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The FDA says detection of HIV infection is particularly difficult when there are very low levels of the virus in a donor’s blood, such as during the first 12 days after a person becomes infected. Since new testing methods went into effect in 1999, according to Benjamin, there have been only four known HIV transmissions through blood transfusions. That’s a very low failure rate, but Benjamin and others said it can still pose a danger because there are more than 20 million transfusions in the United States each year. Yet even scientists who oppose the ban acknowledge that the threat to the blood supply from HIV has not been eliminated.īenjamin, other scientists and the FDA agree that today’s tests fail to detect fewer than one in a million HIV-infected donors. “It makes you feel like less than an equal person.” “I was shocked in this day and age, with all the advances in science, that something as simple as wanting to donate blood was even an issue,” he said. Rohner, who said he gets tested regularly for HIV and has never tested positive, said he learned of the FDA’s blood donation policy when he was turned away from a blood drive last year. “I know many straight people who live a more risky lifestyle with multiple partners and unsafe sex,” said Jon Rohner, a 29-year-old gay man from Louisville.
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Activists said it’s not fair that the lifetime ban applies to gay men in monogamous, long-term relationships but not to heterosexual men who, for example, have had sex with a prostitute. More than 40 organizations signed a letter to the HHS committee in 2010 saying the current policy makes no effort to distinguish between men at high risk or low risk for HIV. Some activists said federal policies should be based on behavior, not the risk profile of certain populations. Given the effectiveness of testing, “it’s hard for me to support a policy stigmatizing a particular community,” Lindsey said. Kali Lindsey, public affairs director of the nonprofit National Minority AIDS Council, said he does not even like the idea of a year-long waiting period for men who have sex with men. That’s why this policy makes no sense,” said Darlene Nipper, deputy executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. That donor’s blood is never given to another person further testing is done to provide more conclusive information to the donor.īenjamin said such precautions are an effective way to reduce the transmission of HIV, even if donors don’t tell the truth about their medical or sexual history. If an initial test is “reactive,” or seems to be positive, scientists retest the blood the next day, but they discard all the blood from that donor even if the second test is negative. That means there’s a slim chance a donor could have the virus and not have it detected through screening.įor an extra measure of safety, Benjamin said, five tubes of blood are collected during blood donation and sent to a lab that same evening to test for HIV and other viruses. A person who was infected within 12 days of donating blood might test negative, although Benjamin said that on average infected people will test positive nine to 11 days after exposure. blood banks introduced in 1999, will pick up HIV infections that occurred as recently as 12 days before the test, he said. The highly sensitive nucleic acid test, which U.S. blood supply decades ago but that scientific advances have allowed much earlier and better detection of the virus that causes AIDS.īenjamin said everyone who wants to donate blood through the American Red Cross is screened for HIV. Benjamin said that HIV was a much bigger threat to the U.S.