Sen. Al Franken is among 16 senators calling on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to end the ban on blood donations by gay men. In a letter to FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg on Thursday, the senators called the policy “medically and scientifically unsound” and called out the double standard placed on gay men who want to be donors.
“Prospective donors who have engaged in heterosexual sexual activity with a person known to have HIV are deferred for one year,” the letter said. “At the same time, male donors who engaged in protected homosexual sexual activity with a monogamous partner 26 years ago are deferred for life.”
The senators also urged the commissioner to focus on unprotected sex as a determination for prospective blood donors. “Unprotected sexual activity, whether homosexual or heterosexual, is recognized as a significantly higher risk behavior for HIV transmission than protected sexual activity.”
The current ban on gay blood donors was instituted in 1983, when not much was known about HIV infection. Currently the blood supply undergoes rigorous testing for HIV and other blood borne pathogens.
