Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bay Windows - May 12, 2005
Ethan Jacobs, ejacobs@baywindows.com.
The AP and other press stories focused their attention on new FDA sperm donor rules that were approved last May and that go into effect May 25. The rules themselves make no reference to the eligibility of gay men, but the FDA plans to issue a guidance document at some unspecified date to accompany the new rules that gives recommendations for sperm banks about determining donor eligibility. A draft of that document released last summer recommends that sperm banks turn away anonymous male donors who have had sex with any other male in the past five years in order to reduce the risk of HIV-infected semen entering the sperm banks.
According to Jon Givner, director of Lambda Legal's HIV Project, the guidance document will not have the force of law and there is no guarantee that it will contain the recommendation about gay men. Furthermore, the guidance document only covers anonymous donations. "People are concerned that they won't be able to ask their friends to donate sperm, because they are gay men, and that is not the case," said Givner.
At present, Givner said many sperm banks already screen out gay men, but he said the current FDA regulations make such an exclusion unnecessary. He said the FDA already screens out HIV-infected blood by testing donors both at the time of donation and six months later.
"This policy would screen people out based on sexual orientation rather than actual risk. It doesn't treat similar risks similarly," said Givner.
Leland Traiman, owner and executive director of Rainbow Flag Health Services, a San Francisco sperm bank that actively recruits gay and bisexual sperm donors, said the guidance document, if it contains the discriminatory language, will have no impact on his business. He said he and other gay-friendly sperm banks, along with groups like Lambda Legal, have been lobbying against a gay ban since the FDA first floated the idea in 1999. He said the campaign was successful at keeping the gay ban out of the rule approved last May, depriving it the force of law.
"We won the war. We lost a battle," said Traiman.
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