After the mode of transmission was fully understood by the medical community, the FDA’s 1983 guidelines asked men who had sex with multiple male partners to refrain from donation. The MSM population was the epicenter of the HIV panic of the mid-80s. The original blood-donation rules for men who have sex with men, or MSM––a designation designed to encapsulate sexual activity instead of orientation––were actually less restrictive than current rules. * Even after the most deadly act against gays, lesbians, bisexual, and transgender people in American history, the built-in homophobia of American public health keeps the country from mounting the most effective possible response.
Specifically, men who have had sex with men in the past year are still barred from donating blood because of a rule from the Food and Drug Administration. Many potential donors, however, found themselves blocked at blood centers. One of the ways people in Orlando tried to help victims was through blood donations. The Real Reason America Doesn’t Have Gun Control Ronald Brownstein