The American Red Cross is now allowing gay and bisexual men to donate blood without restrictions that specifically single out a person’s sexual orientation or gender, the nonprofit group said Monday.
The American Red Cross is now allowing gay and bisexual men to donate blood without restrictions that specifically single out a person’s sexual orientation or gender, the nonprofit group said Monday.
This started off when HIV was much more prominent in the gay and bisexual male population than anyone else. The Red Cross, among other organizations, decided it was better to just deny blood from gay and bi males than to check all their samples for HIV. Similarly, you can’t give blood if you were in certain locations in the '80s and '90s due to potential exposure to Mad Cow Disease. At this point, while HIV is still somewhat more prevalent in that demographic, rates have gone down significantly and HIV has spread to the other demographics. It’s also easier to test for than it was then. Repealing these restrictions was proposed quite some time ago and didn’t face any real pushback, but bureaucracy is going to bureaucracy, so it’s taken years to get this settled.
It wasn’t the Red Cross, it was the FDA. This article phrases it as the Red Cross loosening restrictions because the FDA ended the ban in May, and the Red Cross’s own procedural bureaucracy is just now catching up.
Person who lived in Europe in the early 90s here. Couldn’t give blood until earlier this year due to the Mad Cow restrictions.