Daily Brew20 years after tainted-blood inquiry, new blood donation rules take effect
The long shadow of Canada's tainted blood scandal receded a little further Monday as new rules governing blood donations by gay men took effect.
The former lifetime ban on men who'd had sex with other men anytime since the late 1970s has been lifted in favour of rule barring those who've had sex in the last five years.
The rules covering donations via Canadian Blood Services and HEMA-Quebec were announced earlier this year to some controversy.
The lifetime ban on sexually active gay men was imposed more than 20 years ago after the Canadian blood system, then administered by the Red Cross, was rocked by revelations that at least 2,000 people had been infected with HIV and perhaps 30,000 with hepatitis C from transfusions of tainted blood and blood products.
The AIDS epidemic mushroomed in the 1980s, but the Red Cross did not begin testing for HIV until 1985 and hepatitis C until 1990 (there was no effective test before then). By then, Canada and other countries were reporting disease related to infected blood. Gay men were singled out as high-risk donors.
[ Related: Gay men can now donate blood in Canada, as long as they abstain from sex ]
With advancements in screening technology and a better understanding of the diseases, many countries rethought the permanent ban. Gay activists also lobbied to be allowed to once again donate blood.
With blood and essential blood products in chronic short supply, Canada joined other countries in reducing the ban, though some in the gay community still saw the no-sex waiting period as discriminatory.
In reporting the planned reduction last January, the gay and lesbian news site DailyXtra said critics still consider the five-year rule an outright ban on sexually active gay and bisexual men.
Canadian Blood Services spokesman Marc Plante told The Canadian Press the five-year rule is non-negotiable even if the would-be donor's blood has been successfully screened.
“We can’t make exceptions,” said Plante. “Those policies are there for safety reasons, and unfortunately we can’t pick and choose, as much as we’d love to. We can’t.”
But when the change was formally announced in May, Canadian Blood Services said the deferral period would be reviewed to see if it can be shortened some more.
CP noted that Britain and Australia have a one-year donation ban for men who've had gay sex, which is also being considered in the United States.
Blood agencies and Health Canada settled on the five-year ban because of lingering concerns about potential risks, CP reported.
“The five-year period was decided because there were concerns by transfusion recipients, and some experts in the field of transfusion medicine, that the population of men who are having sex with men could be a risk for future unknown pathogens that would emerge, just like, for example, HIV did emerge, and did struck more specifically certain groups,” HEMA-Quebec medical affairs vice president Marc Germain told CP.
“That was really the basis for the longer period that was applied.”
Critics of the whole approach signalled they'll continue to push for change.
“We’d like to see the donor model based on behaviour – rather than sexual orientation or gender,” Puelo Deir, a spokesman for the AIDS Community Centre in Montreal.
“[The new policy] definitely needs improvement. This is just a small step in the right direction – but there is still much work to do.”
[ Related: Payment for blood donors comes to Canada ]
But HEMA-Quebec's Marc Germain said such a system just wouldn't work, given the fact it collects upwards of 1,000 donations each day.
“We would have to add a considerable number of questions at the time of donor evaluation – which might not be practical,” he told CP.
The Canadian AIDS Society supports the five-year rule as a starting point, which hasn't made it popular in the gay community, Douglas Elliott, the organization's lawyer, told CP.
“More so [than other organizations] we have been willing to live with an interim change,” he said, adding the society eventually would like a behaviour-based screening system. “We recognize that you have to take baby steps, and the most important thing to do is make change in the first place.”
Neither of the blood agencies plans an awareness campaign to publicize the rule change because it's not expected to produce a large number of new donors.
