The Health and Human Services Department (HHS) is seeking comments on designing a pilot program to create “alternative donor deferral criteria” for gay men. Currently, men who have had sex with other men (MSM) since 1977 cannot donate blood due to “higher levels of certain transfusion-transmissible infections” among that population, the notice explains. Members of Congress’s interest and increased accuracy among donor testing have made the department reconsider the ban. “[T]he increased effectiveness of donor testing for [Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)], [Hepatitis B Virus (HBV)], syphilis and other infectious agents has greatly enhanced