File Photo A draft review of New Zealand's blood donation laws has recommended dropping the ban period for gay and bisexual men from five years from the time they have had anal or oral sex with another man, to one year. Currently any man who has had sex with another man in the past five years is banned from giving blood, due to higher HIV rates among the group. A team invited by New Zealand Blood Service to carry out a review says this should be reduced to a year for the group the health research world dubs ‘MSM’, citing the fact Australia has had a twelve month stand-down for the past ten years, with no evidence of HIV transmission. It adds that advances in donation testing and handling mean errors have now been virtually eliminated from the system, and the biggest risk of HIV entering the blood supply is during the very early ‘window period’ when it can’t yet be reliably detected. The review group says there has also apparently been a high level of compliance with the five year ban among gay and bi men. While it also considered a six month deferral period, this was dismissed “largely on the basis that there is no evidence of how it will work in practice, nor evidence from modelling, and there is less margin for error in misjudging time since last sexual contact.” The group also rejected a risk based assessment of actual sexual behaviour, as no research has been published in the area, and it would also mean gay and bi men would be hit with invasive in-depth questions about their sex lives. “There is evidence that some MSM who do not comply with donor deferral already find questions about sexual risk too personal,” the group says. “Furthermore, people are not reliable at assessing their own risk. A recent survey in New Zealand found that most MSM who had undiagnosed HIV infection believed that they were definitely or probably uninfected, and many had had a recent negative HIV test.” It’s also recommending dropping the stand-down period for sex workers and straight people from countries with high prevalence of HIV be changed from five years to 12 months. The review group says it has to balance maintaining the safety of the blood supply, with interfering as little as reasonably possible with the rights and freedoms of potential donors. “Any restrictions must be rational and proportionate.” The proposed recommendations when it comes to ‘MSM’ are: It is appropriate to have ongoing exclusion based on the specific activities of oral or anal sex. It is not at present known to be possible, in the context of routine blood operations, to identify a set of criteria by which individuals might be identified as low risk. The current deferral period for men after having had sex with a man should be shortened to twelve months. The stipulation that this applies to oral or anal sex, with or without a condom should be retained. Historically, two opposing views about blood donation have been held in the gay community. Rainbow Wellington has campaigned to liberalise donation procedures for gay men while the NZ AIDS Foundation has adopted a more conservative approach underscoring minimum risk for the blood supply.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Wednesday, 11th December 2013 - 9:57am