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Blood donation and men who have had sex with other men

Blood donor eligibility criteria are safety measures established by the scientific community and regulatory agencies. Health Canada sets the national standards that Héma-Québec must apply.


Héma-Québec considers donor safety and recipient safety to be equal priorities. This means that some people can be temporarily or permanently excluded from the donation process for various reasons.

The record of donation (PDF) remains one of the vital means of ensuring the highest level of safety of the blood supply.

For several years, the following question has been asked to men : "Have you ever had sex with a man, even one time, since 1977?" This same question has been asked by all blood collection agencies in North America. A similar question is asked in the vast majority of the world’s industrialized countries.

Like a great majority of transfusion safety experts, Héma-Québec considers that it is justifiable and necessary to exclude certain groups from donating blood who are at risk of carrying infections that may be transmitted through blood transfusions. The frequency of HIV infection still remains much higher among homosexual men than among the general population.  HIV prevalence is over 10% in this group compared to well below 1% among heterosexuals or lesbians.

 
Recent scientific data and advances in transfusion safety, however, have led Héma-Québec to consider relaxing the exclusion policy that applies to men who have or have had sex with another man.
 
Héma-Québec supports lifting the current permanent exclusion and, in its place, applying a temporary exclusion period of five years to men who have or have had sex with another man. Héma-Québec believes that such a change is scientifically justified and would not, in any way, endanger the very high level of safety of blood products.
 
Under Canadian regulations, Héma-Québec cannot unilaterally change the criteria that are applied to ensure the safety of the blood supply. Health Canada’s current position is to maintain the lifetime exclusion of men who have or have had sex with another man.
 
Héma-Québec intends to present a request to Health Canada to allow the exclusion period to be reduced to five years.
 

Questions and answers about blood donation and men who have had sex with another man.