Gay Men Can Now Donate Life-Savg Bone Marrow. Will Blood Follow?

Contents:

• GAY MEN CAN NOW DONATE LIFE-SAVG BONE MARROW. WILL BLOOD FOLLOW?
• SCHAKOWSKY CALLS ON FDA TO LIFT LIFETIME BAN ON BLOOD/BONE MARROW DONATION BY GAY AND BISEXUAL MEN

GAY MEN CAN NOW DONATE LIFE-SAVG BONE MARROW. WILL BLOOD FOLLOW?

5 ln people currently enrolled the Natnal Bone Marrow Registry, there’s only a 1 430 chance volunteers will ever be lled upon to donate for Pagels, the challenge is also of her iends are gay or bisexual and historilly unable to donate to blood centers unr Feral Dg Admistratn policy. Acctomed to beg turned away om blood centers due to the fear they might transm HIV, Pagels’ gay and bisexual male iends were worried they wouldn’t be able to help her l of people wa at the OneBlood Donatn Center to donate blood for the jured victims of the Pulse nightclub shootg on June 12, 2016 Orlando, Florida.

Gay and bisexual men ntued to be turned away for bone marrow donatn until last year, as Medium wrer John Colucci found out when he attempted to sign up for the registry Febary 2015.

”RELATED: FDA Rensirs Gay Blood BanJason Cianctto, the Vice Print of Policy, Advocy and Communitns at Harlem Uned, believ if allowg MSMs to donate tissue has had no negative impact on the bone marrow registry, the FDA should do the same for blood donatn. “[The 12-month ferral perd] is a scientifilly unsound policy that particularly stigmatiz gay and bisexual male muni, as well as transgenr women, ” he told NBC Out. “It rri forward the false notn that HIV is a gay disease.

SCHAKOWSKY CALLS ON FDA TO LIFT LIFETIME BAN ON BLOOD/BONE MARROW DONATION BY GAY AND BISEXUAL MEN

Gay and bisexual men who are HIV-negative and who practice safe sex, are married and monogamo relatnships, or on PrEP—and if they’re takg regularly, have ltle to no risk of ntractg HIV—are effectively banned for life. The ernment body has currently said ’s reviewg s impact of allowg gay and bisexual men to donate blood is impossible to unrtimate. NOVEMBER 13, 2003SCHAKOWSKY CALLS ON FDA TO LIFT LIFETIME BAN ON BLOOD/BONE MARROW DONATION BY GAY AND BISEXUAL MENWASHINGTON, D.

Reprentative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), a member of the Energy and Commerce Commtee, exprsed her ncern about the "antiquated and discrimatory system of screeng for blood donors, " addg that banng gay and bisexual men om donatg blood "appears to be a se of iology beg placed before science. "Schakowsky qutned why a "gay man a monogamo relatnship pos the greatt risk and should be sgled out for a lifetime ban on blood donatn, " while a "heterosexual man who has vised prostut or has had terurse wh an HIV posive dividual, is only banned for 1 year. "Schakowsky lled on the FDA to provi "the scientific basis upon which the FDA is basg the lifetime ban on blood donatns om HIV-negative gay and bisexual men, " pecially when Nucleic Acid Ttg (NAT) for HIV has cut the wdow of time between fectn and tectn to a matter of the letter, Schakowsky explaed that this issue was brought to her attentn by "one of my nstuents, a gay HIV-negative man who has been a mted, monogamo relatnship wh another HIV-negative man for 12 years.