FDA Changes Rules on Blood Donations

The stories are, fairly, focused on the ban that was aimed at gay and bisexual males, but the language also disallowed donations from any male who had been molested or raped by another male at any time in their life. So for male survivors this is also a very big deal. We have been blocked from donating blood unless we lied on the form about having sexual contact with another male in our lifetime. This made for some awkward conversations if you were involved in an organization that was conducting a blood drive. I’ve had some of them, in fact, when we were having an office-wide blood drive back when I worked in a law firm.

In fact, not only was I banned from donating blood prior to this change, but my wife was as well.

I’m glad they have at least gone this far. We can debate whether they need to go further for gay/bisexual men with active sex lives, but for now, it’s nice to know that there isn’t a lifetime stigma attached to survivors when it comes to donating blood.