New Study Could Lift Ban on Gay and Bi Blood Donors

The FDA is starting an exciting new study that could end the archaic blood-donation restrictions put on bi, gay, and queer men. The federal agency announced a first-of-its-kind pilot study called ADVANCE: Assessing Donor Variability And New Concepts in Eligibility. The news comes just after a landmark change in blood donor rules in the U.K.

The study called upon three of America’s largest blood-donation centers as well as LGBTQ community centers nationwide to determine if donor eligibility can be assessed on an individual basis instead of sweeping bans.

“Big news reported by ABC regarding the restrictions that prevent gay and bi men, and others from the LGBTQ community from donating blood,” GLAAD said on Twitter. “We’ve been pushing for the FDA to lift this discriminatory ban entirely.”

As OUT FRONT has previously reported, in the U.S., men who have sex with men (referred to as MSM in this context) are barred from donating blood if they have had sex with another man within the past three months. That deferral period was shortened from 12 months earlier this year when the COVID pandemic left hospitals short on blood donations.

For years, LGBTQ advocacy groups have been fighting this, saying that blanket bans on MSM—a holdover from the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and 90s—aren’t fair or scientifically sound.

News of the FDA’s new pilot study comes just one day after the U.K.’s National Health Service unveiled groundbreaking, new guidelines for MSM blood donations. Under the new rules, which will go into effect next summer, all potential donors will be assessed in a “more individualized” way. Health officials in Northern Ireland also relaxed the country’s blood donation rules earlier this year.

In a statement to ABC News, a spokesperson for the FDA said the agency “remains committed to considering alternatives to time-based deferral by generating the scientific evidence that is intended to support an individual risk assessment-based blood donor questionnaire.” There is no word on whether another COVID-related blood shortage could speed up the study.