Democratic Senator John Kerry headed up a group of 17 Democrats and one independent in writing US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to urge the agency to lift the 1983 US rule that bans gay men from donating blood. The letter said that the ban was “outdated, medically and scientifically unsound.”

From the Associated Free Press:

“We write today to express our concerns regarding outdated, medically and scientifically unsound deferral criteria for prospective blood donors,” they wrote in the letter, which Kerry’s office made public.

“With hospitals and emergency rooms across the country in constant and urgent need of blood products, we believe certain blood donor deferral policies should be reviewed and appropriately modified and modernized while ensuring the blood supply meets the highest possible standards,” they wrote.

The American Red Cross and other health organizations support ending the ban, saying the law is “medically and scientifically unwarranted.”

The ban bars men who have had sex with other men after 1977 from donating blood, and was instituted at the height of the HIV/AIDS scare in the early 1980s.