Los Angeles – In response to an announcement this week by the federal Food and Drug Administration that it will revisit its policy on blood donation by gay and bisexual men, Equality California Executive Director Rick Zbur issued the following statement:
“The FDA’s call for public comment and willingness to revise its archaic and discriminatory policy is an encouraging sign. The FDA established its donor deferral policy in 1985 during a time of great ignorance and public anxiety about HIV and how it is transmitted, banning blood donation by men having sex with men (MSM) even once since 1977.
Last year, the agency amended the policy to allow donations by gay and bisexual men who have abstained from sex for at least one year, a change that still fails to keep pace with scientific advances in blood screening and understanding of HIV and that keeps in place overly broad and unnecessary restrictions that discriminate against the LGBT community. Rather than a step forward, the changes were merely window-dressing aimed at mollifying critics in the LGBT community and continued to single out gay and bisexual men for special scrutiny. The rules bar donations from an HIV-negative gay man in a monogamous relationship, but a promiscuous straight man who has had multiple instances of unprotected sex is allowed to donate.
Equality California’s “Every Drop Counts” initiative, has mobilized the LGBT community and its allies to send thousands of emails and letters to the FDA calling for an end to the ban. Equality California also sponsored a resolution in 2014, authored by Assemblymember Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica), and another in 2015 by Assemblymembers Bloom, Eduardo Garcia (D – Coachella) and Evan Low (D – Campbell), calling on the FDA to end its policies, based on fear and ignorance, and replace them with rules based on current science and understanding of HIV. Such policies – based on behavior and individual risk factors — have been adopted in Italy and other countries with no increase of HIV in the blood supply.
Equality California calls on the FDA to end the ban on donations by MSM. The current blood donation ban is opposed by not just by EQCA and other LGBT organizations, but by the American Red Cross, the American Association for Blood Banks, America’s Blood Centers, the American Medical Association and other medical organizations.
###
Equality California is the nation’s largest statewide lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization dedicated to creating a fair and just society. Our mission is to achieve and maintain full and lasting equality, acceptance, and social justice for all people in our diverse LGBT communities, inside and outside of California. Our mission includes advancing the health and well-being of LGBT Californians through direct healthcare service advocacy and education. Through electoral, advocacy, education and mobilization programs, we strive to create a broad and diverse alliance of LGBT people, educators, government officials, communities of color and faith, labor, business, and social justice communities to achieve our goals. www.eqca.org
