The results of the national survey of Sex in this conducted in 2018 indicate that 90% of men queers of Canada would be willing to give blood if they could.
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June 13, 2020 10: 06
Updated at 12h19
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Make love or give blood ?
Valérie Marcoux
The Sun
Would you be willing to deprive you of sex for three months to give blood? This is what is required of men who have sex with men (MSM) if they want to donate blood in Canada for a year. Prior to June, 2019, the period of abstinence required was 12 months.
“We think that the selection of donors should be made according to the risks related to behaviors, whether among people, heterosexual or not,” says Ariane Marchand-Labelle, executive director of the Conseil québécois LGBT. “We think that it could increase the donor pool, but for this it is necessary to be able to discuss sexuality frankly and without judgment”, she adds.
The results of the national survey of Sex in this conducted in 2018 indicate that 90% of men queers of Canada would be willing to give blood if they could.
Despite the pressing needs of Héma-Québec for the summer season post-confinement, the issue is not simply access to a new pool of donors. For the community LGBTQ+, it is also to lift the stigma that weighs on the MSM since the aids crisis of the early 1980s.
“[This criterion] encourages prejudice homophobic and sérophobes. For us, this differential treatment has social consequences,” says Ariane Marchand-Labelle. “The message it sends them is that their blood, their contribution is not welcome and we do it on the basis of their sexual orientation and not on the basis of their behavior.”
According to Dr. Marc Germain, vice-president of medical affairs and innovation at Héma-Québec, there is not enough evidence at this point to dare an approach behavior.
However, fifteen studies have been launched from 2017 to try to remedy the situation. “Hopefully, a year from now, to have results that will allow us to review the current test and may be to come up with proposals for a criterion that is not based on abstinence,” informs Dr. Germain.
Evolution of the test
A year ago, in June 2019, the period of abstinence required for the MSM to give blood has fallen from 12 to 3 months. Héma-Québec and canadian blood services have made a joint application to Health Canada to obtain this progress, as they have done in 2016 and in 2013. “To understand the evolution of this file, it is necessary to return to the origin of the criterion itself,” comes the doctor.
Permanent ban
When HIV appears, the health care notice, first, that this “disease” affect the immune system of individuals who were previously in good health, hence the term ” AIDS : acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.
They notice then that this disease, particularly as it affected some communities, including homosexuals. “Very quickly, before even identifying the cause of aids, has been identified as one of the risk factors seemed to be the behavior having sexual relations between men,” says Dr. Germain.
The knowledge progress, and the specialists establish that it is a virus and can be transmitted through blood and during sex. “In particular, the unprotected sex,” says the doctor. “Then, it was identified that gay men were much more likely to transmit the infection to their partner”, he adds.
In 1986, since no effective test is not yet proven, it prohibits MSM from donating blood permanently. This measure is also taken in the wake of the contaminated blood scandal that has shaken Canada and mark the memories.
Abstinence of five years
“It is only in July 2013 that we went from a permanent ban to a temporary ban of five years”, stresses Dr. Germain.
To cross this first step, it is necessary to wait for the arrival and the development of two tests still used today: the test of serology and nucleic acid, which is added in 1999. However, these tests are not sufficient to convince the population that fears of technical errors and human. In addition, researchers discover that HIV can pass from seven to ten days in the body of an individual before being detectable.
“We have been able to demonstrate that, even from a permanent ban to a temporary one, there would be essentially no impact on the safety of products, and recipients, provided you keep a temporary prohibition,” says Dr. Germain.
The regulatory authorities had then opted for a five-year ban. “At the time, another concern was whether the gay men who are sexually active were at risk for other types of infections that we don’t know, and which could also be transmitted by blood”, says Dr Germain. “This argument is a little fallen into disuse, because history has shown that there are regularly new emerging infections, an example of which was clear enough with the COVID, and all of the emerging infections that we have known and that have posed a risk to the transfusion in the last 20 years had nothing to do with the transmission through sexual relations between men.”
Abstinence of a year
Convinced that this group is no more at risk than another of developing new infections, the regulatory authorities are passing the period of abstinence prescribed for five years to one year in 2016. “Again, a year is a very long time,” says Dr. Germain. “But there were other issues.”
Although each blood donation is tested, Héma-Québec did not want to be suddenly a lot of the donations that have been contaminated, once again, by fear of technical errors and human.
Abstinence of three months
Between 2016 and 2019, the specialists show that this fear is unfounded and the period of abstinence required passes from one year to three months. “We saw no increase in donations to be HIV-positive with the changes of the criterion,” says Dr. Germain. Since its creation in 1998, Héma-Québec receives only between 0 and 3 blood donations contaminated by HIV by year.
