs and treatments now enables many people to live normal lives using simple precautions and medications.
It’s appropriate, therefore, that our government review policies that were enacted before many of those treatments existed, when AIDS was feared as a fatal, untreatable condition that could reach epidemic levels.
The Food and Drug Administration recently proposed easing restrictions on blood donations from gay men and removing an outright ban on any man who reported having sexual relations with another man in the previous three months. Instead the FDA will authorize a questionnaire intended to encourage more donations, thus saving more lives by reducing the nation’s severe supply of donated blood.
FDA hematologist Peter Marks, speaking for the agency, expressed confidence that the safety of the blood supply will be maintained after the changes.
It seems a safe assertion to make, as more is known about HIV and modern screening processes can identify it. Most people don’t have the virus, and banning entire groups of people no longer is appropriate. Allowing more people to donate blood can mean that fewer people will die because a hospital didn’t have the blood they needed during surgery.
This is the latest step in a gradual move away from the panic-inspired bans on all donations from homosexuals that were imposed in the early 1980s after AIDS was first reported in this country. At the time little was known about the disease and how to treat it. Since then several drugs, with increasing effectiveness, have been developed to fight the disease and the virus that is now known to cause it.
Policy changes began in 2015 when a lifetime ban on blood donations from homosexual men was rescinded. It was replaced with a one-year abstinence requirement that was shortened to three months in 2020. The medical community reported no negative impact from those changes, and has advocated for further easing of restrictions.
The American Red Cross issued a statement endorsing the proposal, saying it has worked for many years to change the deferral policy.
“While the proposed eligibility change to an individual donor assessment marks significant progress, there is more work to be done and we will continue to provide data to the FDA in support of further progress,” the statement continued.
The government currently is taking public comments regarding the proposed change. Surely some people will oppose it; many, however, likely will be motivated by a general opposition to homosexuality rather than compelling medical reasons.
An opportunity to save more lives by increasing our nation’s blood supply, however, is too important to be driven by social rather than medical concerns.
We should be beyond making any generalizations on entire groups of people because a small number of them have acquired a disease that has become increasingly treatable over the years. Any policy that enables, and even encourages, more healthy people to donate blood should be welcomed and encouraged.
