Rainbow Wellington urges the New Zealand Blood Service to change criteria even further.

This week the New Zealand Blood Service (NZBS) announced the implementation of the agreed changes to blood donor deferral. For men who have sex with men (MSM) this primarily involves a reduction of the deferral period from five years to one year. See their website athttp://www.nzblood.co.nz/news/2014/revised-donor-eligibility-criteria/#.VI4YLtKUeSo .

Rainbow Wellington Chair Person, Rawa Karetai welcomes this change as a move in the right direction however, “We remain disappointed that blanket bans remain, with no real move towards individual risk assessment, such as we have consistently argued for”.

As the NZBS themselves point out, this brings us into line with other countries such as Australia and the UK, so it is not a radical step. Mr. Karetai said that, “Rainbow Wellington noted previously that the final report of the External Expert Review Group seemed to run out of medical reasons for at least one of the continuing deferral criteria, falling back on [the conservative nature of Blood Service activities]”. As the NZBS accepted all of the Group’s recommendations, “we can but assume that they agree that this is a valid reason for continuing deferral in some areas” continued Mr. Karetai.

Mr Karetai continued saying that, “the fact still remains that the NZBS is still discriminating against men who have sex with men” and that “sex is an intimate part of life. The reality is we now have the science to do rapid testing for HIV and purely banning gay men from donating blood who have sex regardless of whether or not they do so safely with or without a condom is discrimination”.

Mr Karetai also said that, “We are aware that the regrettable increase in cases of HIV amongst MSM in recent years is a major contribution to this continuing caution. Nevertheless, it remains the case that many gay men who wish to give blood and are individually clearly safe to do so still cannot donate. We therefore hope that such reviews and changes will continue until all are able to agree that individual risk assessment for MSM is now a realistic option”.

Rainbow Wellington also noted that a Gay Community Summary Guide on the changes has been produced for the NZBS by the University of Auckland. Rawa Karetai said, “This pamphlet also represents a step forward, and we are particularly encouraged by the attention paid in it to the issues relating to those closeted gay men who find themselves unable to donate when the Blood Service visits their place of employment. This has been a problem we have long highlighted in the context of the way blood donor campaigns are conducted in New Zealand”.

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