Blood banks are starting to implement new government guidance that allows more people to donate, gay men in particular.
KNX News reporter Emily Valdez spoke with Terry Brown, who has been waiting for decades to give blood again.
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Brown said, "So I started giving when I was in high school and then through college," but in the early eighties, due to the AIDS epidemic, he was no longer able to give because he's a gay man.
Thanks to the new guidance released by FDA earlier this year, he was able to roll up his sleeves once again and donate blood.
Brown happens to work for L.A. Care as the blood donation organizer and said it felt terrific to be able to donate again and has no doubt that the new rules will drive more people to donate.
The new rules say - anyone who's taken PrEP by injection cannot donate for two years, if the individual is taking a PrEP pill, they cannot donate for three months.
Also, regardless of ones gender or orientation, anyone who's had multiple sex partners in the last three months and engaged in specific sex acts is unable to donate.
The rationale is that PrEP, a class of drugs that prevents HIV infection, could prevent HIV from being detected in individuals who recently started on the medication.
Though this scenario is uncommon, the FDA has decided to err on the side of caution.
Proposed guidance related to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) or post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP):
- Those taking oral medications to prevent HIV infection such as PrEP or PEP would be deferred for three months from their most recent dose.
- Those taking injectable PrEP to prevent HIV infection would be deferred for two years from their most recent injection.
- Some blood establishments currently have deferral policies related to the use of medications to prevent HIV infections.
- The available data demonstrate that the use of PrEP and PEP may delay detection of HIV by licensed screening tests for blood donations, potentially resulting in false negative results.
According to the FDA website, the agency recognizes that the draft recommendations will still leave some individuals unable to donate blood and urges those taking PrEP not to discontinue the medication in order to donate blood.
The FDA says it will continue to track the latest data regarding PrEP and blood donation.
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Other considerations in the guidance include:
- The time-based deferrals for men who have sex with men (MSM) and women who have sex with MSM would be eliminated.
- The current donor history questionnaire would be revised to ask all prospective donors about new or multiple sexual partners in the past three months.
- Prospective donors who report having a new sexual partner, or more than one sexual partner in the past three months, would then be asked about a history of anal sex in the past three months.
- All prospective donors who report having a new sexual partner or more than one sexual partner and had anal sex in the past three months would be deferred from donation.
- Under this proposal, a prospective donor who does not report having new or multiple sexual partners, and anal sex in the past three months, may be eligible to donate, provided all other eligibility criteria are met.
- No change in the donor deferral time periods for other HIV risk factors, including for individuals who have exchanged sex for money or drugs or have a history of non-prescription injection drug use.
- Any individual who has ever had a positive test for HIV or who has taken any medication to treat HIV infection would continue to be deferred permanently.
- Blood establishments would still be required to test all blood donations for evidence of certain transfusion-transmitted infections, including HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C.
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