The German Medical Association has published the new guidelines for blood donation in agreement with the Paul Ehrlich Institute.
The admission criteria for donating blood from people with sexual risk behavior were revised on the basis of a joint analysis presented in May 2021 by the German Medical Association, the Federal Ministry of Health and the competent higher federal authorities.
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After reviewing current medical-scientific and epidemiological data, the institutions had come to the conclusion that the safety of blood and blood products still requires the exclusion of certain donors and the testing of donations, according to the German Medical Association in a press release on the subject.
The new haemotherapy guideline now stipulates that “an approval to donate four months after the end of a risky sexual behavior does not lead to an increase in the risk”. Infections with the hepatitis B virus, the hepatitis C virus or HIV could be safely ruled out after this period of time. Previously, there was a reserve period of twelve months after the end of the risk behavior.
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Nevertheless, the following applies: For the German Medical Association, sexual risk behavior includes, for example, sexual intercourse with a trans person or between women and men with frequently changing partners, as well as sexual intercourse between men with a new or more than one sexual partner. That sounds complicated, but it is very simple: There is more discrimination, now only for four months instead of twelve. Sex between gay or bisexual men remains a blanket “risk” when donating blood. Anyone who has slept with more than one man as a man in the past four months, has an open relationship or lives polyamorous are excluded from donating blood. For this, heterosexuals have to have “frequently changing partners”. How many are there now?
Under no circumstances may the medical-scientific risk stratification be torn out of its regulatory context and used as a yardstick for social acceptance or discrimination.
Federal Medical Association President Dr. Klaus Reinhardt
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During the revision of the guideline, special attention was paid to the formulation of the reset criteria for blood donation. For example, the wording “sexual intercourse between heterosexuals” was changed to “sexual intercourse between women and men” as a result of the professional hearing carried out in accordance with the Transfusion Act. “It was and is a particular concern of ours to avoid any appearance of discrimination,” said Reinhardt. It really doesn’t take long to look for the discrimination in the new directive.
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It just continues to be discriminated against
“The blood donation ban for homosexual and bisexual men will not be abolished,” said FDP member of the Bundestag, Jens Brandenburg, on the new directive. “The discrimination remains. If sex between two men is generally declared a risk, the new rule does not apply as ‘whether with a man or a woman’. Jens Spahn has deliberately led his followers on the ice. “The Federal Minister of Health must,” if he does not want to abolish the nonsensical blood donation ban for gay men (…) at least publicly stand by it “.
Background: The statutory mandate to establish the generally recognized state of the art in medical science and technology by the German Medical Association is formulated in the Transfusion Act (TFG). As a consequence of the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, an essential guiding principle of the TFG was and is a balance between the official tasks of drug approval by the Paul Ehrlich Institute, disease monitoring and prevention by the Robert Koch Institute, the monitoring tasks of Federal states and the medical profession in accordance with the recognized state of the art in medical science and technology.
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Next chance in two years
The Hemotherapy Guideline is a highly differentiated, 100-page set of rules. It is developed, advised, agreed to and regularly checked – at least every two years – to ensure that it is up-to-date by experts, the majority of whom are volunteers. This means that there will be another chance to end the discrimination in blood donation in two years at the earliest.
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