(Hobart, Australia) The Australian Red Cross ignored the expert opinion of its chief medical advisor when it imposed a blanket ban on gay men donating blood, a anti-discrimination tribunal was told.

The Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Tribunal is hearing a complaint filed by Michael Cain who alleges the Red Cross is violating his civil rights by refusing to accept the blood of gays. Cain’s complaint says that screening of prospective blood donors should be based on the safety of sexual practices, not sexual identity.

On Tuesday, Cain’s attorney presented a document prepared in 2001 by the Red Cross’s chief epidemiological advisor, Dr. John Kaldor, advising that “based on current epidemiological evidence, there is no justification for excluding donors on the basis of [whether they have had] oral sex.”

Dr. Kaldor also wrote in his advisory that “it would seem prudent to defer donors who have had male anal sex without a condom…for a donor who has had anal sex only with a condom, the risk is far lower.”

Attorney Peter Tree presented the document during the cross examination of Dr. Brenton Wylie, the primary Red Cross witness. Wylie testified that the document had been presented to the Red Cross in 2001, but that it went ahead with the blanket ban anyway.

At the time Wylie was a member of the Red Cross management committee which made decisions about blood donation exclusions.

On the witness stand Tuesday, Dr. Wylie claimed that men who have sex with other men are thousands of times more likely to have HIV than other people, despite the fact that only 95 men who have sex with men in Tasmania have HIV, an estimated 0.5 percent of that group.

Meanwhile, an Australian AIDS expert told the inquiry Tuesday that it is time for donors to be screened for risky sexual activity, not their partner’s gender.

Bill Bowtell, who was senior advisor to the Australian Health Minister when all gay men were initially barred from blood donations - and is widely seen as the architect of Australia’s successful response to HIV/AIDS - told the inquiry that advances in blood testing and the growing need for safe blood mean it is in the public interest to allow blood donation from low-risk gay men.

He added that the growing heterosexual HIV epidemic in the Asia Pacific region poses a risk to the Australian blood supply unless heterosexuals are screened for unsafe sexual activity.

“We have a very strong and robust system which we can change to reduce risk, increase the volume of blood and remove unnecessary prejudice and discrimination,” he said.

The hearing, which began last week, continues.

The United States and Canada also bar gay men from donating blood.