Canada's ban on blood donations from homosexual men is outdated and unfair, contends a new article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Canadian Blood Services and Hema-Quebec have banned blood donations from men who have sex with men since 1983, when the AIDS crisis was in its infancy. Back then, there was no effective way to test blood for HIV.

But while the ban made sense back then, it no longer does in 2010, write pioneering AIDS researchers Dr. Mark Wainberg and Dr. Norbert Gilmore.

"The 1983 ban has hung on so long, unfortunately, because many people became infected by HIV in the early 80s through blood transfusions, and they have mounted continuing pressure on the blood agencies to maintain the ban," Wainberg said in a news release.

"While we can sympathize with them, this no longer makes sense in 2010, and with each passing year it makes less sense."

In the article, Wainberg, the head of the McGill University AIDS Centre, and Gilmore, of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law, argue that rather than barring all gay men from donating blood, a better policy would be to allow donations from gay men in long-term, monogamous relationships.

Those with multiple sex partners should still be barred, just as heterosexuals with multiple partners currently face one-year deferrals, they argue.

Prospective blood donors in Canada are required by Canada's blood agencies to complete questionnaires about their medical history and potentially harmful behaviour.

Intravenous drug users, people who may have been exposed to Creutzfeld-Jakob disease (mad cow disease), people who have exchanged money for sex or drugs are all permanently banned. Currently, men who had sex with men from 1977 onwards (the year estimated as the start of the AIDS epidemic) also face "indefinite deferrals" from donations.

When Canada brought in its policy against donations from gay men in 1983, many other countries followed. But in recent years, a number of industrialized countries have altered their policies.

Argentina, Australia, Japan, Hungary and Sweden have one-year deferral periods, while South Africa has a five-year deferral and New Zealand has a 10-year deferral.

The authors note that today's technology makes it almost impossible for HIV tests to produce false results, making one of the reasons for the ongoing ban moot.

The authors note that more than 95 per cent of homosexuals and bisexuals in Canada are not HIV-positive. Excluding all those potential donors "puts a huge burden on blood agencies and the blood supply," the authors note.

"We constantly have blood shortages that would not occur, perhaps, if we had a more reasonable policy," Gilmore said.

"Other jurisdictions, like Australia, have already replaced the lifetime ban with more balanced and realistic policies, and I think it's time that Canada and the U.S. did the same."

Wainberg added there's "a social justice aspect" to this issue as well that extends beyond the gay community.

"When a discriminatory policy isn't justified by the science, it leads to controversy. We've seen protests and boycotts of blood drives on Canadian campuses, so I think the blood agencies would be better off if they agreed with us.

"I suspect, honestly, that many of them already do, in private."