The new rule prohibits gay and bisexual men from donating blood unless they have abstained from sex for the past three months. The prior ruling was no sexual contact for a year.
“I just think right now they're being overly cautious,” said Dr. Mark Watkins, a physician with the Mazzoni Center.
Still, Watkins commends the FDA for making the change.
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“It still is great. I pat them on the back for restructuring the guidelines that have not been reorganized for over a decade, so I hope they will start taking a look at the science,” he added.
Watkins noted that all donated blood is tested for HIV.
“Our present test has an accuracy rate of about 95% within three weeks after a person is exposed to HIV,” he said. “The rest of the people will all have a zero conversion blood level of antibodies that could be measured in the next three months, so that's why we're saying a three-month time period. By then, if you get infected, the blood test would be positive.”
Watkins said antibodies from recovered COVID-19 patients are in demand. They're harvested by removing cells from blood donations, which leaves just the plasma.
“And that is then given to somebody who is critically ill, on a ventilator, to hope that your antibodies will then attack the virus in their bloodstream,” he explained.
While a three-month requirement is certainly better than 12 months, Hugh E. Dillon, a Philadelphia photographer who is recovering from COVID-19, argued that any mandatory length of abstaining is still too long.
“It's ridiculous that you would discriminate against gay people for donating blood,” he said.
He said restrictions against a certain population of donors is presumptive.
“People who might be very sexually active, they're going to take their blood and I'm sure they're going to test it for HIV as well, so I feel very discriminated against,” he said. “I mean, I'm happily married.”
Dillon was looking forward to donating blood to help others recover.
“We are the first batch of people that are negative and have these antibodies that can save these people that are suffering and dying right now, and it was a real slap in the face,” he said. “There won't be as many people on ventilators. It's needed now.”