Outdated HIV prevention guidelines are hindering cornea donations, advocates say : NPR

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

It took years of lobbying for the Meals and Drug Administration to carry restrictions on blood donations from males who’ve intercourse with males, which it put in place to stop HIV transmission. The FDA did so final yr, however it nonetheless will not let homosexual males donate corneas for that very same cause. One Colorado physician is working to alter that. Colorado Public Radio’s Elaine Tassy experiences.

ELAINE TASSY, BYLINE: The physician combating to alter FDA’s coverage is Michael Puente. He is a pediatric eye surgeon, and he says there’s nice want. He cites a 2021 examine that discovered that for each donated cornea at the moment out there, there’s 70 individuals who want transplants.

MICHAEL PUENTE: And so if we will get the FDA to permit HIV-negative homosexual males to donate their corneas, it’s going to treatment blindness in about 3,000 individuals every year.

TASSY: The FDA’s ban relies on a 30-year-old paper by the CDC citing a slim risk that the HIV virus might cross via cornea tissue to the recipient.

PUENTE: The coverage that forestalls homosexual males from donating their corneas hasn’t modified a single time since Might 1994, and it barely made sense in 1994. Within the yr 2024, it is ridiculous {that a} coverage like this nonetheless exists with no scientific proof to assist it.

TASSY: In a press release, the FDA stated it routinely opinions donor screening and testing and that it is a data-driven course of. It says that whereas absolutely the threat of HIV transmission via corneal surgical procedure seems to be distant, there are nonetheless relative dangers. Physician Puente has turn into an activist as a member of Legalize Homosexual Eyes. It is an advocacy group that encourages individuals to contact their lawmakers and publish on social media. Colorado resident Alisha Bashaw’s dad and mom donated their corneas. She says it is a chance everybody ought to have.

ALISHA BASHAW: It is actually unhappy as a result of your particular person has gone, and it is also actually stunning that she will be able to reward in dying and, like, dwell on indirectly via that donation.

TASSY: Final yr, practically 70,000 People donated corneas. As a result of most recipients solely want a cornea for one eye, most of these donors helped two individuals – not only one.

For NPR Information, I am Elaine Tassy in Aurora, Colo.

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