Canada’s Minister of Health Patty Hajdu is working with the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth to help eliminate the blood ban for men who have sex with other men.
It was one of the key points in the Prime Minister’s mandate letter to Hajdu.
“Canada has had quite a lot of experience around tainted blood supply, and that’s why we’ve been so cautious, I think, as a country, to move away from a blood ban,” Hajdu admits. “But having said that, our party and our government knows that that is actually not the most effective way to screen for tainted blood.”
Hajdu will be working with the Canadian Blood Services and Héma-Québec to build on existing progress to implement a behaviour-based model of donation that outright eliminates the blood ban, and notes they are working on creating a model that would be similar to questions surrounding tattoos.
“What we can assure them is that the behaviour-based approach will be very similar to behaviour-based approaches for other population members that, for example… are choosing behaviours that may be more risky in terms of donation of blood,” the Health Minister explains.
Since 2019, Canada has implemented a 3-month deferral period for donated blood from gay and bisexual men. As of March 2020, Denmark will implement a 4-month deferral period for donated blood from gay and bisexual men.
