The President of the Kamloops Pride Society is pleased to see the end of a ban that prevented gay men from donating blood if they’ve been sexually active in the past three months.
Speaking on NL Newsday, Ashton O’Brien, called it a long overdue end to a discriminatory practice.
“The practice that was in place didn’t really have any basis in…like there was nothing that it was helping really,” she said. “It wasn’t preventing anything. Everybody still gets tested so I’m glad that they have removed the ban and gone to a more risk based model.”
“There’s nothing that says that men who have sex with men are not monogamous or anything like that. They are not necessarily more risky so it is good that they’ve taken the steps to make it not based on identity and base it on risk.”
Starting no later than Sept. 30, all potential blood donors in Canada will be asked if they have had new or multiple sexual partners in the last three months, no matter their gender or sexual orientation.
Canadian Blood Services says it will allow for more reliable risk assessments.
“We are way behind and I know it was updated to be like a three month ban instead of a five year, or a one year, or a lifetime ban but even the three month ban didn’t really make sense either,” O’Brien added.
“There are countries in Western Europe like Spain and I believe Italy who have traded their population bans in favour of risk based behaviour, and I think it is good that we are moving forward in that direction as well.”