Russia & France to Lift Bans on Blood Donations by Gay Men

Russia is planning to lift its ban on blood donations from gay men, a Moscow-based gay rights is claiming, and France will follow suit, according to a published media report.

Project Gay Russia, a gay advocacy group, claims the country's Office of the General Prosecutor and Ministry of Health made the decision in response to a request sent last May by two of the group's activists, Nikolai Alekseev and Nikolai Baev.

Russian health officials have not commented publicly on the issue, and the claim by Project Gay Russia could not be independently verified.

"The Ministry of Health has informed us that this instruction will be shortly amended, and gays will not be forbidden anymore to give their blood," Baev is quoted as saying in a news release on the gay group's website.

Alekseev said in the release the change was of landmark significance to the country's gay population.

"A symbolic discrimination will end. This is probably the first positive gain for gay Russians since 1993, which saw the decriminalisation of male homosexuality," added Nikolai Alekseev.

France is also moving in the same direction on this issue, according to a report in the French publication Le Monde.

Last week, Minister of Health Xavier Bertrand announced that the prohibition on blood donations by gay men would end.

"The current permanent prohibition aimed at 'men having sexual relations with other men' doesn't seem acceptable to me, since it in effect stigmatized a population and not certain practices. So it's going to be eliminated," Minister of Health Xavier Bertrand told Le Monde. Is Australia next?
Australia's ban on blood donations from gay men is also under scrutiny. The Australian Red Cross Blood Service (ARCBS) currently bans blood donations from gay or bisexual men who have been sexually active within 12 months.

In the United States, the Food & Drug Administration administered a ban in the early 1980s on blood donations from any men who have had sexual contact with another man since 1977. The ban, intended to protect the blood supply from HIV-infected donations, was reconsidered by the agency in September 2000. But the FDA rejected a proposal then to soften the ban to allow donations by gay and bisexual men who had no sexual contact with another man for the last five years.

Canada, England and Ireland have similar blood donation bans. Italy, on the hand, permits gay men to donate but screens based on risky sexual or drug-related behavior. The Italian health minister recently admonished a hospital in Milan for refusing a blood donation from a man because he is gay.
(Source:WashingtonBlade.com)