The leader of the largest private Canadian collector of blood plasma said Canadian Blood Services’ willingness to work with private companies is a step in the right direction for domestic self-sufficiency and opens the door to collecting plasma from paid donors in Ontario, where the practice is currently banned.
Mr. Bahardoust said CBS had rejected previous offers to buy plasma collected from his company. However, CBS does buy medicine from international pharmaceutical companies that is manufactured using plasma collected in Canada by CPR. One of the controversial elements of CBS’s involvement with private collectors is the business model of those companies, including CPR, which depends on paying donors for their plasma. CBS and Health Canada have said paid plasma is safe, based on medical studies. But critics also say payments will have a detrimental effect on voluntary donations.
Mr. Bahardoust said he believes that CBS’s plasma strategy could lead to Ontario revisiting its ban, which has an exemption for CBS. “We continue to support the important work of Canadian Blood Services,” said Amy Crofts, a spokesperson for the B.C. Health Ministry. Michèle Brill-Edwards, an Ottawa physician and board member of the Canadian Health Coalition, called the lack of public consultations a “betrayal of trust” and said it could have a chilling effect on the agency’s donor base.