Canadian panel reviews blood donor ban

SUMMARY: Canada's blood agency will bring together a panel this week to review the 15-year-old ban on blood donations by gay men.

Canada's blood agency will bring together a panel this week to review the 15-year-old ban on blood donations by gay men.

The Canadian Blood Services (CBS) has been under mounting pressure to end the ban. It will meet in Ottawa in what it calls a "consensus conference" of experts, blood recipients and donors to review the system.

Debate during the three-day meeting in Ottawa will likely be heated as the panel attempts to decide who should and should not be allowed to give blood.

Currently men, and only men, are asked: "Have you had sex with a man, even one time, since 1977?" Answering "yes" means automatic disqualification.

The question was first included in the mandatory questionnaire in 1986, when a scandal involving blood tainted with HIV was at its peak and blood agencies worldwide were slowly coming to terms with how to safeguard their blood supplies.

Gay and AIDS groups say the question is outdated, discriminatory and far too blunt and too vague to accomplish the objective of turning away infected donors.

They say it should be replaced with a question, or series of questions, that focuses specifically on whether potential donors (homosexual and heterosexual) have engaged in high-risk sexual activities such as unprotected anal sex.

Ron Chaplin, of national gay rights organization Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere, said public health officials "no longer speak of high-risk groups," but rather of the type of sex practiced by high-risk individuals.

"It is a difficult issue," said CBS president Graham Sher, who describes the challenge as a balancing act of rights and privileges.

"There are scientific, ethical, moral and societal issues here," he said.