Last year federal regulators announced that decades-long restrictions on gay men donating blood were coming to an end:
So I suppose we shouldn't be all that surprised by this newest development?
The Food and Drug Administration is making plans to significantly expand the number of gay and bisexual men who could donate sperm anonymously.
Rules that have been in place for years bar anonymous male donors who have had sex with men "during the previous five years." Gay men have a hugely outsized risk for spreading HIV, particularly the more men they've had sex with (go ahead and cancel me for spitting facts, I don't care).
In its new rules, however, the FDA "would eliminate the broad ban and instead adopt more pointed screening questions to assess HIV risk:"
Precautions include testing donors at least twice, six months apart, for HIV. Donors must test negative both times before sperm vials are released.
Sounds like a fairly foolproof system, though I wonder how many women will feel that way when considering their choice of donor. False negative HIV tests are rare these days, but they do happen in some cases, as is true with any medical test.
Though as the Wall Street Journal notes, a sizable percentage of sperm donor recipients are likely to be more sanguine about the whole thing:
Expanding the donor pool could address shortages. Many people who use sperm banks to create their families are gay, lesbian, bisexual or queer. Some seek out donors who are also LGBTQ.
Maybe we should stop with anonymous fathers and surrogate mothers so we don't make our country even more of a clown show, but what do I know?
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