Does sexual preference affect blood donations?

https://www.theglobeandmail.com

The economic principle I will be focusing on is that people generally respond to incentives in predictable ways. My research question is "Are gay men allowed to give blood donations?" The article I will be using was published by David Andreatta which is titled "Gay men celibate for at least five years now to give blood." I feel this will help my research question because it discusses why gay men weren't able to donate blood and what policy was put it in place to allow for anyone of any sexual background to donate blood. It also gives background to policies that have been put in place to cause gay men not to donate as well. 

The supply for blood donations has always been low especially the past ten years. In Canada, they established a ban for gay men to donate blood due to an invalid correlation between gay men and HIV transmissions. Recently, Canada has removed that ban as long as men haven't had sexual intercourse for about five years. Adam Awad, the national chairman of Canadian Federation of students which is an organization that is against this ban argues "For the vast majority who are affected by this ban, this policy change is actually no change." While some believe that this ban is true, it's just an attack for others to discriminate against those who aren't heterosexual. There have been no valid experiments that correlate to gay men specifically having a higher percentage of HIV transmissions. Awad argues that is more of a threat who has unprotected sex with multiple women is a greater threat to the sanctity of the blood supply than a gay man who has been in a long-term, monogamous relationship.With blood supply on low because of bans such as this one, my next research question will be "What are the effects of blood transfusions and can they be catastrophic?"