U.S. health officials now recommend homosexual or gay men be allowed to donate blood a year after their last sexual contact, easing a ban imposed in 1983.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said this critical move apparently has strong scientific evidence it won't create more risks in blood supplies. Some medical groups and advocates, however, claim the lifting of the ban isn't backed-up by science.

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This policy change aims to boost blood donation supplies, increasing it to hundreds of thousands of pints yearly.

Since the discovery of the HIV virus that causes AIDS, gay men have been banned from donating blood since HIV can be transmitted via transfusions.

According to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, the FDA did carefully examine and consider all available scientific evidence pivotal to the blood deferral policy for homosexual men based on several scientific studies and other epidemiologic data.

The FDA also believes this policy move can align the needs of other men and women who are exposed to a higher risk of HIV infection. John Peller, President and Chief Executive Officer of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, said this new policy still holds heterosexual individuals and gay men to different standards.

Judith Aberg, Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases from the Icahn School of Medicine in Mount Sinai, said gay men not having sex for a year is not based on any kind of science. He also said it certainly doesn't take a year after contact to get HIV. Acute HIV detection can take weeks.

Peter Marks, deputy director from the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said there isn't yet enough scientific evidence to maintain a blood supply deferral of less than a year.

The FDA will issue its first draft guidance in early 2015. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services gave the recommendation of the one year wait before donating. Lifting the ban will apparently add some 615,300 pints of blood every year.

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