However even though the guidelines provided by these organizations are impartial towards the sexual orientation of the potential donor, many countries around the world-such as Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Israel and Norway-continue to ban all men who have sex with men (MSM) from contributing via blood donation and strictly adhere to the permanent deferral that the international regulatory authorities introduced in 1977. The European Union and the World Health Organization exclude from donating blood 'a person whose sexual behavior puts them at high risk of acquiring severe infectious diseases that can be transmitted by blood'. In order to protect blood product recipients and avoid transfusion-related infections the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Union (EU) as well as Health Ministries of different countries around the world have implemented exclusion criteria for potential future blood donors. Just over 100 million blood donations are collected all over the world annually. The medical community has a duty to secure safe blood for every person who might need it, let us not waste safe potential donors and stigmatize them by focusing on outdated policies. During the '80s, the epidemiology was different and it seems not only hypocritical but also naïve to rely on guidelines that are far outdated and old-fashioned. The ban that forbid men who have sex with men from donating blood was implemented more than 30 years ago. Many countries, considering the new data available, have reformed their policies and moved from the lifetime ban to 5-year and 1-year deferrals but only a fraction of countries have adopted the guidelines for the “risky sexual behavior” assessment.
However, nowadays the screening methods have advanced and the possibility of a transfusion related HIV infection is extremely low. Given the lack of screening methods for HIV back in the '80s the ban on men who had sex with men seemed like the only choice in order to limit the disease. In the recent years, organizations like the European Union (EU) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have established new guidelines introducing the term of “risky sexual behavior” without any reference to the sex orientation of the potential donor, however many countries are hesitant to review the ban on men who had sex with men (MSM). Due to the high prevalence of the disease on men who had sex with men (MSM) a lifetime ban on blood donations on men who had sex with men (MSM) was implemented. During the 1980s the HIV/AIDS epidemic outbreak occurred.