Their call came after members of the gay community tried to donate blood in the aftermath of the Orlando attack but were turned away based on their recent sexual history. They argued that it wrongly discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation, rather than determining whether a donor’s actual behavior puts them at risk of HIV. The agency reduced the ban in December to a 12-month wait since a man’s last sexual encounter with another man.įollowing Sunday’s mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, more than a dozen Democratic Party lawmakers called on the FDA to move toward lifting the ban altogether. Food and Drug Administration enacted a lifetime ban for gay and bisexual men in the 1980s to protect against transmitting the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS. Hundreds of community members line up outside a clinic to donate blood after an early morning shooting attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, U.S.