Explaining the MSM Deferral
You can lobby for change without jeopardizing an adequate blood supply.
If eligible people decide not to donate, or if deferred people encourage others not to donate in protest of this policy, the blood supply may be further jeopardized and patients may not receive life-saving blood products. There is no substitute for blood. Every day we rely on volunteer blood donors to give the gift of life. We urge eligible people to continue to donate blood so that we can continue to serve patients whose lives depend on it.
If you disagree with the current FDA policy, you can:
• Learn more about the FDA policy, Contact the FDA
• Contact your U.S. congressional
representatives in the house and senate.
Relevant contact information:
Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER)
Food and Drug Administration
1401 Rockville Pike
Rockville, MD 20852-1448
AABB
8101 Glenbrook Road
Bethesda, MD 20814-2749
http://www.aabb.org
Stanford Blood Center’s mission is to provide a safe and adequate blood supply to the local hospitals that we serve. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) set criteria for blood donor eligibility at the national level. All blood donor centers in the U.S. must adhere to these standards in screening potential donors. The intent of these standards is to maximize the safety of the blood supply; the standards are not intended to send a message to any individual regarding his or her infectious disease status. The blood center in no way endorses homophobia or racial stereotypes.
All blood centers in the U.S. perform a variety of tests for infectious agents, including two tests for HIV. However, there is no 100 percent reliable test for every infectious disease that can be transmitted through blood. For every infectious agent, there is a “window” (delay) between the time of exposure and the time that a laboratory test is able to detect evidence of infection in a person’s blood. During this “window,” donor questioning for potential exposure to the infectious agent serves as the only protection of the blood supply. This is why the FDA requires all blood centers to question donors about activities that are associated with an increased risk of exposure to infectious agents. The FDA requires the use of broad donor screening questions that select a low-risk donor population. These questions are developed with input from the U.S. public health service. Blood centers rely on donors answering all medical history questions honestly.
According to statistics from the public health service, men who have sex with men continue to represent a population at increased risk of acquiring HIV infection. Although heterosexual spread of HIV is increasing nationally, in California men who have sex with men continue to account for approximately 2/3 of HIV infections.
Blood centers across the country exclude large numbers of healthy people every year to increase the safety of the blood supply. For example, hundreds of thousands of donors are deferred each year due to travel to malaria risk regions in Mexico, Central, and South America, even though malaria is rarely acquired by travelers to these regions. Restrictions designed to protect the blood supply cause the eligible pool of donors to shrink each year. As a result, blood centers across the nation struggle to provide adequate blood supplies. Currently, only 39 percent of the U.S. population is eligible to donate blood.
Stanford Blood Center believes the FDA policy is overly restrictive and supports AABB, America’s Blood Centers and the American Red Cross’s recommendations that the FDA change the current deferral to only a one-year, rather than lifetime, deferral. This would provide a temporary deferral similar to other HIV risk factors. You can take an active role to change the policy by contacting the FDA and your U.S. congressional representatives. Please see the side bar above for more information.