Canadian Blood Services (CBS), in conjunction with Héma-Québec, after years of disallowing any man who had sex with men since 1977 to donate blood, has sought and received approval from Health Canada to amend that policy.

CBS has been lobbied for several years by various gay rights and AIDS groups to rescind the blanket policy, which effectively disbarred any gay man or any other man who has had sex with men from donating blood due to HIV/AIDS and/or Hepatitis concerns.

Activists believed the original policy amounted to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.  CBS, of course, disagreed, citing their primary concern was maintaining the safety of Canada’s blood and blood product supply despite there being procedures in place that effectively screen for pathogens.

The new policy is seen, however, as only a partial victory by activists.  While less stringent than the former one, is still somewhat prohibitive.  Under the new policy gay/bisexual men, or any other men who have had sex with men, can donate blood so long as they have been celibate or not had sex with another man for the last five years.  Such criteria are not applied to heterosexual men or women.

The argument put forward by activists has always been the policy needs to be based on specific behaviours, sexual or otherwise, that may increase the risk of carrying the Human Immuno-difficiency Virus (HIV) which is believed to be a precursor to AIDS and not whether a potential donor may or may not have had sex with another male.

The CBS does acknowledge on its website that on an international level "...there is no medical consensus on blood donor screening practices for MSM [men who have sex with men].  Some countries in Europe, and the United States, maintain lifetime bans. The UK and Australia have moved to a one-year deferral, and others have different practices altogether."

The original ban was instituted by the CBS’ forerunner, The Canadian Red Cross, which up to the 1980s was the agency responsible for collecting and maintaining the blood supply.  As evidence grew that HIV/AIDS was transmitted through a variety of body fluids, including blood, the Red Cross took steps to protect the supply by instituting the ban against gay/bisexual men donating blood.

Despite that, hundreds of individuals - primarily hemophiliacs dependent on plasma to prevent life-threatening hemorrhaging due to an inability to clot, but also others who had received blood transfusions - contracted HIV and/or Hepatitis C before effective screening procedures were introduced.

A Royal Commission, known as The Krever Inquiry, determined the Red Cross had failed to move quickly enough to stem the danger posed by such pathogens even after the technology was available to do so, and recommended the agency be stripped of its authority to manage the Canadian blood supply, resulting in the creation of the Canadian Blood Services.  It also called for victims of tainted blood to receive compensation.

The former Director of the Canadian Red Cross, Dr. Roger Perrault, was eventually acquitted by Ontario Superior Court judge, Mary Lou Benotto, on charges of criminal negligence causing bodily harm. She also acquitted Dr. John Furesz and Dr. Donald Wark Boucher, formerly of Canada’s Health Protection Branch, and Dr. Michael Rodell, a former vice-president of a New Jersey-based pharmaceutical company, of charges relating to their alleged role in the tainted blood scandal.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced a $1.1 billion compensation package for 5,500 people who contracted Hepatitis C before 1986 and after 1990 but who were left out of the original 1988 compensation package.

The Canadian Red Cross was fined $5,000.00, the maximum fine allowable, for distributing a contaminated drug in violation of the Food and Drug Administration Act. Six other charges against the agency were dropped.  In addition, the organization agreed to donate $1.5 million to the University of Ottawa for a research endowment fund and a scholarship for family members of those affected by the tainted blood.

This, then, is the environment out of which sprang the blanket ban against men who have sex with men donating blood.

Dana Devine, vice-president of Medical, Scientific and Research Affairs with CBS, has acknowledged the five-year deferral will not satisfy all critics of the new policy. However, Devine did state this is just a first step in what is hoped will be a continued effort in determining what is the best approach to incorporating gay/bisexual men into the donation system.

The Canadian AIDS Society (CAS), a national education and advocacy group on HIV/AIDS, sees this as an "important first step" although still believing the five-year deferral is too long.

Monique Doolittle-Romas, the organization’s Executive Director, was quoted as saying CAS would like to see a model based on a donor’s behaviour rather than the current one based on sexual orientation and gender.

Libby Davies, Health Critic for the federal NDP, and Randall Garrison, NDP critic for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and queer issues, issued a statement stating the five-year ban still discriminates against gay/bisexual men and that the system would be safer if screening focused on eliminating high-risk donors, regardless of sexual orientation.

Meanwhile, an Associate Professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Western University in London, Ontario, Greta Bauer, called the length of the deferral "excessively cautious", saying an Australian study showed no increase in contaminated blood donations when that country moved to a one-year deferral policy.

A problem with the life-time ban, and one she fears will also manifest with the current policy, was the lack of compliance.  A British study found that 11 percent of gay/bisexual men and other men who have sex with men said they had donated, despite being aware of the ban against doing so.  When asked why, some indicated they did not believe, based on their own sexual behaviour, they posed a risk to the supply.  But others, Bauer believes, donated blood because of a perception the policy was "blatantly unfair".

"I’m not sure with the move to a five-year policy if it’s going to increase the perception of fairness to the extent that people will be more compliant with it versus the lifetime deferral," said Bauer, adding that if the goal of the policy is safety, good compliance on the part of the public is key.

Some studies have indicated uncircumcised men from Sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, regardless of sexual orientation, were also in a high-risk category for contracting HIV/AIDS.  Haitians were one of the identified "high risk groups" throughout the 1980s, and yet neither of these two groups had a blanket ban imposed upon them.  To do so would be racist, of course.  Describing the original policy as homophobic, then, was not such a stretch.  The current policy is better but, as has been pointed out by CAS, Egale Canada and the NDP, a policy based not on sexual orientation but on behaviours, including drug use, would be even better.  CBS, to their credit, is committed to getting there but says it will "take time".  Why that is, is unclear.

The policy change request by Canadian Blood Services and Héma-Québec was made to Health Canada in December of 2012 and will be implemented by June 2013.