The FDA may soon end its ban on gay & bi sperm donations

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is planning a proposal to end its rule forbidding sperm donations from any men who have had sex with other men (MSM) during the last five years.

Instead of a blanket ban, the FDA will use a system of questions to assess individual donor’s risk of transmitting HIV or other sexually transmitted infections, The Wall Street Journal reported. If approved, the new rules could go into effect by the end of the year.

Related:

Researchers are getting closer to creating human embryos with DNA from two men

There have been key developments, but it will still take years to get it right.

The current blanket ban on MSM was instated during the height of the AIDS epidemic. The rule change would enable more gay and bisexual men to donate sperm to help other people with wombs conceive children. The FDA also said that ending the ban could lead to the ending of similar bans on MSM donating other tissues.

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The new risk-assessment questionnaire may mirror those adopted by the FDA last August when it loosened restrictions on blood donations from MSM.

The new FDA blood donation guidelines require a three-month pre-donation celibacy period for anyone, regardless of gender, who has had sex with a new sexual partner, more than one sexual partner, or anal sex. This is to reduce the likelihood of donations by people with new or recent HIV infections, the FDA said. Blood donation organizations test all donated blood for transfusion-transmitted infections, including HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C.

The guidelines also require a three-month pre-donation abstinence period for people who have anal sex or take pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medication and a two-year abstinence period for users of injectible PrEP. PrEP can mask the presence of HIV in blood.

In April 2020, the FDA changed the MSM abstinence period from one year to 3 months in response to declining donations at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sperm banks nationwide have also reported a shortage in available sperm samples for patients.

Nationwide, about 86,000 babies were reportedly born in 2021 from in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment, a conception method that uses donated sperm cells.