Gay blood donation lifetime ban could ease in U.S.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday that it plans to change its blood donor policy recommendation to allow gay men to donate blood one year after their last sexual contact.

The FDA's proposed policy would replace its current stance, which backs indefinite deferral for this group as part of its policies aimed at protecting blood supplies. It said the move puts the policy in line with that of other men and women who are at increased risk for HIV infection.

The FDA said it will issue draft guidance on the policy, hopefully early in 2015. It would then review the comments and issue final guidance "as quickly as possible," Peter Marks, deputy director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said during a press briefing.

An FDA advisory committee met earlier this month to discuss the issue around changing its policy for donations from men who have sex with men. Those discussions highlighted the effectiveness of new blood supply tests for HIV infections. In November, an advisory committee to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had recommended replacing the ban with the one-year deferral that the FDA is now proposing.

Marks said during the briefing that scientific evidence for a ban shorter than a year was not "compelling."

• Blood donation ban lifted for some men who have sex with men

In 2013, Health Canada announced it will allowmen to donate blood if they haven't had sex with a man in the last five years. Previously, men who said they had sex with a man, even once, since 1977, were not eligible to donate blood in Canada.