Is Health Canada protecting our blood supply?
In this spell of frigid weather, Health Canada has found itself in some hot water. The trouble has been years in the making — since at least 2013. That was when Canadian Plasma Resources, a profit-seeking company that pays individuals for their blood plasma, sought to open its first location.
A media exposé has raised troubling questions, not just about CPR’s business model and what it means for the health of Canadians, but also about the close relationship this private company has with Health Canada, the public agency tasked to regulate it.
Among its many roles, Health Canada is responsible for enforcing laws and regulations that govern the collection of blood and blood products (including blood plasma). Canada’s blood supply is collected and maintained by the independent, nonprofit agency, Canadian Blood Services. Voluntary donations are collected in the public interest and make their way back to patients in hospitals through lifegiving blood transfusions.
Though both CPR and CBS are regulated by Health Canada, and share similar names, CPR is playing an entirely different game.
Rather than collecting voluntary, unpaid blood or blood plasma destined for hospitals and patients in Canada, CPR is a private company that pays for plasma collection to generate profit. They do so by appealing to some of the most impoverished and vulnerable in our society.
For example, in Ontario, CPR attempted to open clinics beside a methadone clinic and homeless shelters.
CPR’s paid donor model has actually resulted in declining voluntary donations for “regular,” non-plasma blood donations to Canadian Blood Services in Saskatoon, where CPR currently operates.
Aware of this collateral damage, CBS even warned Health Canada about their compromised supply and asked for “a pause of support for commercial activity” while developing a plan to secure voluntary plasma donations. Health Canada chose to ignore this warning, and instead approved CPR’s application to open its second clinic in Moncton, N.B.
Most Canadians would like to think that independent regulators like Health Canada put the public interest first. So why, despite warnings raised by CBS, the World Health Organization and the lessons of our own domestic scandal, did Health Canada so readily approve CPR’s licence to operate?
As media sources show, an access to information request revealed Health Canada officials were in direct communication with senior lobbyists regarding the CPR’s business, expansion and even public relations plans, including their challenges with Ontario’s proposed ban on paid plasma.
All of this begs the question; what is going on at Health Canada and to whom do they consider themselves accountable? As the public regulator responsible for the nation’s health, it is the well-being of Canadians that should come first, not the bottom-line of private enterprise.