(Or more appropriately, men who have sex with men, ’cause they don’t all consider themselves gay.)

The FDA re-affirmed a ban on blood donations from anyone who has had sexual contact with another man since 1977 , even if they’ve had negative HIV tests, are monogamous, practice safer sex, etc.

Is this a poor public health decision? Yes.

If the goal is truly to prevent HIV from getting into the blood supply, which I obviously agree with, then shouldn’t there be some sort of other screening for everyone? Screening criteria don’t ask anything about how many partners a person has had , or if he or she has unprotected sex–only if a person has contracted gonorrhea/chlamydia in the last year (which can be asymptomatic), or if a person has received money or something of value in exchange for sex.

With black, heterosexual women being the fastest growing population with HIV in the US, why isn’t the FDA changing its screening guidelines? If you’re going to make your algorithm based on sexual exposure, apply it to everyone. Right now, a man or woman who has had 100 sexual partners can donate blood without being questioned by anyone at the blood bank. We know that HIV does not just affect the 4H club (homosexuals, hemophiliacs, Haitians, and hemophiliacs)–why does the FDA continue to use 1980s screening methods that assume so?

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