Kate Emery: Rules for gay blood donors are some kind of joke from the 80s

If you’re a person who gets faint at the mere mention of blood, you may want to sit down because this column is all about the red stuff. Don’t let that put you off, there’s also a Top Gun reference you’ll miss if you turn the page, not to mention a pretty serious issue lurking beneath this fluffy prose. But first, a pop quiz: between January and May this year WA recorded 25 new cases of HIV. Do you want to have a guess how many of those were gay or bisexual men? If you guessed five, congratulations: one-fifth of the new cases were in men who have sex with other men. Another five were straight men, four were straight women, two were intravenous drug users and the biggest group of seven cases is still under investigation. Even if you make the kind of leap worthy of a klipspringer — an adorable antelope that can jump 10 times its height — and assume all unknown cases were gay men, that would still account for fewer than half of all new cases. But in WA, as in the rest of Australia, it is gay and bisexual men who are banned from donating blood and plasma. Like Kate Bush’s renaissance and Top Gun: Maverick, this is a 2022 story with roots in the 1980s, when the HIV/AIDS crisis was peaking. Many countries, including Australia, imposed bans on gay men donating blood. At the time AIDS was a death sentence. Four decades later, would-be donors are still restricted from donating blood if they have had sex with a man in the past three months. So we’ll accept gay blood donors but only if they have no sex life to speak of. Until last year that three months was a year. Screening of blood donations means the risk of HIV being transmitted to a donor is estimated to be less than one in a million. With the UK recently dropping its restrictions on blood donations from gay men and blood donations constantly in high demand it’s time for Australia to consider whether these restrictions still make sense. Lisa Dobrin — the head of WAAC, formerly the WA AIDS Council — reckons they do not not. “While we welcome the recent reduction in the deferral period for men who have sex with men to three months, it is still inconsistent with both science and international practice,” she says. “There are strong community calls for more people to be able to donate. We need a sensible approach that provides the largest possible pool of donors. We believe the new Federal Government and the TGA (Therapeutic Goods Administration) can work together to further reduce the deferral period to make it consistent with science and best international practice.” A spokeswoman for the Australian Red Cross Lifeblood said the organisation was “actively considering if we can either reduce the wait time, or completely remove this rule for plasma donations”. Plasma has extra processing that reduces the risk of infection. She said current policy was based on a 2019 review and Red Cross Lifeblood was constantly doing work to maximise donors. “We have heard the hurt and frustration from impacted communities, and as a priority we are committed to looking at all options for change,” she said. She makes the point that Australia has a different HIV composition than countries like the UK, with infections more concentrated in gay or bisexual men and straight men who have sex in countries where HIV is more prevalent. I offered a snapshot of WA HIV statistics earlier on but it’s only fair to note that the national picture isn’t exactly the same. According to the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations, 58 per cent of HIV notifications in 2020 were attributed to men having sex with men, compared with 24 per cent of straight sex. It goes without saying — but here I go — that safety is the most important factor here. Blood donations in Australia are dependent on altruism: the only “payment” received for donating blood is all the juice, biscuits and crisps you can reasonably consume in the recovery room afterwards. But underpinning the current rules is the assumption that straight men and women, who may be having unprotected sex with multiple partners, are trusted to make the right call about their safety and that of the community’s, while gay and bisexual men are not. Maybe that made good sense in the 1980s. I’m not sure it makes sense now.