Gay and bi men may soon be able to donate plasma due to coronavirus after 37-year ban

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced it will be “commencing a pilot study” to determine if a change is needed to its policy barring gay and bisexual men from donating blood and plasma during the coronavirus pandemic, according to ABC News.

After the U.S. Surgeon General called on Americans to donate blood and plasma due to the need brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, Lukus Estok, a survivor of COVID-19, went to donate his antibody-rich plasma to the New York Blood Center, ABC reported.

But when he revealed that he was a gay man, he was turned away, he wrote in a Facebook post.

“The tone. The facial expression (even with a mask on). The very temperature in the room appeared to change,” Estok wrote. “They responded in a terse [manner]. ‘Well you won’t be donating today.’”

Andy Cohen, host of “Watch What Happens Live,” revealed that he, too, can’t donate plasma because of his sexuality after he was diagnosed with the highly contagious virus in March.

“I signed up for a program for COVID-19 survivors where you could donate plasma, which is rich in antibodies, to those still battling the virus,” he said on the show. “I was told that due to antiquated and discriminatory guidelines by the FDA to prevent HIV, I am ineligible to donate blood because I’m a gay man.”

Gay and bisexual men have been prevented from donating blood in the U.S. since 1983, when the FDA implemented the lifetime ban in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, researchers wrote in the National Center for Biotechnology Information. The policy remained in place until 2015, when the FDA revised the guidelines from a lifetime ban to a 12-month deferral period, which was shortened to three-months earlier this month in response to the pandemic.

But outdated computer systems and personnel training have prevented many donation centers from applying the FDA’s new guidelines, The Guardian reported. America’s Blood Centers estimates it will take two to three months, on average, for donation centers to implement the updates, Kate Fry, the organization’s chief executive, told The Guardian.

That time gap could be a matter of life and death in a time of crisis, especially when health professionals are seeking plasma donations from antibody-rich individuals, according to a letter written and signed by over 500 health professionals across the country, found on GLAAD’s website. GLAAD is a non-government media monitoring organization that strives to change cultural perceptions of LGBTQ people, according to its website.

“We — the undersigned infectious disease and HIV specialists, public health professionals, clinicians, healthcare administrators, trainees and researchers — recommend an immediate reevaluation of the FDA’s 2018 ‘Revised Recommendation for Reducing the Risk of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Transmission by Blood and Blood Products’ and an overturning of the scientifically outdated ban against MSM blood donors,” the letter reads.”While the FDA’s recent decision to shorten the prohibition window to 3 month is a step in the right direction, it does not go far enough in reversing the unscientific ban.”

Twenty state attorneys general signed a letter addressed to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday, urging for restrictions on blood donations to be eased.

“The discriminatory restrictions against blood donations by healthy gay and bisexual Americans have persisted for far too long; the steps you have taken acknowledge current rules are informed more strongly by bias than science,” read the letter, signed by attorneys general from states including California, Illinois and New York.

The New York Blood Center told FOX 5 New York that they hope to begin accepting gay and bisexual men as donors by mid-may. The FDA told Good Morning America that they are “working to commence a pilot study that will enroll about 2000 men who have sex with men and who would be willing to donate blood,” ABC reported.

“This study, being conducted at community health centers in key locations across the United States, could generate data that will help the FDA determine if a donor questionnaire based on individual risk assessment would be as effective as time-based deferrals in reducing the risk of HIV,” the FDA told ABC.

This story was originally published April 24, 2020 at 3:03 PM with the headline "Gay and bi men may soon be able to donate plasma due to coronavirus after 37-year ban."