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census, there are 120.2 million males in the U.S. men are gay and 0.4 percent are bisexual based on the responses of more than 34,000 adults in a 2013 survey. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1.8 percent of U.S. How might that number change if men who have had sex with men were no longer prohibited from giving blood? After the American Medical Association voted against the FDA’s lifetime ban last year, board member William Kobler said the policy “is discriminatory and not based on sound science.” In a statement released last month, the American Association of Blood Banks, America’s Blood Centers and the American Red Cross said the FDA’s indefinite deferral was “medically and scientifically unwarranted,” recommending instead a 12-month deferral.Ĭurrently 9.2 million people donate blood in the United States each year, according to the American Red Cross. Several key groups have criticized the policy. The FDA says the regulation is based on a concern that, as a group, men who have had sex with men (“MSM” in policy documents) have an increased risk of certain infectious diseases that can be transmitted via blood transfusion, such as HIV and hepatitis B. If a male respondent answers yes, his donation is deferred without a time limit, meaning that he is not allowed to give blood indefinitely. The FDA questionnaire used to screen donors asks, “From 1977 to the present, have you had sexual contact with another male, even once?”
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The FDA began a two-day meeting Tuesday with an advisory panel that will review data and consider lifting the restriction. For the past 31 years, the Food and Drug Administration has prohibited blood donations from men who say they have had oral or penetrative sex with men.