Yesterday, Friday, the Federal Council put the amendments to the Therapeutic Products Act regarding blood donation passed by Parliament into force on January 1, 2025, as it announced. From then on, the constitutionally guaranteed principles of free blood donation and the prohibition of discrimination when donating blood will be anchored in law.
In the future, people may not be excluded from donating blood because of their sexual orientation, for example. Rather, the criteria for not allowing someone to donate must be based on individual risk behavior and science. The background is that after the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic from 1988 to 2017, gay and bisexual men were generally excluded from donating blood – regardless of their personal life situation and behavior. Currently, men are only allowed to donate blood if they have not had sex with men in the past twelve months. According to Blutspende SRK Schweiz AG, blood donation criteria were applied in practice regardless of sexual orientation from November 2023, after the Swiss Institute of Therapeutic Products Swissmedic gave the green light for this.
The revised Medicines Act further stipulates that there is no payment for blood donation in Switzerland. Nor may blood or unstable blood products be imported for transfusion purposes for which such benefits have been granted or accepted. This makes the constitutional principle more concrete in the Therapeutic Products Act.
The supply of blood products in Switzerland remained stable in 2023 despite fluctuations. The number of blood donations fell slightly by 0.6 percent to 263,702. The SRK blood donation set a new record for blood stem cell transplants.
