In December 2016, the American Red Cross began collecting blood from men who have sex with men (MSM) in line with the FDA’s newly changed deferral policy, which allows donations from MSM with no sexual activity with men in the prior 12 months. At the AABB Annual Meeting in Boston, researchers from the American Red Cross summarized data on infectious disease prevalence rates among reinstated MSM donors compared to the general donor pool. Of the 22,482 reinstated donors with prior MSM activity, 520 (2.3%) donated blood; 7 of these donors were deferred for having an infectious disease (2 men had syphilis; 5 men had hepatitis B antibodies (one of which was also positive for HIV)). Overall, 0.4% (21,676/4,329,679) of donors were deferred for having an infectious disease compared to 1.3% (7/520) of donors with prior MSM activity (p<0.01). However, infectious disease prevalence rates from donors with prior MSM activity are comparable to first-time male donors from the general donor pool (p=0.9) Further monitoring of sexually transmitted disease rates pre- and post-MSM policy change are currently underway.
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