Health committee: Allow gay men to give blood

A special Health Ministry committee is expected to recommend overturning a decades’ long policy barring gay men from donating blood, Channel 2 reported Tuesday.

Blood donations by homosexual men are currently not accepted in Israel due to health officials’ concerns the potential donors may be carriers of the HIV/AIDS virus.

The LGBT community in Israel has repeatedly voiced its opposition to the ban, insisting the prohibition is both unnecessary and discriminatory.

The Channel 2 report comes a week after the Health Ministry committee announced it would accept blood donations from people of Ethiopian descent, who, like gay men, have for years been barred from giving blood based on fears they were carriers of the HIV/AIDS virus.