Private plasma clinics bad for B.C., Canada

Private blood brokers Canadian Plasma Resources (CPR) have set their sights on operating for-profit plasma clinics in Kelowna.

Christy Clark’s government has opened the door to let them in.

B.C., you have a problem. A big one.

As the national organization that represents ongoing blood users, patients and tainted blood survivors, the Canadian blood system and public blood policy is the focus of our expertise.

Private blood brokers pay people to sell their plasma in order to make a profit by selling it on the international market.

Their existence does not help Canada towards self-sufficiency in plasma-based medications.

In fact they do the opposite, they create competition of donors for Canadian Blood Services (CBS) and undermine our voluntary blood system.

This has proven to be the case in both Austria and Germany; two of the only four countries in the world that allow the practice.

Now, this unwanted problem is happening in Canada.

Although banned in Ontario (2014) in a unanimous all-party vote, the company quietly moved to Saskatoon and opened in the pawnshop district (2016). In Ontario they were set up next to a homeless shelter and a methadone clinic in Hamilton.

CBS has since asked health ministers across Canada to stop supporting private collectors warning that they are creating an insecurity of supply as donors were getting lured with financial incentives over to the private brokers.

The situation has become so volatile that Canadian Blood Services sounded the alarm bell nationally via the CBC on Dec. 21, 2016, publicly stating that there is a decline of voluntary donations in Saskatoon and market confusion about where to go to donate.

When it comes to the safety of our blood system, this is as serious as it gets. Self-sufficiency through voluntary donations is the safest way to manage a national public blood system and to secure supply.

This is an undisputable fact that is supported by Canada’s landmark Krever Inquiry, the World Health Organization, The European Blood Alliance, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Canadian Blood Services.

CBS recently presented a plan to the provinces (who share the cost of the blood system) to increase domestic plasma collection to serve Canadian patients.

A necessary move as the dramatic rise in plasma-based pharmaceuticals forced Canada to be overreliant on foreign plasma; a model that we cannot sustain because if there is a disruption of that supply chain we would be vulnerable to a disruption of plasma-based medications.

BloodWatch has been actively trying to get B.C. Health Minister Terry Lake to rescind his ardent support for private paid-plasma clinics for a year now.

The president of the British Columbia Hemophilia Society and I both met with Lake last May. We informed him that a legislated ban is necessary as it is the only way to circumvent the inexplicable federal decision to give plasma brokers licenses to operate.

Since then, we have learned that Lake and Premier Clark’s staff met with Canadian Plasma Resources lobbyist and their pharmaceutical backers from Germany.

Inviting a private paid-plasma broker to set up a blood business so they can sell the plasma of British Columbians out of the province is like letting the fox in the hen house. It compromises the integrity of our pan-Canadian blood system and puts the security of supply at risk.

But despite the fact that every single litre of plasma collected by a private blood broker will be sold out of the province, Lake and Clark remain obstinate.

They are in a dereliction of their duties to act in the best interest of patients in BC.

The politics of B.C. are not our business but the safety and security of the Canadian blood system is. The loss of a donor to a private broker is a loss of a donation that could save a Canadian life.

Quebec, Ontario and now Alberta are have stepped up to ban blood money.

Premier Clark must understand that compromising the integrity of the blood system is non-negotiable and do the same. It should be a very easy choice to make.

Kat Lanteigne is executive director of BloodWatch.org.