Blood is a sensitive topic in Canada, and rightly so. About 30,000 Canadians were unknowingly infected with HIV and hepatitis C during the 1980s from tainted blood and plasma they had been assured was safe. Thousands of lives were cut short. Infected blood, purchased from disreputable sources, including derelicts on U.S. skid rows, was at […]
The Liberal government is unlikely to proclaim a bill passed in 2012 by the NDP intended to guard against for-profit health-care services, despite pledging to do so during the last election campaign. Health Minister Leo Glavine said Bill 144, the Insured Health Services Act, designed to prevent public money from going to medical services provided […]
Impact on Canada’s voluntary blood system unclear. Health Canada should hold off on approving blood clinics that pay people for their plasma, Ontario’s health minister says. (…) Blood experts raised concerns about the “slippery slope” that could divert volunteer blood donors to the paid system. You can read the full article on the CBC News […]
The Nova Scotia NDP and an advocacy group for blood safety are pressing for a vote on the new Voluntary Blood Donations Act, or Bill 43. The proposed legislation would ban private, for-profit, pay-for-plasma clinics from opening in Nova Scotia. The national advocacy group BloodWatch says it’s important legislation. Bill 43 received a second reading, […]
About 20 healthcare activists and Canadian Blood Services workers joined an information picket at Scotia Square in downtown Halifax this morning to protest the potential arrival of a private, for-profit blood supply system. Canadian Plasma Resources (CPR), a Saskatchewan company that pays plasma donors, has announced that it hopes to set up shop in Nova […]
A company that recently opened up a controversial pay-for-plasma collection clinic in Saskatoon is looking to bring its services to Nova Scotia. Barzin Bahardoust, CEO of Canadian Plasma Resources, confirmed representatives from his company met with the Nova Scotia government about a year ago, and said the province has been supportive of the idea of […]
Until now, no one has ever received any compensation from a provincial government. Well today, Nova Scotia decided it will offer compensation. The province says it’s the matter of compassion. Nova Scotia has about a dozen people who would qualify for compensation. Other provinces with hundreds more now face a difficult decision. Watch the full […]
The Nova Scotia Health Coalition is opposed to for-profit blood clinics due to the potential impact pay-for-plasma clinics have on the safety, security and supply of blood and plasma in the province and elsewhere. Health care is not a commodity to be bought and sold on the market. Send Health & Wellness Minister Leo Glavine […]
The current controversy in Nova Scotia about paying donors for blood has been fraught with misinformation. The public deserves to know the truth about what is happening in our country. I am a hemophiliac who has depended on safe blood products and was infected with hepatitis C from medicine manufactured with contaminated blood in 1984 […]
Kat Lanteigne, the co-founder of BloodWatch.org, was recently in New Brunswick raising awareness of the dangers of for-profit, paid blood and plasma donations. The provincial government has pledged its support to Canadian Plasma Resources to open a clinic in Moncton which would pay donors $25 for their blood and plasma donations. There are several issues […]
“Before our provincial government makes any decision around this, there needs to be a robust discussion and debate about the ethics of doing this. To open the door to turn parts of people into products is quite worrisome.” – David Coon. Opposition is mounting to a private company’s plans to pay people for their blood […]
New Brunswick’s nurses have added their voices to the opposition mounting against a private blood plasma clinic opening in Moncton. Marilyn Quinn, the president of the union representing 6,900 of the province’s registered nurses, said Tuesday she had written to Health Minister Victor Boudreau earlier this week asking him to outlaw the practice of private […]
The New Brunswick Union will bring forward a resolution to its members at its biennial convention to help and support BloodWatch with its stated goals. Co-founder of the group, Kat Lanteigne, spoke to the board of the NBU at a recent meeting outlining the philosophy and goals of the organization. The tainted blood scandal of […]
An Ontario-based company that pays people to donate blood plasma – a practice banned in two provinces – is set to make New Brunswick its next centre of operation, fuelling an ongoing ethical debate. Canadian Plasma Resources is looking to western and Atlantic provinces, including New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, after legislation in Ontario shuttered […]
Des organismes demandent au gouvernement provincial de bloquer l’arrivée au Nouveau-Brunswick d’une clinique qui paye les donneurs de plasma sanguin. L’organisation nationale BloodWatch, la Coalition de la santé du Nouveau-Brunswick et le Nouveau Parti démocratique entendent faire pression sur les libéraux pour qu’ils adoptent une loi afin d’empêcher Canadian Plasma Resources de s’installer dans la […]
Critics are intensifying their calls for the New Brunswick government to say no to a company that wants to open a paid-plasma clinic in Moncton. Controversy has followed Canadian Plasma Resources from province to province as it tries to open clinics where donors are compensated for their plasma. “It’s dangerous because it creates a competitor […]