By Olivia Scheck
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has joined 17 other U.S. senators in calling on the Food and Drug Administration to overturn a ban on gay men donating blood.
The ban, established during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, prevents men who have engaged in sex with other men from giving blood. The senators sent a letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg urging her to lift the restriction.
“We live in a very different country than we did in 1983,” said the letter, which is posted on the Web site of Sen. John Kerry, a Democrat from Massachusetts. “Today, the high-risk behaviors associated with HIV contraction are more fully understood, and dramatic technological improvements have been made in HIV detection.”
The letter also cited a report by the American Red Cross, America’s Blood Centers and the AABB (formerly the American Association of Blood Banks) calling the ban “medically and scientifically unwarranted.”
Kerry compared the ban to a previous law preventing foreigners with HIV/AIDS from entering to the United States, which was repealed in 2008, the Associated Press reported.
