2023-08-08 17:35:48
Washington, DC The Red Cross in the USA, The American National Red Cross (ARC), is relaxing the regulations according to which people can donate blood at the organization: Blood donors will no longer be evaluated on the basis of their sexual orientation.
Specifically, the Red Cross is changing the obligatory list of questions for potential donors. The organization published the updated regulations on Monday on your website published.
According to the ARC, all donors will answer the same questions in the future, regardless of their sex/gender and their sexual preferences. For example, all people who want to donate blood would be asked in the future whether they had new sexual partners or practiced anal sex in the past three months. The latter is no longer an absolute exclusion criterion. This means that men who have had anal sex with other men can donate blood if they have not had a new sex partner within the last three months.
Conversely, this means that heterosexuals who have recently had anal intercourse are not allowed to donate blood. Anal sex carries a higher risk of HIV transmission and condoms tend to break more often.
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© Hauke-Christian Dittrich / dpa
Transfusion Law before the change
© Rolf Vennenbernd/dpa
Update
Transfusion Law Amendment
Goal: Greater inclusion
With the implementation of the new rules, the Red Cross says it is trying to facilitate a more inclusive blood donation that “treats all people equally and with respect” while maintaining the safety of the blood donation. ARC also offers training to its staff to “make them more aware of the needs of all potential blood donors.”
In any case, donating blood for patients with HIV prophylaxis is out of the question: they have to wait three months after the last PrEP or PEP tablet – and even two years after an injection. ARC justifies this with the intervention of the preparations in the replication cycle of HI viruses and the more difficult detection of such an infection. HIV-infected people are still excluded from donating.
The Red Cross writes that they have long wanted to enable homosexual men to donate blood and have been evaluating data for decades. At the same time, ARC also uses it FDA guidelines changed in May um, which bases the possibility of donating blood on individual risks. (ajo)
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© nenovbrothers / stock.adobe.com
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