Selling blood

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Tell the federal government to protect our public blood supply now

BC has just banned payment for blood and plasma, protecting the most vulnerable from predatory corporations and securing our blood supply for Canadians.

It’s time the federal government followed suit.

Sign the Petition

A,

A private company has started to harvest blood plasma from people in Canada, selling it at a massive markup on the international market.

Canadian Plasma Resources (CPR) was banned in Ontario when it tried to set up a blood plasma collection centre beside a homeless shelter and another next to a methadone... centre due to concerns of targeting people desperate for money. Luckily, some provinces are taking charge and stopping these collection centres from setting up shop, with BC being the most recent to ban payment for blood and plasma.

Unfortunately, CPR has already set up shop in Saskatoon and Moncton and is looking to expand further into Manitoba and Nova Scotia. Unless we pass legislation to ban for-profit blood collection now, we’ll be playing whack-a-mole protecting Canada’s public blood supply province by province. We need a coordinated effort across the country to put an immediate stop to this dangerous private industry.

Federal and Provincial Ministers of Health: Protect our public blood collection system now.

Private blood collectors not only prey on the most vulnerable but they endanger the security of our blood supply. We need only look at the tragic history of the tainted blood scandal to see just how dangerous private interference with our blood system can be. Blood donation operated by Canadian Blood Services keeps people in Canada safe and is a core part of our public healthcare system.

When CPR collects blood in its two clinics, it pays up to $50 on a reloadable credit card to donors. The plasma is then exported to the US and Europe -- where it can be sold for up to $300 on the international market, reaping huge profits for the private company.

Yet the federal government is still allowing this despicable practice. Private blood brokering does not improve our public health system -- it fractures it and creates an environment where corporate profiteers benefit from the commodification of human tissue. The federal government needs to prevent the harsh realities in the U.S., where vulnerable people are selling their plasma just to survive.

Call on Prime Minister Trudeau, Health Minister Petitpas-Taylor and the Provincial Health Ministers to pass laws to stop companies from profiting off the blood of people in Canada.

SumOfUs has been working with BloodWatch.org for years to help protect Canada’s blood supply from corporate profiteers. Since we first launched this petition in 2016, both Alberta and BC have created legislation to stop profiteering on blood. And thanks to tens of thousands of members like you but we gained national media attention that added to the pressure.

We know that, when we work together, we can protect our blood supply from corporate profiteering. We now have a federal bill in called the Voluntary Blood Donations Act that has been introduced through the Senate to protect our blood supply. This is our time to act.

Sign the Petition

Thanks for all that you do,
Kat Lanteigne, CoFounder & Executive Director of BloodWatch.org, and the team at SumOfUs


More information:

B.C. joins other provinces in banning payment for blood and plasma, CTV News, 28 April 2018
BloodWatch.org Home Page


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