Canadian Blood Services

So what is the Stem Cell Group?

So the Stem Cell Club is essentially we're a representation of the Canadian blood services here at UMBC.

And what we work towards is expanding the stem cell registry, which are used for donations for people with bloodborne disorders, such as people who might have a sort of leukemia, that sort of realm.

And basically by expanding the registry, we expand those who can donate to those patients who are in need of that.

My sister was actually the old president of the stem cell club.

Okay.

Yeah, so we've been collecting swabs at our drives, and what these swabs do is we send them off to the Canadian Blood Services, who then try to find the HLA markers, which are essentially things that match donors to those in need.

Okay, so you don't necessarily draw blood, you take stem cells.

You will remember that Griffles did close all their operations in Canada as of August 14th after two donors in Winnipeg died and their deaths were widely reported.

Griffles has only been operating in Canada since 2022 when they signed a deal with Canada Blood Services.

The Globe and Mail notes that some of the puncture wounds on people's arms may be consistent with intravenous drug use, which should normally not allow them to donate plasma.

Griffles pays people for plasma donations, unlike Canada Blood Service's donations for blood.

You will remember that Griffles did close all their operations in Canada as of August 14th after two donors in Winnipeg died and their deaths were widely reported.

Griffles has only been operating in Canada since 2022 when they signed a deal with Canada Blood Services.

The Globe and Mail notes that some of the puncture wounds on people's arms may be consistent with intravenous drug use, which should normally not allow them to donate plasma.

Griffles pays people for plasma donations, unlike Canada Blood Service's donations for blood.

Grifols says the plasma it collects is safe, that it has to pass multiple levels of screening before it's processed.

Canadian Blood Services made a deal with Grifols in 2022, allowing them to pay people for plasma.

In exchange, Grifols agreed to use it to make medications for Canadians.

Canadian Blood Services CEO Dr. Graham Sher says Grifols has had some deficiencies that need attention, but its layers of safety measures have kept donors and patients safe.

At no circumstance would Canadian Blood Services continue business with a vendor of any sort, a partner of any sort, if the product we were getting from them was putting, uh, patients in, uh, in, in harm's way.

Sher says Canada needs Grifols because CBS can't collect enough plasma on its own.

Without it, we're reliant on buying American plasma.

As soon as...

I work at Canadian Blood Services, and as soon as the news hit, we got the calls.

We are at work, and it's just been flooded with people coming in donating blood.

Well, that's, that's absolutely incredible.

And so that's an important consideration.

The other piece, you will have likely seen a news release on the partnership between Canadian Blood Services and Canadian Armed Forces related to building additional capacity around blood supply in order to be able to support during operations.

Another critical piece of that is around other blood products, whether it's dried plasmas, as an example, which have application not only in deployed operations where maintaining a cold chain is challenging, but also in the North or in remote communities where the ability to have access to whole blood can be challenging.

And if you have access instead to dried plasma, it can make it a lot more accessible.