Valid from September 4th new blood donation guidelines. These are published by the German Medical Association. When it comes to the question of who is allowed to donate and who is not, sexual orientation may no longer be used as an exclusion criterion. So far, homosexual men and trans people have been disadvantaged because it was assumed that the blood donation recipients posed a higher health risk.
“Now the individual risk is raised by asking about the number of partners and about sexual practice,” explained Johannes Oldenburg, doctor and member of the scientific advisory board of the German Medical Association, the German Press Agency. With the new regulation comes a new questionnaire that must be filled out before donating blood. It then asks everyone about their sexual behavior to assess whether there might be a risk of transmitting a serious infectious disease. If so, the contact must have been at least four months before a blood donation can be made. According to the association, how quickly the new regulation takes effect depends on how quickly the blood donation services introduce the new questionnaire.