A panel that advises the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is expected to recommend a modification to the policy that bans gay and bisexual men from donating blood.
The American Red Cross says that the risk of getting AIDS from blood transfusions is minuscule, but since 1983, men who have had sex with men anytime after 1977 have not been able to donate blood in the United States. In Canada, Australia, and the U.K., men who have had sex with men have to wait one to five years after their last encounter, and Debra Kessler, director of special donor services at the new York Blood Center, told Bloomberg the U.S. is likely to adopt a one-year deferral.
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