[JURIST] The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) [official website] on Tuesday released a set of proposed guidelines [text, PDF] outlining a plan to end the national lifetime ban on blood donations from homosexual individuals. The ban, which many activists and medical groups say after 32 years in no longer justified, was enacted to prevent donations from donors at an increased risk of carrying HIV. The proposal suggests, among other things, that donations would be barred from male individuals who have engaged in sexual activity with another male within the previous year. Other countries including Australia, Japan and the UK have adopted similar measures in recent years. Many medical experts have stated that the lifetime ban is no longer supported by science. Gay activists claim that although the policy shift is progress in the right direction, the one-year deferral period still has the potential to stigmatize the homosexual community. David Stacy of the Human Rights Campaign [advocacy website] stated [AP report], “This policy prevents men from donating life-saving blood based solely on their sexual orientation rather than actual risk to the blood supply.”

Bans on blood donations from homosexual individuals garner much debate. In April the European Court of Justice restricted [JURIST report] bans on blood donations from homosexual men. Rather than instilling a blanket ban over the blood donations of all homosexual men, the ECJ stated that acceptance of donations should be determined on an individual basis. The court suggested that questionnaires and individual interviews with donors should be instituted in effort to weed out those with “high-risk sexual behaviour.” In 2013 a Northern Ireland judge ruled [JURIST report] that Health Minister Edwin Poots could not continue to enforce the lifetime ban on gay men donating blood, calling the law “irrational.” In September 2011 the UK Department of Health announced that it would lift the lifetime ban [JURIST report] on blood donations from men who have had sex with other men. In September 2010 an Ontario Superior Court judge ruled [JURIST report] that the Canadian Blood Services (CBS) is justified in prohibiting sexually active gay males from donating blood on the grounds that the CBS discriminates on the basis of health and safety considerations rather than on sexual orientation.