(Washington) The American health authorities proposed Friday a new relaxation of the restrictions governing, since the 1980s and the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, the blood donations of homosexual and bisexual men.
They must currently abstain from having sex for three months if they want to donate blood, even if they are in an exclusive relationship.
The new measures proposed by the American Medicines Agency, the FDA, would end this 90-day abstinence period in favor of an individual risk assessment for each donor.
As the AIDS epidemic wreaked havoc in the 1980s, the FDA imposed a total ban on blood donation to gay and bisexual men to prevent the spread of the virus through blood products.
Under the new guidelines, potential donors will have to complete a questionnaire and indicate in particular if they have had new sexual partners in the last three months, or if they have had several, as is customary for heterosexuals.
Those who report having had new or multiple sex partners would then be asked if they had anal sex during this time. Otherwise, they would not be able to donate blood.
Even after this possible easing, people who tested positive for HIV or who took medication to treat an HIV infection would continue to be unable to donate blood.
“This proposal for an individual risk assessment regardless of gender or sexual orientation will allow us to continue to use the best scientific procedures” to “maintain a safe and sufficient supply of blood and blood products in the United States” , an “overarching goal for the FDA,” agency chief Robert Califf said in a statement.
The FDA said the new guidelines would be consistent with similar rules in place in Canada and Britain.
These measures will be open to public debate for 60 days, before being reviewed and finalized.