Review for Blood Donor Ban
posted: 13/02/2009
A health minister has said that an expert advisory body is reviewing the ban on men who have had sex with men from donating blood. The ban, intended to keep HIV and other blood-borne viruses like hepatitis out of the national blood supply, is coming under growing pressure.
Minister Dawn Primarolo was answering a Parliamentary question from Ashok Kumar, the Labour MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland. He asked if the Department for Health plans to allow gay men to donate blood.
Ms Primarolo, the Minister of State for Public Health, said: "Current policy excludes men who have ever had sex with men, whatever their sexual orientation, from blood donation. The United Kingdom adopts a highly precautionary approach to blood safety. The guiding principle is that if the best available evidence shows that there are reasonable grounds to believe that a course of action will improve the safety of the blood, this action should be taken."
Review underway this year
"The Department is committed to regularly reviewing this evidence, and has asked its expert advisory committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs to do this in 2009."
We also know that the department's expert advisory group on healthcare workers living with HIV and hepatitis is also carrying out a review. This follows Israel's recent decision to allow a surgeon living with HIV to continue working. The surgeon is on treatment and has an undetectable viral load in his blood, and the assessment is that there is no significant risk of transmission during surgery using clinical gloves.
The ban on gay men donating blood was in the national press again late last year when the National Blood Transfusion Service (NBS) was banned from advertising at some student unions.
The NBS insists it targets sexual behaviour and not sexual orientation, but in effect virgins are the only gay men whose blood will be accepted for donations. The pressure is on for the ban to be replaced with something that matches the real risks better.
What's this got to do with people living with HIV?
People living with HIV are affected too by the blanket blood donor ban. The blanket ban broadcasts to the public inaccurate messages about HIV transmission risks. It unhelpfully reinforces HIV stigma, shame and blame, as well as apparently institutionalising homophobia. The ban in its present form is hard to defend on scientific grounds - it is too sweeping.
Flaws in Blood Ban
The National Aids Trust commented "The test for HIV used by the blood service is not the most reliable test currently available. Furthermore, the only two options considered as an alternative to the current lifetime ban are no restrictions at all and a one year ban – but there are alternatives such as the New Zealand five-year ban. A lifetime ban becomes increasingly indefensible when, for example, there would be next to no one alive with undiagnosed HIV fifteen years after they were infected.
"The National Blood Service has said it is willingly to review the ban if there is any new evidence. But it should be doing more. Instead of an essentially passive approach it should be proactive in questioning this outdated policy and looking for an alternative to a blanket ban."
Blood Ban Defence
The NBS defended themselves saying: "While safer sex through the use of condoms, does reduce the transmission of infections, it cannot eliminate the risk altogether. The reason for this exclusion rests on specific sexual behaviour rather than the sexuality of the person wishing to donate. There is, therefore, no exclusion of gay men who have never had sex with a man, nor of women who have sex with women. The policy would only be changed on the basis of clear evidence that patients would not be put at jeopardy. In addition, scientific advances in virus testing and inactivation are monitored."
Similar blanket bans have already been abolished in South Africa, Spain and Italy.
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