Germany To Lift Restrictions On Gay Blood Donors: Report

Germany will amend its guidelines for donating blood so the same rules apply to everyone regardless of their sexual orientation, the country's health minister said on Tuesday. Official guidelines will be adapted so that potential donors are no longer assessed differently based on their sexual orientation, Karl Lauterbach told the RND broadcaster. "Whether someone can become a blood donor is a question of behavioural risk, not sexual orientation," Mr Lauterbach said. "There must also be no hidden discrimination on this issue," he added. According to current guidelines from the German Medical Association (BAK), men who have sex with men are only allowed to donate blood if they have not had "a new or more than one sexual partner" in the past four months. Other people are assessed on whether they are "frequently changing partners". The rules date back to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, when gay men were thought to carry a higher risk of passing on…