Gay rights activists have criticised the Red Cross for allowing people with tattoos and piercings to donate blood half a year earlier than gay men.
Michael Cain from the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights group has pushed for the Australian Red Cross Blood Service (ARCBS) to explain why it has maintained its year-long waiting period on gay male blood donors.
The ARCBS reduced the waiting time to six months for people who’ve had acupuncture, tattoos or piercings in light of new testing that identified Hepatitis DNA.
Blood Service Safety Specialist Dr Tony Keller said the new testing was state of the art technology.
‘This more sensitive test means we can reduce the deferral period to 6 months,’ Keller said.
Cain called for a review of the current blood ban from an independent body for the sake of credibility.
He also criticised the ARCBS for an apparent lack of publicly-available medical evidence and a transparent decision-making process.
‘…the Red Cross decision-making process appears at best arbitrary and at worst homophobic,’ Cain said.
Back in 2005, Cain began his legal battle with the ARCBS and the case appeared in Tasmania’s Anti-discrimination Tribunal last year.
‘Epidemiological evidence presented by the Red Cross’s own advisors during my anti-discrimination case on gay blood donation showed that a six month gay deferral poses no risk to the blood supply,’ Cain said.
While Cain lost the court battle to reduce the waiting period to just six months, the ARCBS announced in April this year that it would review the current policy over the coming 12 months.
Similar stories have cropped up around the world, specifically in the US where the debate has sparked outrage and was recently reviewed by the national health department.
Despite 18 US senators publicly supporting a removal of the current lifetime ban on gay men donating blood, the hearing decided to uphold the ban last month.
Established in 1986 when the HIV/AIDS epidemic was at its peak, the current US policy prevents any man who had had sex with a man since 1977 from ever giving blood.
Coinciding with the Department of Health’s policy review, the Los Angeles-based Williams Institute published a report last month that estimated an extra 219,000 pints (103,000 litres) of blood each year could be available from nearly seven million men if the ban was lifted.
With a potential increase of 1.4 per cent to the nation’s blood supply, report co-author Gary Gates said lifting restrictions on blood donation by men who have had sex with men would help alleviate frequent blood shortages in the US.
Benn Dorrington
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