Â
A decision by the Food and Drug Administration to move forward with a plan to allow "men who have sex with men" to donate blood under certain conditions amounts to caving to a social and political agenda, according to the Family Research Council.
"Research presented to the committee confirmed the dramatically elevated risk of HIV infection among men who have sex with men (MSM) — a risk 62 times higher than in the general public," said Peter Sprigg, FRC senior fellow for policy studies, on Tuesday.
Sprigg said the risk "certainly justifies the highest level of vigilance, and political and social concerns must not be allowed to trump the public health."
TRENDING: St. Patrick's role on the 'external hard drive'
His comments came after the FDA confirmed it plans to end a ban on "gay" donors that has been in place since 1983.
It will allow male homosexual donors to give blood one year after their "last sexual contact."
Sprigg noted the science shows members of that portion of the population have a significantly elevated risk. The proposal had been recommended by the federal Advisory Committee on Blood and Tissue Safety and Availability. But at the next rung of the procedural ladder, the FDA's Blood Products Advisory Committee dropped the proposal.
The FDA now has gone forward with the plan despite the no-recommendation status.
"Members of the Blood Products Advisory Committee were clearly reluctant to recommend any change to the current policy in the absence of a national program of comprehensive monitoring of the entire blood transfusion system from donor to recipient," Sprigg said.
"It is shocking that the FDA did not even wait for a recommendation from their own advisory committee before rushing to the politically correct decision demanded by homosexual activist groups. Yet the Obama administration has apparently dragged its heels in implementing this important safeguard, which should be a pre-requisite to any change in policy," Sprigg concluded.
FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said the change "will better align the deferral period with that of other men and women at increased risk for HIV infection."
"Additionally, in collaboration with the NIH's National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, the FDA has already taken steps to implement a national blood surveillance system that will help the agency monitor the effect of a policy change and further help to ensure the continued safety of the blood supply," she said.
She said the FDA will issue a draft guidance in 2015 and make the plan open for public comment.
"The FDA intends to issue a draft guidance recommending this proposed change in policy in 2015, which will also include an opportunity for public comment. We encourage all stakeholders to take this opportunity to provide any information the agency should consider, and look forward to receiving and reviewing these comments," she said.
The FDA announcement said "scientific evidence shows the move will not create risks for the nation's blood supply."
WND reported after a Department of Health and Human Services blood safety advisory panel voted to remove the ban on "gays" donating blood.
However, the Blood Products Advisory Committee then refused to go along with the plan.
Sprigg had told the committee: "I urge you to oppose any change in the current lifetime deferral as blood donors of men who have had sex with men, unless it can be scientifically proven that a revised policy would result in no increase in risk to the blood supply. Even a small increase in risk is unacceptable."
He noted what the Centers for Disease Control reported only months ago: "Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men represent approximately 2 percent of the United States population, yet ... (i)n 2010, gay and bisexual men accounted for 63 percent of estimated new HIV infections in the United States and 78 percent of infections among all newly infected men."
Sprigg noted the FDA website says a revised policy would have to identify a subset of homosexuals "who do not still have a substantially increased rate of HIV infection compared to the general population or currently accepted blood donors."
He said the "very small size of this population means that any potential benefit to the quantity of blood supplies would be marginal."
"Claims, like that of one group, that such a policy change 'could be used to help save the lives of more than 1.8 million people' give the impression that currently 1.8 million Americans per year die due to the current policy. This is completely false," Sprigg said.
"Political and social considerations should play no role in your advice or decision-making on this issue. It should instead be based first, last, and only upon your obligation to maximize the protection of public health," Sprigg concluded.
Listen to Sprigg's comments:
WND reported recently that the momentum in the dispute appears to favor the homosexual activists, essentially because of the recent HHS panel recommendation.
But critics have cited the tens of thousands of blood transfusion recipients who became infected from contaminated blood. The hemophiliac community, whose members require transfusions, was especially hard hit in the 1980s, with more than 10,000 people infected with HIV or Hepatitis C and many dying as a result.
"Over 50 percent of the people with hemophilia were infected with HIV and 90 percent were infected with Hepatitis C," said John Indence, vice president for marketing and communications at the National Hemophilia Foundation.
"We are completely for anything that will increase the safety of the blood supply here in the United States," Indence said. "We just believe that it needs to be based on science and not a political decision."
Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth commented: "It's all about politics. It's all about [homosexuals'] own selfish need to be affirmed in an immoral and dangerous lifestyle."
The FDA's rule excluding men who have sex with men from giving blood was first published in 1983 but not implemented until 1985 due to strong resistance from blood bankers and homosexual groups. Some 35,000 people were infected in the interim, according to a 2006 Frontline report.
The late journalist Randy Shilts chronicles in his book "And the Band Played On" how inertia, disbelief, cost concerns and civil rights rhetoric all slowed the implementation of public health measures to protect the blood supply.
By early 1983, there were reports of two possible blood transfusion-related AIDS infections, one of a baby and three cases of apparent AIDS infections in hemophiliacs who received blood clotting factors. Despite that, blood bankers were unconvinced.
"The evidence for this is, in my view, very weak and very early," Joseph Bove, M.D., an officer with the American Association of Blood Banks (now AABB) and chairman of the FDA's Blood Products Advisory Committee, said at the time. "We don't really have any proof yet that the nation's blood supply is contaminated."
That stance sparked a sharp reaction from CDC epidemiologist Don Francis when public health officials, blood bankers and representatives from the homosexual community gathered in Atlanta in January 1983 to address the risk to the blood supply.
"How many people have to die?" Francis shouted at the meeting, according to Shilts.
Speaking to representatives from the American Red Cross, the American Association of Blood Banks, the National Hemophilia Foundation, the National Gay Task Force, the National Institutes of Health and the FDA, Francis bore down.
"How many deaths do you need?" he asked. "Give us the threshold of death that you need in order to believe that this is happening, and we'll meet at that time and we can start doing something."