A clinic on campus is hoping to get sexually active gay men to donate their blood for research purposes.
Earlier this week, Canadian Blood Societies’ Network Centre for Applied Development (netCAD) launched a campaign to encourage blood donations from men who have sex with men, a group that is currently unable to donate blood for transfusions under the Canadian Blood Societies' regulations.
According to Dana Devine, current chief medical & scientific officer at Canadian Blood Services and founding member of netCAD, this provides the opportunity for groups that have otherwise been discouraged from donating blood to do so.
“It’s an opportunity for people to participate in the blood system who are normally deferred from the blood that goes to the hospital,” said Devine.
netCAD accepts donations from people who would normally be labelled under high-risk donor groups and not be allowed to donate, with the latest campaign focusing particularly on men who have had sex with men in the last five years. Included in the group of people who are not allowed to donate blood are those who have recently travelled to countries with high rates of blood-transmittable diseases, those who were in England during the time of mad cow disease and men who have sex with men.
Canadian Blood Services first banned blood donations from men who have had sex with men in 1977, when the HIV scare first started dominating public attention. In 2013, the rules changed to allow blood donations from men who had not had sex with men for at least five years.
Devine said that although all blood that they received is screened for diseases, Canadian Blood Services hopes to eliminate as much risk as possible by only accepting donations from groups that are deemed low-risk.
"The screening tests aren’t perfect," said Devine. "In order to ensure the safety of blood for transfusion purposes we use multiple layers of safety. The first one is the screening questions."
Blood donated at netCAD will not be used in blood transfusions, but will be used for various types of research across Canada, including research for new blood products and equipment.
“That lab was built by CBS for the specific purpose of being able to do work to get the blood system modernized,” said Devine.
Currently, netCAD is the only research facility in Canada to accept donations from high-risk donors.
According to Devine, there has been a high demand for the blood that they receive at netCad coming from other research institutes and universities. Canadian Blood Services have discussed plans to build another facility in the future, likely in the Toronto area, but these plans have yet to be finalized.
“There's a lot of things that we could not have easily done for the Canadian blood system without having that lab there,” said Devine.