Members of Congress have seized on the rejection of donated eye tissue from a deceased gay teen to insist that the federal government change its policies.
“A.J.’s story is a particularly poignant example of the harms of our policies governing blood, tissue and organ donation by” men who have sex with men (MSM), said a letter sent Monday to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell by 69 members of Congress, including Democratic Sens. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Tom Harkin of Iowa.
They were referring to Alexander “A.J.” Betts Jr., an Iowa high school student who took his own life in July 2013. He had been outed as gay in 2012, and his family believes he was bullied about it.
Months before he died, the congressional letter said, A.J. had decided to be an organ donor “and his mother, Sheryl Moore, received some comfort from the fact that his heart, liver, lungs and kidneys helped to save other lives, including that of another teenager.”
However, his eyes were not accepted for donation because the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires a five-year deferral of tissue donations from MSM. When Ms. Moore “could not confirm” that her 16-year-old son had not had a male sex partner for five years, “this final anatomical gift was summarily rejected,” said the letter.
The members of Congress asked HHS to update them in 30 days about the progress being made to reassess MSM policies on blood, tissue and organ donations.
The current blood-donation policy for MSM has been a hot topic for several years — men, whether they identify as gay or not, are indefinitely deferred if they have had sex with a man since 1977.
A panel of experts upheld that policy in 2010, but agreed that it was “suboptimal” and set in motion several studies that would help them devise a new policy. In a late-August email to MedPageToday, an FDA spokeswoman said that all studies are completed and the agency is “now in the process of evaluating the data to determine if a change in policy should be considered.”
Gay rights groups and supporters maintain that the ban on MSM in blood donation is outdated and discriminatory. Major blood banks and the American Medical Association have agreed that the lifetime ban is unneeded and welcome a new policy they say would be based on science.
However, there is no agreement on solutions.
Some countries typically require lengthy periods of sexual abstinence for MSM. But gay rights groups do not support abstinence-based deferral periods, arguing that if a man has only had sex with one male partner in the past year, he should be permitted to donate.
Spain, Italy, Poland and Russia do not have a specific MSM deferral policy, but may temporarily defer donors based on when they had a new sex partner or engaged in risky behavior.
Groups representing recipients of blood transfusions say policy changes cannot raise risks for blood safety, and decisions must be based on scientific evidence, not political concepts such as “discrimination.”
• Cheryl Wetzstein can be reached at cwetzstein@washingtontimes.com.
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