Blood donors are selling Canadian plasma products abroad

Peter Johnson runs at his Canadian Blood Services Donation Center every week to give plasma.

As a child, Johnson was suffering from idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, causing injury and bleeding. He was treated with steroids, but today, one of the remedies is intravenous immunoglobulin, which is made of plasma.

So he is giving plasma because he was very old to donate.

The two -hour process pulls the whole blood from Johnson’s arm, separates the yellow plasma and returns the rest to her body. He knows the value of his donation.

He did not know that Canadian blood services Barcelona sells Canadian Blood Donation Buyproducts to Multinational Pharmaceutical Company Griffols SA in Spain. The company is now using Canadian plasma to make medicines at Griffol’s Montreal Plant for sale abroad.

Johnson said he has a “fundamental problem” in which donations are being used for benefits.

“My priority would be to maintain it for a type of benefit of an environment,” he said. “I think this is the intention of the donor.”

Johnson said that he believes that others will agreeE, if they knew that donations were being converted into profit.

“I think so, because I have learned today, and I think I am quite well informed and connected to the system and how it works,” he said. “And mostly you will be interested in knowing that, I think.”

Canadian blood services manage Canada’s blood supply everywhere except Cubek, where it is run by Héma-Québec, and in 2022 Entered into an agreement To help collect plasma on your behalf with griffols.

Plasma makes more than half of a person’s blood and is rich in protein. It can be transformed directly into patients during major surgery and to treat trauma, or it can be used.D to make medicines.

Griffols are using plasma to make immunoglobulin, which is a product called gamunex, especially for patients in Canada. But as a result of the process there are valuable sub -products that can be used to produce other drugs.

When CBC News Asked in January What was being done with those sub -products, Canadian blood services said they were being thrown out.

But on a gifolS Call with investors and analysts with this suMMER, CEO Nacho Abia said that the company is using those Canadian bayproducts to make a product called albumin. And this medicine is being sold internationally.

Abia said, “Our first Canadian-made albumin built in our convenience in Montreal has successfully reached our patients.”

“At this point, it is only producing albumin. The plan is in the futureE will also divide the products. … and WE does not provide specific numbers about this project, but, essentially, I think we are becoming a very solid partner with a health care system in Canada. ,

Canadian Blood Services later confirmed that a deal to sell those byproducts had reached in February.

Non-profit will not say how much it earns from the sale of plasma. It said that income offset the cost of purchasing immunoglobulin for Canadian people.

‘A recipe for disaster’

“The whole thing does not pass the smell test,” Steve Staples said Canadian health alliance, a non-profit that advocates for the public health care system.

He said that the February agreement with Griffols was a significant departure from commitments, when partnership with the company was announced in 2022, patients and legislators were given.

“This system is becoming more and more complicated and the longer it moves, the more difficult it is if we find that there is a problem.”

Canadian blood services originated in the 1980s in view of tainted blood crisis, when over 30,000 Canadians were infected with HIV or hepatitis C from poor screen blood products.

Justice Hores Krever led a public inquiry and recommended the establishment of a new voluntary blood collection system – which led to the establishment of Canadian blood services – to reduce the risks that private companies pay for people to donate their blood.

Staples stated that they fear that Canada is now losing control over his blood supply, and the lack of transparency and accountability has made it one of its top concerns.

“We have really two parallel systems,” he said. “We have a non-profit Canadian blood services collection system that is going to Canada and …

Staples said that it is a time to take a good look at the terms of intervention and signed contracts for the federal government.

“We can find ourselves in a system where we have lost our ability to run it, which first puts patients instead of profits,” he said.

Complaining the case of plasma collection from Canadian blood services is the fact that there are also its collection centers of grifols, where it pays people for plasma donations.

The company now has 17 payment plasma centers in Canada – outside BC and Cubek, where the payment for plasma is prohibited – and it has newly posted in June. Pay rates For new donors.

Johnson said that payment to Plasma should be exception – not the rules.

“If you ever reached the point where there was a crunch and encouraged to encourage people to encourage people to come up with the supplies required to pay, it’s one thing,” he said that when the paid plasma clinics were banned, their opinion was asked.

“But if it is not so, you can get your supply voluntarily, then I think it would be a good idea for the government to do so.”

Donor unaware of Griffols Agreement

Tom Frankish, who lives in Ottawa, rolls his sleeves every week to donate plasma at a Canadian blood services collection center. Last month, he made a weekly appointment in St. John, while holidaying at New Breanswick.

He said that both his son and daughter -in -law are doctors, and his mother -in -law is a transplant recipient. This is part of their dedication.

Asked if it is concerned with him that blood donation is being done by a private company for profit, he said, “Yes, it will bother me a little. Yes, of course.”

Long -time donor Mike Horgan does not like the fact that Canadian plasma products are being sold abroad.

“Yes, it’s not right,” he said. “Certainly not allowed.”

Horgan has more than 1,000 donations on its Canadian blood services donor card. This has been their weekly ritual for decades, when the blood collection stops, only two weeks disappear on Christmas.

The retired police officer said that he did not agree with a private company “Trying to cash in … and earn money from other people.”

But he still supports Canadian blood services and will continue with his weekly plasma donation.

“It still goes for a good reason.”

If you have more information about this story, pleaseASE Contact allyson.mccormack@cbc.c.Ca,