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IBTS agrees to plasma sale

The Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) has agreed to sell a component of donors’ blood to commercial firms for the first time, in a move described by its Medical and Scientific Director as a ‘sea change’ for the Service.

Dr Willie Murphy has confirmed to Irish Medical Times that the IBTS may start selling its unwanted blood plasma to a number of Irish manufacturers early this year, in order to save tens of thousands of euro per annum in disposal costs and to generate additional income for donor programmes.

Following ethical approval and a positive survey of its donors last year, the Service has agreed to ring fence the monies raised from the sale of plasma for various donor care initiatives, such as its haemochromatosis programme.

Since 2002, the IBTS has not used blood plasma for transfusion purposes, due to the threat from variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (vCJD). After separating out the red cells and platelets, the blood board has to dispose of the plasma as ‘biological waste’ – despite companies crying out for the product.

While plasma can be used in patients to replace proteins where they are lost due to large blood loss from trauma and during surgery, or to make immunoglobulin concentrates that can treat immune deficiencies, the plasma sold by the IBTS will not be destined for human use, but will be utilised as a laboratory reagent.

The decision to sell the blood component is a significant departure for the IBTS, but Dr Murphy explained to IMT that the Service would not be going ahead with the move if it did not have to currently dispose of the material.

“This seemed to offer a potential for serious savings from the healthcare budget and also a possibility of generating income and jobs in Ireland,” he stated.

Dr Murphy added that expert bioethical opinion advised that there would be no issue with selling the blood product as long as the Service continued to take blood for the purposes of transfusion to patients in Ireland. This was the implicit reason donors consented to what otherwise would constitute ‘an assault upon their bodies’, he added.

“There is really no issue, provided we never stick a needle into somebody so that we could get this material to sell, and provided we never take blood from anybody where we did not need that blood, but thought we could profit from the plasma,” he stressed.

Posted in Health Management on 08 January 2010
Tags: IBTS