Nebraska Community Blood Bank eliminates sexuality screening, following FDA guidelines

Starting Monday, Sept. 25, the Nebraska Community Blood Bank eliminates screening questions based on sexuality. That follows Food and Drug Administration guidelines from earlier this year. Those new NCBB screening guidelines will now ask everyone about any new partners and/or multiple partners they’ve had in the last three months. NCBB’s marketing manager, Kari Lundeen, says former FDA guidelines didn’t allow everyone to donate.”That restricted sexually active gay and bisexual men from donating and that’s been eliminated,” Lundeen said. Lundeen says they’ve been preparing to make the change.”Any time there’s a monumental decision made by the FDA like this, it’s going to take some time, and we want to make sure that we’ve got everything correct and ready to go to welcome these new donors,” she said.Abbi Swatsworth, executive director of OutNebraska, says it’s been a decades-long fight to allow gay people to donate blood.”There’s been so many advances in science that it really was to the point where it was quite discriminatory to screen blood on identity versus risk factors,” Swatsworth said.She says the new guidelines help eliminate stigmas.”Donating blood is such a basic way that we could give back and by opening that up for more people, I think that really further empowers our community to be engaged and do good things,” she said.NCBB says this comes on the heels of a statewide blood emergency. Blood donated at their Omaha and Lincoln locations goes to Nebraska Med, Methodist Health Systems, Children’s Hospital, Bryan Health and Lincoln area hospitals.”Quite a bit of blood is needed for those hospitals and Nebraska Community Blood Bank is the sole provider. So if we can get more people to come and donate, then they’re really helping people in their own community,” Lundeen said.New guidelines are a chance for everyone to make a difference.”You will be affecting multiple lives by your one donation,” Lundeen said.