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Chris Selley: Why shouldn't Canadians get paid to donate blood or plasma?

The queasiness is understandable — but banning it leaves no one better off

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A sad story from Manitoba proposes an interesting ethical dilemma, and provides some insight into how Canadians, and Canadian media, think about health-care policy. The story: In recent months, two people have passed away in Winnipeg after donating plasma at private clinics run by the Spanish biopharmaceutical colossus Grifols, which trades on both the Madrid Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. (You can already see where this story is going, in part.)

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Grifols claims to have “no reason to believe that there is a correlation between the donors’ passing and plasma donation.” And two doesn’t make a pattern — especially since the deaths occurred at different labs in Winnipeg, neither of which has recently failed a Health Canada inspection — but it’s certainly unusual and worthy of inquiry.

Chris Selley: Why shouldn't Canadians get paid to donate blood or plasma? Back to video

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