The Let Us Give campaign has welcomed the end of Australia’s 22-year-old Mad Cow blood ban and has renewed its call for the gay blood ban to be lifted so there is a new source of safe blood for those in need.
From July 25th, Australians who lived in the UK between 1980 and 1996 and who were banned from blood donation because of the outbreak of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy of Mad Cow disease, will be able to donate.
Let Us Give spokesperson, Rodney Croome, said the organisation should also address the barriers that stop many gay men and bisexual men from donating as well.
“We congratulate the Red Cross Lifeblood Service on reforming outdated rules about Mad Cow disease so that there’s more blood for Australians in need.”
“It’s time to reform equally outdated rules against blood donation from gay men, and from bisexual men, transgender women and some non-binary people who have sex with men, so that we can also help save lives.” Croome said.
“We have safe blood and are ready to give so it makes no sense to retain the old ban.”
“It’s frustrating that the ban on us remains when other outdated blood bans are being removed.”
Let Us Give researcher, Dr Sharon Dane, urged the Red Cross Lifeblood Service to individually assess the risk of all donors in the same way as countries like the UK, Canada and France.
“In a growing number of countries the same screening question in relation to sexual activity is asked of all donors, with deferral based on risky sexual activity, not gender of sexual partner.”
“The latest clinical evidence from overseas shows that the safety of the blood supply is not jeopardised by individual risk assessment and there are reasons to believe the safety of donated blood may even be enhanced by it.”
The Red Cross Lifeblood Service has proposed the removal of the ban on gay men giving blood plasma, but Dr Dane said that will not solve the problem.
“There are regular shortages of whole blood in Australia and one obvious source of new whole blood is to allow donation from gay men who are safe to do so”
Dr Dane’s report on the latest clinical evidence, as well as policies adopted in other countries, can be found online.
A spokesperson for LifeBlood previously told the ABC that the situation in Australia is different to countries like Canada and the United Kingdom.
The spokesperson said they “understood the rules would exclude some groups”, but that although gay and bisexual men in declared monogamous relationships were low risk, they were “still at a higher risk of exposure than people in heterosexual relationships”.
“It makes sense for the UK and Canada to change their approach because the distribution of new and existing across their populations is evenly spread,” they said in a statement to the ABC.
“Based on our HIV patterns, we believe this would not maintain the present safety of the blood supply.” the Lifeblood representative said.
The Let Us Give campaign is auspiced by national LGBTIQA+ advocacy organisation Just.Equal Australia.
OIP Staff
You can support our work by subscribing to our Patreon
or contributing to our GoFundMe campaign.
