Advocacy group concerned pay-for-plasma clinics expanding to Ontario will hurt voluntary donations
CBC
A group that advocates for a voluntary blood supply is concerned clinics that pay people to donate plasma are expanding to Ontario over the next year, through a partnership between Canadian Blood Services and a private Spanish company.
Three clinics in total — in Whitby, Hamilton and Cambridge — are set to open between 2024 and 2025, with two more being planned for yet-to-be-determined locations.
The plans build on a 15-year agreement signed in 2022 between Canadian Blood Services (CBS) and private pharmaceutical company Grifols to boost the national blood plasma supply.
BloodWatch, a non-profit organization that advocates for a safe and voluntary donation system, said pay-for-plasma clinics are a "dangerous field."
"We have to become more self-sufficient and there's no reason Canadian Blood Services can't open five additional plasma sites in order to collect that plasma," executive director Kat Lanteigne told CBC News.
Plasma is the yellow liquid that makes up the majority of the body's blood volume. It's rich in proteins that play a vital role in creating medications to treat many conditions, including immune deficiencies, CBS's website says.
The process for donating plasma is similar to giving blood.
In plasma donation, however, blood components are separated through a technique called apheresis, during which blood passes through a special machine that collects plasma and returns the other blood components into the donor's body.
The planned clinics in Ontario will be run by the Spanish company Grifols, which will pay for plasma donations "as per their operating model," Canadian Blood Services said in an email to CBC News.
"Grifols will then use that plasma to make immunoglobulins for purchase by Canadian Blood Services only. None of the immunoglobulins can be sold offshore," CBS said.
It says a global shortage of immunoglobulins (antibodies that are extracted from plasma to make life-saving medications) makes it critical for countries to increase their plasma collections.
Paid plasma clinics operating in Winnipeg and cities in Saskatchewan, Alberta and New Brunswick are run by Grifols and Canadian Plasma Resources.
In 2023, an agreement was signed that would see Grifols acquire centres run by Canadian Plasma Resources by the end of 2025.
It's not clear how much plasma donors at the Ontario clinics will be paid. The website for Canadian Plasma Resources says up to $70 is offered and people can donate twice in every seven-day period.
Windsor-Essex, Chatham-Kent and Sarnia can all expect between 20 and 40 millimetres of rainfall this weekend.
More Alberta seniors are now eligible for a provincially funded RSV vaccine.
More than 100 workers at a steel plant in eastern Ontario are being laid off either temporarily or permanently, as a company with facilities in Quebec and Ontario cuts its workforce due to challenging market conditions — including U.S. tariffs.
A small town northwest of Thunder Bay, Ont., has become the unlikely home for hundreds of foreign workers, but many may have to leave the community they've embraced after the end of a federal program put in place to fill gaps in Canada's labour market.
There's mixed reaction in Waterloo to an injuction allowing police to detain, arrest and charge anyone who is participating in unsanctioned street parties in that city this weekend.
Diabetes Canada is excited about Prince Edward Island's new pharmacare deal with the federal government, but hopes the province will reevaluate copays on diabetes supplies, says a senior manager with the organization.
After 26 years of accommodating guests from across the world, Faith Embleton says she and her husband Ken are ready to sell their bed and breakfast.
A group of big-name companies including Google, Meta and Dow have signed a pledge to support tripling the world's nuclear energy capacity by 2050, a signal of the technology's growing resurgence in popularity.
Five years on, Toronto-area doctors and public health officials are looking back at what they've learned since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — and most agree the early experience will prove useful if the city faces another infectious disease crisis.
City staff would like Londoners to take a good look around their home and ask themselves a direct and possibly difficult question: Could everyone in your family survive at home, without leaving and with no other help, for a full 72 hours?
Liberal Leader Mark Carney will officially become Canada's next prime minister within a few hours, taking the reins as the country barrels toward a general election and continues to fend off verbal and economic attacks from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Recent cyberattacks in Newfoundland and Labrador should have been a wake up call for the federal government about the reality of an increasingly hostile world, says one cybersecurity expert.
A recent CBC News analysis found that Nova Scotia is rapidly losing some of its most affordable apartments, but housing experts say there are ways to prevent that.