Blood-donation ban for gay men gets 2nd look

Gay men who wish to donate blood in Britain will no longer be banned from giving a move also being considered by Canada.

The U.K. health department said Thursday it will lift the ban on donations by gay men as long their last sexual contact with another man was more than one year ago.

Canadian Blood Services and its counterpart Hma Qubec are alsoreconsidering their bans. The final decision rests with Health Canada.

"Certainly our hope is that in the near future we can move away from a permanent ban to something that is more reasonable," Jean-Paul Bdard, vice-president of public affairs for Canadian Blood Services said in an interview with CBC News.

Since the 1980s, blood agencies in several industrialized countries have permanently deferred blood donations from men who have sex with men because of the possibility of infection with HIV/AIDS.

Canadian Blood Services, Hma-Qubec and blood agencies in other countries require donors to fill in a questionnaire about their medical history and potentially harmful behaviour. Intravenous drug users, people with possible exposure to Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, those who have exchanged money for sex and men who have sex with men are all permanently deferred from giving blood.

Since then, countries such as Australia, Japan, Hungary and Sweden have adopted deferral periods on donations from men who have sex with men.

Deferral periods vary, with the U.K. deciding on an 12-month deferral period. Other countries use five-year and 10-year deferrals, Bdard said.

Deferral periods

A committee will assess the latest Canadian scientific evidence and consult with stakeholders such as Health Canada and patient groups in making the change, Bdard added.

"In our case, we're absolutely certain that going from a lifetime deferral to a five-year deferral or even a one-year deferralbecause that's what we were promoting a couple of years ago would absolutely make no difference in terms of the risk of HIV [transmission]," said Marc Germain of Hma-Qubec.

Lawyer Adrian Lomaga of Toronto, who has been fighting Hma-Qubec's ban in the courts, welcomed the news. "Given the research I've seen to date, I think a 12-month deferral period is reasonable. I'm comfortable with that as being a deferral period in Canada," said Lomaga, who filed the lawsuit when he was a student at McGill University in Montreal.

"I don't think it would increase in any significant way the risk to the blood recipients in Canada," he told The Canadian Press.

Lomaga withdrew the case after his legal team was told by lawyers for Health Canada that the Canadian policy was under review and might be changed within the year.