Group items tagged

Kat Lanteigne, executive director for BloodWatch.org and writer of the play Tainted based on three-years of research about the tainted blood scandal, travelled to Alberta to help spread the message about concerns about private, donor-paid plasma collection. Lanteigne said these types of clinics had started to show up in Ontario in the last few years. "This is a big-pharma push," she said. "If they can build a clinic and get a licence from Health Canada then they can open without the province's permission." She said that the private sale and collection of blood and plasma introduces risk into the system. She also dispelled another myth that plasma is being imported into the country. She said that is not the case, as about 70 per cent of the drugs produced from plasma is what is being imported. When successful in the fight to get Ontario to legislate against private, donor-paid plasma collection at the end of 2014, and because Quebec has a similar law, Lanteigne said they made the mistake of thinking that because the largest provinces in Canada had done this, the rest of the provinces would follow suit.

Instead, as part of one of her first decisions, the new federal Liberal Health Minister approved CPR opening a clinic in Saskatchewan. Lanteigne says the Saskatchewan government, led by Premier Brad Wall, then approved the private, donor-paid plasma collection business to open in Saskatoon, "in between a pawn shop and a pay-day loan company." "This collection facility is a blood broker. They are literally a middle man Ñ a source to get profits. "We're asking the provinces and territories to pass voluntary blood donation acts which adds blood and plasma to their existing human tissue acts ..." Lanteigne explained. There is a lot of information on the BloodWatch.org website about the issue, including an informative timeline. The organization also has a Heart Watch rating system. Alberta currently has three hearts and Lanteigne would like to see that increase to five. "Saskatchewan has broken our hearts," she adds.

Kim Storebo, CUPE Local 46 president who works with Canadian Blood Services (CBS), also spoke at the event. She said CUPE supports a public, voluntary-based blood system in Canada, adding CBS needs to increase the number of its own plasma collection sites. The organization has been slowly closing locations since 2012. "There is no evidence the collection of plasma from paid donors will create self-sufficiency," she said. "Under no circumstances should there be payment of blood plasma donors with cash or cash-in-kind equivalents." The union wants to see blood and plasma collection remain the sole responsibility of Canadian Blood Services and for the organization to expand its plasma collection and its work hours and ensure stable and consistent hours for its employees. As part of the wrap-up of the Alberta tour officials with FOM, BloodWatch.org and CUPE presented an online SumOfUs petition with more than 15,000 signatures to provincial health minister Sarah Hoffman asking for all provincial governments to "implement legislation that ensures no for-profit, donor-paid blood plasma collection clinics are allowed to operate in Canada." Azocar assured those at the meetings that Friends of Medicare would continue to lobby the Alberta government this fall and next spring during the Legislature sittings.

Regardless of source, it’s important to ensure the safety and security of supply for patients who need blood and blood products. Currently, CBS collects about 200,000 litres of plasma annually. That is enough to produce only about 22 per cent of blood products such as intravenous immunoglobulin, which is used to treat a growing number of immune disorders. That product is purchased from the United States and Switzerland.

Currently, there are no manufacturers of blood products in Canada. However, both Green Cross Biotherapeutics and Therapure Biopharma are getting into the business. Within five years, CBS hopes to increase collection markedly to about 500,000 litres a year, with the use of dedicated plasma collection centres. But CBS has no plans to pay donors, other than the traditional cookies and juice. Nor does it plan to buy plasma from other providers, such as Canadian Plasma Resources.In fact, what Canadian Plasma Resources plans to do with the plasma it has collected is unclear as it does not have license from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which means it essentially can’t sell its plasma in the United States. What is clear, however, is that there is a lot of action in the blood business; as opportunities arise, we must be careful to not repeat the errors at the root of the tainted-blood debacle. What policy makers need to do now is come up with a clear, coherent position on issues such as paying for plasma and domestic production of blood products rather than grasping at every shiny bauble that comes along.

According to Canadian Blood Services, to be able to manufacture our own plasma protein products we would need to collect 700,000 litres of plasma.

In comparison, private US clinics collect over 20 million liters a year from over 40 million donors.

Health Canada conducted a roundtable discussion on the views of Canadians about paying donors for plasma in March 2013. At this discussion, a joint presentation between Health Canada and Canadian Blood Services stated that “no country in the world [including Canada] has been able to meet their need for plasma with a solely volunteer model.” However, in June 2013, Health Canada went on to say that “provinces and territories have the authority to allow or disallow the payment of plasma donors.”

Many Canadians find the idea of paying for body fluids, which is often mixed in with ideas like payment for organ donation, distasteful.

Ultimately, safety concerns need to be balanced with the heavy use of plasma protein products by Canadian patients, taking into account the best current estimates of the risks of paid donation, and recognizing that donors from other countries are paid. Is it time for a revision to current policies around paying Canadians for plasma, or should they remain the same?

posters are pinned up in university washrooms and donors collect cash in exchange for their body fluids. Canadian donors get a $25 gift card per donation in Saskatoon.

Blood donors typically donate twice a year, while plasma donors can donate once a week, but the process is more complex and takes three times longer than a simple blood draw.

Despite these assurances, a move toward pay-for-plasma is facing opposition from the BC Chapter of the Canadian Hemophilia Society and others who decry it as dangerous and wrong to tamper with Canada's voluntary blood/tissue donor model.

"Don't worry is not a plan … [pay-for-plasma clinics] continue to target homeless shelters and methdone clinics," said Michael McCarthy, a tainted blood survivor and former vice president of the Canadian Hemophilia Society. He was recently in Ottawa to lobby the federal government to ban pay-for-plasma clinics.

"Health Minister Jane Philpott keeps saying that the screening methods used are stringent. That's not true. Private blood brokers have no oversight — none. Not in the U.S. and not here," said Kat Lanteigne of Blood Watch, an activist organization fighting the Iranian company's move into Canada.

So far CPR is simply stockpiling the donations as they do not have a buyer. Many other countries ban the sale of human material. Quebec has forbidden the sale of human blood or plasma, and Ontario recently prohibited paying blood or plasma donors.

The Canadian Health Coalition and Bloodwatch.org held a joint news conference in Ottawa Tuesday. Both groups are calling on government to revoke the licence for Canadian Plasma Resources. 

In a press release, blood safety advocates accuse the company of setting up collection centres next to methadone clinics, homeless shelters and payday loan businesses.

"It is the sole responsibility of Canadian Blood Services to collect all blood and plasma on behalf of the public," said Kat Lanteigne, co-founder of Bloodwatch.org.  "Selling off a major stake in our blood system contravenes the promise that was made to Canadians in the most fundamental way since our blood tragedy."

Meanwhile, the Canadian Health Coalition wants the federal government to continue to implement the Krever inquiry's recommendations, which called for blood products to be collected solely on a voluntary, non-compensatory basis.

There’s not yet even an application to open a pay-for-plasma clinic in Alberta, but the issue already appears to be reaching crisis levels.

Never mind the fact that this practice has been ongoing for decades in Manitoba and for several years in other countries, Alberta’s health minister is being urged to take swift action to put a stop to it — and she appears willing to do so. 

In February, a company called Canadian Plasma Resources opened a clinic in Saskatoon. Plasma collected is used to make pharmaceutical products and other medical therapies, and donors are compensated to the tune of a $25 pre-loaded credit card. They’re now looking to open a clinic in British Columbia and possibly in Alberta and Manitoba in the coming years.