On Thursday, Health Canada approved a proposal by Canadian Blood Services to end the three-month deferral period for gay and bisexual donors, as well as some others in the LGBTQ2S + community.
Moving away from the total ban, the national blood donor organization will be able to screen all donors, regardless of gender or sexuality. Instead, donors will be screened based on their sexual behavior.
Canadian Blood Services (CBS) says it plans to introduce a new approach to the behavior-based questionnaire “no later than September 30.” It will be used for both blood and plasma donations.
This will mean that when all donors are screened before rolling up their sleeves, they will be asked if they have recently had anal sex in the context of new or multiple sexual partners in the last few months.
“We look forward to welcoming new donors to our facilities,” said Graham Cher, CEO of Canadian Blood Services, to the media.
It took the agency more than 90 days to complete a review of the Canadian Blood Service’s December review to make the change, but Health Canada says their permission “is based on an in-depth assessment of the evidence supporting the safety of the revised screening.” donors ”.
Asked why it would still take months to see the implementation of the screening process, Cher said the main factor was that the agency had to wait for Health Canada to sign its planned approach before training its staff.
“We have about 1,600 employees involved in donor-oriented activities. And each of these employees will go through a few hours of comprehensive training so that they can have appropriate conversations with all our donors, “Cher said. “We want to make sure that our front-line staff feel prepared to have these sex-positive conversations in a respectful and meaningful way, so this is a huge undertaking … I admit that people would like this to take effect as soon as possible. -fast. But I’m also very committed to doing it well. “
POLICY HAS BEEN DEVELOPING OVER THE YEARS
The policy began in 1992 as a total life ban after the tainted blood scandal that took place between the 1980s and 1990s, and saw thousands of Canadians infected with HIV after receiving blood from a donor. During the scandal, the Canadian Red Cross – the forerunner of Canadian Blood Services and Hema-Quebec – failed to test and screen donors, leading to thousands of Canadians exposed to HIV through contaminated blood products.
Over the almost three decades since then, policy has gradually eased, beginning with a change in 2013 that reduced the life ban to a five-year postponement. This meant that instead of flatly refusing donations from men who had sex with men, or from the MSM community, as some imagine, donations would only be accepted if the donor had not been sexually active for five years.
In 2016, the five-year deferral period was reduced to one year, and then in June 2019 the current quarterly deferral period came into force. This means that the Canadian Blood Services prohibits gay and bisexual men who have sex with men, as well as some trans people who have sex with men, from donating blood unless they have abstained for three months.
Earlier this year, a pilot project was approved to donate plasma to centers in Calgary and London, Ontario, provided donors have not had a new sexual partner or their partner has not had sex with another partner in the past three months.
Policy developments over the past few years have resulted from the approval of Health Canada regulatory statements that include risk modeling showing that it would be safe to do so.
As part of this review, Health Canada convened a team of medical and scientific experts in the field of blood safety to provide advice on change.
“Today’s authorization is an important step towards a more inclusive blood donation system across the country and is based on advances in scientific evidence in recent years,” a statement from Health Canada said.
As CTVNews.ca reported earlier, amid questions about why the policy is slow, Health Canada “requires” two-year intervals between when donor screening criteria can be updated to monitor the potential impact on blood safety. from the updated donor screening criteria, by documents.
As has been the case for some time, every blood donation in Canada is tested for HIV. Under current testing options, HIV can be detected in a “window period” of approximately nine days after infection.
Relieving the time during which affected donors must abstain, as it has not led to an increased risk of communicable disease in the past, according to Canadian Blood Services.
Cher said the reason the agency is still focusing on anal sex in its screening is that evidence shows that anal sex is still “a significantly higher risk factor for transmitting diseases such as HIV than vaginal sex or oral sex ‘.
Canadian Blood Services donates blood in all provinces and territories other than Quebec, which is run by Hema-Quebec. This agency did not participate in this submission, but has already received approval to move to a more inclusive screening process for plasma donations.
Cher said on Thursday that the agency had in mind that changing their policy was not enough to restore relations with the queer community.
“For us, we recognize that this is a continuous work. We are committed to working with many, many stakeholders and groups of people. We realize that building trust is a long process, policy change is only one step towards that, but talking about understanding, acknowledging and tackling the injuries and damage that previous policies have caused is a very important part of rebuilding. relations, as we say, restoring and restoring trust, “he said.
CELEBRATES THE REMOVAL OF THE PROHIBITION
Canadian Blood Services consults with stakeholders, including the LGBTQ2S + community and patient groups, during this process. For years, LGBTQ2S + advocates and those banned from donating have expressed disappointment, saying the policy is discriminatory and not based on science.
In response to the news, the Center for Community Research (CBRC), which has long urged all participants to change their screening policy, said it was pleased that Canada was “finally catching up with other countries”, but that more needed to be done. work to dispel the stereotypes and misconceptions that this ban has perpetuated.
“Health Canada’s initial policy was discriminatory and encouraged stigma and ignorance about the health of strange men and trans people. It is also undermining Canada’s blood supply, which may be precariously low, “said CBRC Acting Executive Director Michael Quag in a statement.
The federal government has been criticized for years, including by LGBTQ2S + opposition lawmakers, for failing to deliver on its 2015 promise to lift the ban. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has also been criticized for making repeated promises in recent years that a change in policy is inevitable.
Key cabinet ministers over the years have rejected calls for a change in Canadian blood system rules unilaterally, saying the agency has a “limited role” to intervene and that Canadian blood services must demand a change in policy.
The Liberals funded $ 5 million in research projects aimed at supporting an evidence-based decision-making process, including studying donor eligibility criteria and alternative screening processes. CBS said that this evidence, risk modeling based on data from the Public Health Agency of Canada, as well as international studies informed their performance for 2021.
The prime minister spoke of the upcoming policy change at a press conference on Parliament Hill on Thursday afternoon, accompanied by some LGBTQ2S + members from its assembly, as well as Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos.
“Our government welcomes this decision. It’s been a long time, “Trudeau said, adding that he agreed with many who thought the change” took too long “and should have been made a decade ago.
“The current approach was discriminatory and wrong,” he said.
In a statement, NDP critic and 2SLGBTQI + deputy critic Randall Garrison and Blake Dejarle called the news “a long-awaited victory for men who have sex with men, community members and allies who have worked tirelessly for years to make the government to act. “
“Proponents of this discriminatory policy have been working to lift the ban for years. They should be commended for their continued, effective advocacy and tireless efforts. Without them, the government would not have moved forward this important change,” NDP lawmakers said. after it enters into force.
Conservative gay MP Eric Duncan, who rose to prominence in 2020 by challenging the House of Representatives government over politics and sharing personal experience that he is unable to donate, wondered why it would be months before the policy change to be implemented.
“Finally, after many delays, Canada is one step closer to ending the country’s long-standing and discriminatory blood ban,” Duncan said. “It didn’t have to take that long. After years of delay, we have at least five months from the entry into force of this change. Discrimination like this does not have to take so long to resolve. “
CASE OF DISCRIMINATION CONTINUES
Questions about the policy and whether the federal government has discriminated against LGBTQ2 + donors by supporting it continue to be discussed at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.
In 2016, Christopher …
Add Comment