The federal government has officially lifted its decades-old ban against gay and bisexual men donating blood, according to the Associated Press.
However, gay men must refrain from sex for one year in order to donate, the AP reported.
Starting in 1985, the agency recommended that blood banks not take donations from men who had had sex with another man, even one time, since 1977, according to an agency regulatory guidance document.
The ban had been in place to reduce the risk of gay men transmitting HIV, but the agency’s thinking has changed in recent years.
Gay rights advocacy groups have called the program discriminatory, and have criticized the new one-year abstinence requirement.
“While the new policy is a step in the right direction toward an ideal policy that reflects the best scientific research, it still falls short of a fully acceptable solution because it continues to stigmatize gay and bisexual men,” David Stacy, government affairs director for the Human Rights Campaign, said in May when the recommendation was first proposed.
