Health advocates are demanding an end to paid plasma collection in Canada and calling for transparency from public health authorities following the deaths of two people who donated plasma at private clinics operated by pharmaceutical company Grifols.
The Canadian Health Coalition (CHC), alongside provincial counterparts, are demanding a judicial inquest into the deaths, as well as the public release of the controversial contract between Canadian Blood Services (CBS) and Grifols that allows the multinational pharmaceutical to pay donors for plasma.
“When you bring profit into health care — which is already a life and death arena — it can have serious consequences,” said Manitoba Health Coalition (MHC) leader Noah Schulz Tuesday. “We do not want to see another person die.”
The demands by the health coalitions are continuing to put for-profit plasma donation in Canada under scrutiny and come after two people died after giving plasma at Grifols-operated clinics in Winnipeg during the last six months. A third person in Winnipeg has launched a legal action against Grifols alleging kidney damage caused by equipment failure during a donation.
Coalition leaders say the incidents, combined with documented compliance problems, point to systemic risks with a profit-driven model of plasma collection. The groups side with one of the key principles that Justice Horace Krever laid down after the inquiry into Canada’s tainted blood scandal — that donations are safest when they are voluntary — and argue that paying for plasma preys on the financially vulnerable.
In a statement to the Star, Grifols said it compensates donors for their time and that it welcomes “students, working professionals, public service personnel and others through our doors each day.” The company said donors are “healthy members of the local community who are committed to helping their fellow citizens with life-threatening illnesses.”
In response to the deaths, Grifols said it followed Health Canada’s protocol, reporting the deaths within 72 hours of the donation and have commenced an internal investigation.
Grifols vice president of sales Mary Hughes repeatedly told members of parliament at a March 26 meeting for the Standing Committee on Health that “today, there is no correlation” between the deaths at Grifols’ Winnipeg sites and the donations.
Health Canada is investigating the deaths and have not made any findings public. The federal Health Ministry did not respond to the Star’s request for comment surrounding the deaths.
Natalie Mehra, the director of the Ontario Health Coalition (OHC), said the ethics of buying and selling plasma were wrong from the beginning.
“We don’t allow commodifying human organs for good reason, because it is such a dangerous thing to do. It’s so exploitative,” she said. “We should not do it with blood products either.”
Inspection reports from Health Canada over the past four years appear to bolster those concerns. Facilities operated by Grifols in Winnipeg, Calgary, Regina, Saskatoon and St. John have been cited for multiple instances of non-compliance, including in donor screening, quality management and staff training.
“These findings are deeply troubling,” said Geoff Cain, a former CBS employee and volunteer advocate with the OHC. “They show fail after fail after fail.”
Canada’s blood supply is managed by CBS, a registered charity established in 1998. The non-profit collects both blood and blood products like plasma, a pale-yellow liquid that can be used in direct transfusions and in the production of pharmaceutical products.
Ontario’s Voluntary Blood Donations Act bans paid plasma, but exempts CBS from this ban. Grifols and CBS entered into a contract in 2022 that allows the private company to operate as the nonprofit’s “agent” in plasma collection. CBS maintains that this was necessary to mitigate a “global shortage of lifesaving immunoglobulins.”
Critics say this isn’t an ambiguity in the law, but a violation of it.
Federal members of parliament have passed a motion to compel CBS to disclose its contract with Grifols by April 10.
In response to the Star’s question about whether they were prepared to hand over that contract, CBS said it’s bound by “commercial confidentiality” related to the transaction and the contract’s provisions, and referred the Star to Grifols.
Now, the health coalitions are urging federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel to transition entirely to a public, voluntary system.
Schulz said he believes Health Canada and other regulators have a responsibility to intervene in the paid plasma industry before more harm is done.
Health Canada told the Star it visited the Winnipeg Grifols centres after learning of the deaths, identified areas of non-compliance and requested corrective actions. The federal organization also conducted a virtual inspection of Grifols’ head office in Oakville and found quality management issues.
Health Canada added the issues were not considered “critical” and “there is no evidence that plasma safety or quality was affected.”
