The emergence of blood borne infections such as HIV and Hepatitis C in the 1970s and 80s has had a profound effect on the way that blood donation and transfusion services operate around the world. In the UK, in the early 1980s, it was discovered that a number of people in the UK had developed AIDS following blood transfusions.
This problem particularly affected hemophiliacs, whose condition made them dependent on blood products. By the end of 1983, people who were thought to be most susceptible to AIDS, such as gay and bisexual men, were asked to stop donating blood . By 1985, and the discovery that HIV was the cause of AIDS, the UK blood service began routine testing of all blood donations. All blood products were also then heat treated to destroy any possible undetected virus.
A lifetime ban on men who have sex with men donating blood was then put into effect. Exclusions also applied to anyone who has ever been paid for sex and anyone who has ever injected drugs. In recent years there have been calls for a review of this ban as discriminatory against gay men who wished to donate blood but did not consider themselves to be at risk of HIV. Demands for a change to the ban have argued that it is an equality issue.
The National Blood Service has always responded that it is a safety issue first and that the exclusion is about specific higher risk sexual behaviour (such as oral or anal sex between men) rather than sexuality. They have argued that there is no exclusion of gay men who have never had sex with a man, or of women who have sex with women.