Restrictions on certain blood donors date to the early 1980s, during the height of the AIDS epidemic in the United States, when the FDA instituted a lifetime ban on any man who had had sex with another man since 1977. “If the scientific evidence supports the use of the different questions, it could mean men who have sex with men who present to donate would be assessed based upon their own individual risk for HIV infection and not according to when their last sexual contact with another man occurred,” a statement on the Advance website reads. The results could ultimately determine whether the FDA changes its blood-donor history questionnaire, asked of all potential donors to assess risk factors for infection by transfusion-transmissible diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis B.
Participants must be 18 to 30, have had at least one male sex partner in the last three months and be willing to donate blood. Approximately 2,000 men who have sex with men (MSM) will be recruited at community health centers in San Francisco Los Angeles Memphis, Tennessee Atlanta Orlando, Florida Miami Washington, D.C.
