Canadian data is needed before the way the country screens men who have sex with men who want to donate blood is going to change. The country’s blood collection agencies will soon set aside about $2.75 million of federal funding and issue a call for research proposals in hopes of proving that making Canada’s blood screening policy more accessible can be done safely. “We know intuitively that we are excluding sexually active gay men from donating who are actually safe donors,” said Dana Devine, chief medical and scientific officer at Canadian Blood Services. She said this group gets barred from giving blood because they are lumped with sexually active gay men who aren’t having safe sex. “The challenge is sorting the two groups out, and right now it’s not clear how we do that,” she said.

Source: thestar January 27, 2017 21:36 UTC