Trust-Building Sought With FDA’s Blood Donor Policy for Gay Men

A health messaging campaign aimed at rebuilding trust with members of the LGBT community must accompany eased FDA restrictions on blood donations, infectious disease doctors and policy analysts say.

Gay and bisexual men could soon face fewer barriers to donating blood under tentative Food and Drug Administration plans for individual risk-based blood donor screening questions as a means to reduce the risk of HIV transmission. The change would mark a shift from decades-long restrictions, and would fall in line with the approach several other countries already take on donations from men who have sex with men.

But public health professionals ...