{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://maloney.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/fda-considers-lifting-restrictions-on-blood-donations-by-gay-and-bi-men", "FDA considers lifting restrictions on blood donations by gay and bi men", "2020-12-28", "2020", "2020-12", "Democrat", "Senate", "NY", "Carolyn Maloney", "M000087", "maloney.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "A new pilot study funded by the Food and Drug Administration could be the first step toward lifting restrictions on blood donations by gay and bisexual men.\n\t\t\tThe program, called Assessing Donor Variability and New Concepts in Eligibility (Advance), has been launched by three ofthe nation's largest blood centers the American Red Cross, Vitalant and OneBlood.\n\t\t\tWe can't say some people can give blood, other people can't based on their sexual orientation, then-Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., who represented Orlando at the time, told reporters, according toThe Washington Blade.\n\t\t\tGay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men are thegroup most affected by HIV in the U.S., according to the CDC: In 2018, they accounted for 69 percent of the nearly 38,000 new HIV diagnoses across the country.\n\t\t\tIn April, as coronavirus lockdowns caused donations to plummet, the FDA quicklyloweredthe eligibility requirement for MSM to just three months.\n\t\t\tThe pandemic's impact on available blood was swift and severe: By mid-March, the American Red Crosshad canceled some 2,700 blood drives, resulting in 86,000 fewer donations. In April, donations at the New York Blood Center were down from an average of 9,500 a month to fewer than 2,000, according to New York state Sen. Brad Hoylman, who is gay and was initiallyrejected as a donordespite meeting the new criteria. A regular month they host about 600 blood drives, Hoylman told NBC News in May. Last week, they hosted two.\n\t\t\tThe three-month deferral also affects women who have sex with MSM, sex workers, injection drug users and those with recent tattoos or piercings.\n\t\t\tIn anApril letter to the FDA, two New York Democrats, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, chair of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, and committee member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, called the change a good first step but urged theagency to move toward assessing potential donors by individual risk.\n\t\t\tA policy that fails to do this perpetuates stigma and falls short of ensuring thatevery person who can safely donateblood in the United States has the opportunity to do so, they said.\n\t\t\tThe Red Cross, which had encouraged the FDA to adopt the three-month deferral model, alsocalled ita scientifically based interim step toward abolishing restrictions altogether.\n\t\t\tBlood donation eligibility should not be determined by methods that are based upon sexual orientation, the relieforganization said.\n\t\t\tJay Franzone, an LGBTQ advocate whoremained abstinent for a yearto donate blood in January 2017, said the Advance study is long overdue.\n\t\t\tItaly, Spain and other nations modernized their donor policies years ago, before the U.S. even ended its lifetime ban,he told NBC News.\n\t\t\tMore than a dozen nationsincluding Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Colombiahave adopted a risk-based questionnaire in place of a blanket policy based on sexual orientation. Earlier this month, theU.K. became the latest.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://maloney.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/fda-considers-lifting-restrictions-on-blood-donations-by-gay-and-bi-men"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8335700258612633, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}