Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+ Hepatitis Policy Institute, issued a statement applauding the change, saying, “This marks a monumental shift and ends a long and painful era of blanket discrimination against gay men. No longer will eligibility to donate blood be based on sexual orientation. Instead, every person, no matter their sexuality, will be reviewed individually in order to determine their eligibility to donate.
“This marks a monumental shift and ends a long and painful era of blanket discrimination against gay men,” said Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, a patient-advocacy group. The new rules would continue to bar blood donations from people who have tested positive for HIV or are taking HIV medication, or who have exchanged money for sex or have a history of drug use. Blood donation centers would still be required to test all blood for HIV and other infectious diseases.
The FDA is planning to ease rules that for decades have barred or discouraged men who have sex with men (MSM) from donating blood, due to concerns over HIV transmission.
Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, told the Journal that the newest change in the FDA’s guidelines “marks a monumental shift and ends a long and painful era of blanket discrimination against gay men.” The FDA’s updated guidelines will continue to bar those who have tested positive for HIV and those who are taking HIV medication from donating blood, and blood donation centers must test all blood for HIV and other diseases.
Drugmakers use copay assistance programs to shield patients from out-of-pocket expenses — and build market share for their products in the process. But pharmacy benefit managers have cried foul, saying the copay programs undercut formularies and wind up increasing the use of expensive drugs that are not any better than less expensive ones. They have pushed back with “copay adjustment programs,” especially “copay accumulators,” which are designed to blunt the effect of the copay assistance programs by not counting their value toward patient deductibles.