Canadian Panel Rejects U-Turn on Gay Blood Donor Ban

Concluding that patient safety outweighs the risk of discrimination, a Canadian advisory panel rejected calls to abandon a 15-year-old screening procedure that prohibits male homosexuals from giving blood. "It is prudent to continue to qualify donors for donation through application of criteria that reduce the chance of infectious blood being collected," the 11-member panel said on Nov. 9. The decision came after a three-day conference by Canadian Blood Services and Héma-Québec held to determine whether revisions in national blood screening procedures were necessary.

Gay groups had argued that the current prohibition on blood donations by homosexual men should be lifted to focus on high-risk behavior, such as unprotected anal sex, rather than automatically ruling out a broad group of people. Potential male donors are "deferred" for life if they answer yes to the question, "Have you had sex with a man, even one time, since 1977?"

Ron Chaplin, spokesperson for Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere, told the conference that the procedures "contribute to homophobia. They portray gay and bisexual men as carriers of transmissible diseases." Opponents of the prohibition argued that more sophisticated blood testing procedures make it possible to detect HIV at an earlier stage, and they called on Canada to follow the lead of countries like South Africa and New Zealand, which have lowered time limits on donations by men who have had gay sex.

But the Canadian Hemophilia Society (CHS) and other groups argued that the screening procedures are justified. If the system is to err, said CHS spokesperson Bill Mindell, "then we want errors to be made in favor of the recipient of the blood." In the end, the panel ruled that the "risk of the perception of discrimination is outweighted by the benefit of recipient safety."

Back to other CDC news for November 29, 2001

Previous Updates