Part 2. FDA Policy on Blood Bank Donors exclusions is outdated

What organizations in the US are most knowledgeable and concerned about preventing HIV/AIDS?  The Medicine Association (HIVMA) of the Infectious Diseases Society of America would be at the top of the list.  It  represents over 2,600 physicians, scientists and other health care professionals who practice on the frontline of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
HIVMA explains that all blood donations today are tested with the Nucleic Acid Amplification Test (NAT) for HIV.  The NAT detects HIV beginning 11 days after a person has contracted it.   In 2004 HIVMA stated that “the accuracy and reliability of the NAT …call for significant revisions to the current donor screening guidelines. It is discriminatory and unnecessary to continue to exclude any man who has had sex with another man since 1977 from donating blood.”
 HIVMA recommends that the blood donor screening procedures be revised to ask all potential donors to exclude themselves if they have recently engaged in unprotected sex with a partner of unknown HIV status or used a syringe not prescribed by a physician to take drugs or steroids.   To err on the side of caution, HIVMA states, “recently” might be defined as the previous six months.  … Why is the ban still in place?  More next week …     *HIVMA’s full statement at  http://www.hivma.org/Content.aspx?id=2788