The Australian Red Cross Blood Service is set to review its policy which prevents many gay men from donating blood.

Men who have had sex with other men in the past 12 months are banned from donating blood because of concerns about higher rates of HIV in the gay community.

But gay activists say the Red Cross should be screening for safe sex.

To ensure the safety of its supplies the Red Cross Blood Service asks many questions of its donors. It says one in nine people are turned away because they are low in iron.

Others are turned away because they have had a recent dental filling or some may be rejected because they have had a body piercing.

But one question in particular stops healthy gay men from donating.

Red Cross spokesman Nicholas McGowan says being gay does not mean a man would be deferred under the current policy.

"The people who are deferred under this policy are males who've had sex with males in the last 12 months," he said.

"Males who haven't had sex with males in the last 12 months are actually eligible to donate blood so it doesn't exclude everyone.

"It is a specific type of act if you will and that act, of course, and the decision is based on the prevalence of HIV-AIDS in that particular community."

Mr McGowan says numerous questions of a highly personal nature are asked of everyone who donates blood in order to identify behaviour which would pose a threat to the blood supply.

"People obviously fill those questions down in good faith and respond in good faith and that will continue to be the way until, of course, we review this particular policy," he said.

Campaign for change

It is a policy that Tasmanian man Michael Cain has been campaigning to end.

"This is where we have a problem because it is not a matter of gay sex. Gay sex isn't what transmits HIV or any other blood borne diseases. It is unsafe sex and this is what we said from the outset," he said.

In 2008 Mr Cain took the Australian Red Cross Blood Service to the Anti-Discrimination Tribunal and lost.

He says there was not enough research to prove that some gay men are low-risk donors.

But he says the tribunal did recommend the Red Cross review its policy.

"As far as the statistics go this is the problem that we had in court. The research that has only ever been done has been done on areas where there is a higher risk," Mr Cain said.

"So what we want to do is more of a lifestyle study, a gay community lifestyle study where it assesses the greater gay population so we understand that not all of us are as high risk as some of us that live in inner city suburbs or visit on sex premises sites.

"Some of us do live in suburban areas. Some of us are perfectly fine to live in monogamous couples, monogamous relationships and so on and practice safe sex."

Mr Cain points to the example of Spain, which has changed laws so that they screen for the sexual safety of the person donating blood as opposed to the gender of the person that they are sleeping with.

"I think Italy has done the same thing. Other countries like South Africa have for six months and a lot of other countries are under review," he said.

"At the moment we are seeing in the United States senators petitioning to the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) to even review their blood ban, their lifetime ban, so around the world we are starting to see this change in understanding of what is high risk and what is safe."

The Red Cross Blood Service has not set a date for the review to report, but it says it will consult widely with federal and state health authorities and it will include the latest international medical research.