Health Canada and Canadian Blood Services made a similar change recently, too. It was about damn time, for sure. It made a cold sort of mathematical sense in the days before good HIV testing, antiretrovirals, & PrEP, but these days it was just an obviously homophobic and transphobic double standard.
They test ALL BLOOD and they hold it for a window of time as part of the testing to make sure there's nothing wrong with it so the blood doesn't act as a spreader. Unusable blood is destroyed and the donor is promptly notified thereafter. They were just bigoted assholes until now.
This is how they’re catching Covid persisting in the blood of folks post infection. Donations are showing up tainted with C-19 during the test and quarantine phase.
I’m glad it’s been addressed, even if it’s 30+ years late. a fair amount of science was ignored by multiple administrations to appease political supporters.
Yeah, we were well behind lots of other parts of the world on this. As someone who donates as often as I can, I'm glad they are letting more people, though the restrictions are still too onerous. They test this stuff very well nowdays and there isnt a scientific reason for the restrictions.
They quizzed you. There's a whole questionnaire you have to fill out, and a portion of it involves sexual history. Even if you were a married man whose only partner was your husband, and neither of you had any STI history, you were ineligible to donate.
Yeah, imagine shouting about how badly you need a specific blood type especially, and then turning people away with that blood type because one kid got a bad blood transfusion 40 years ago before they had the ability to test like we do today.
its really silly does this extend to other things or just blood?
i know here we stopped ages ago random people giving blood without getting checked because things like that happened but i think we just check its not diseased-
so many more lives could be helped with this perfectly good blood
I think it's all blood products, but I don't know about other tissue donation because I've never had to look into that. But blood and plasma is directly reactionary to the AIDS crisis in the 80s.
And not to belittle Ryan White. What happened to him was absolutely tragic, and that poor kid was treated horrendously as a result of everything as well, but this is literally the reason for all these stupid rules.
Were they afraid that it was contagious? Or just that gay blood was somehow inferior to straight blood? Where exactly did one have to land on the Kinsey scale to donate? Anyway, I'm glad this finally got changed even though I didn't know this was a thing until just now.
They were just being bigoted, but they had the excuse that the aids epidemic showed up first in the gay community. Therefore, gay men were the highest risk and could never ever donate ever.
There was little medicine or science in the decision. 
There's a questionnaire on the donation form. Men who have sexual history with other men within a certain time frame, is where you have to fall on the scale. And it used to be if you've ever had sex with another man, even once.
Imo it's just one instance among many that helps the ruling class of politicians and the oligarchs that pay off the politicians 2 keep us divided. That division leads 2 people being scared of each other and that makes it harder for the people 2 unite in order 2 force societal change 4 the better.
Next up, those of us that lived in the UK. Haven’t been there since 1983 but still can’t give blood. They have started loosening that in Australia but not the USA yet.
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Why'd not make HIV and other venerial diseases test of donor blood mandatory and disperse with this altogether?
It’s a goddamn shame.
Im more on the fact how do they know you are gay or bi, i havent given blood before idk what their procedure is
Homophobia runs deep truly
keeping the gay blood away > life saving blood
i know here we stopped ages ago random people giving blood without getting checked because things like that happened but i think we just check its not diseased-
so many more lives could be helped with this perfectly good blood
https://ryanwhite.hrsa.gov/about/ryan-white
There was little medicine or science in the decision. 
But I can guess why it might be happening now: blood shortages and rising demand because of an unmitigated pandemic that no one mentions...?
See This ?.!. On Conservative Mainstream Media?.!.
It's good to see this rule lifted but now we will have the issue of trans people having blood with hormonal treatments being denied.