Canadian Blood Services (French: Société canadienne du sang) is a non-profit charitable organization that is independent from the Canadian government. The Canadian Blood Services was established as Canada's blood authority in all provinces and territories except for Quebec in 1998. The federal, provincial and territorial governments created the Canadian Blood Services through a memorandum of understanding. Canadian Blood Services is funded mainly through the provincial and territorial governments.
Canadian Blood Services is a health-care system that is part of Canada's broader network of systems, and it is currently the only organization that is funded by Canada's provincial and territorial governments for manufacturing biological products. In addition to providing blood and blood products, the organization also provides transfusion and stem cell registry services on behalf of all provincial and territorial governments besides Quebec. All provinces and territories are able to access the national transplant registry for inter-provincial organ sharing and related programs.
It has a unique relationship with Héma-Québec, the provincial blood system operator that provides products to patients and manages Quebec's stem cell donor registry. The two organizations work closely to share blood products in times of need and collaborate regularly to share information, insights and data.
There are several reasons why individuals can be deferred from donating blood, including intravenous drug use, living in the UK for certain periods of time, coming from an HIV-endemic country, and engaging in activities that confer a high risk of HIV.
Canadian Blood Services has been criticized for moving away from an unpaid voluntary donor model towards a commercial model based on monetary incentives for donation.
Blood testing
Canadian Blood Services has a multi-tiered system to measure the safety of their blood supply. Before donating, donors are first screened for their health.
The screening process for prospective donors includes:
Making sure the donor is healthy by asking if they have the flu, sore throat, fever or infection What medications the donor is taking If they have had a vaccination within the last three months Questions about their medical history Questions about their travel history Questions about their lifestyle
Once the blood is donated, it must then go through testing for infectious diseases, including but not limited to HIV and hepatitis. Blood is also surveyed to monitor transmittable diseases in blood donors, investigated for possible transfusion-transmitted infections in blood recipients, and scanned for potential emerging pathogens that may pose a risk in the present or future. All these safety measures are done to protect blood recipients.
Blood donation from men who have had sex with men
Policies that banned gay men from donating blood and tissues were first introduced around the world in the mid-1980s. These policies were introduced after the emergence of several reported cases of severe immune deficiency among gay men in the United States at the end of 1981. In June 1982, an increase in the cases of immune deficiency was reported among several groups of gay men in Southern California. This led many to believe that the cause of the immune deficiency was linked to the sexual transmission of infections agents. Furthermore, because many thought that the immune deficiency was only prevalent among gay men, the disease was initially called Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (or GRID). Hence, in the mid-1980s, the predecessor of the Canadian Blood Services—the Canadian Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service—introduced a blood donor restriction on men who have had sex with men (MSM) as of 1977, on the grounds of protecting the blood supply from HIV infection.
In 2006, Canadian Blood Services began conducting a thorough review of the blood donor restrictions on MSM; however, in 2007, the board of directors concluded that the restrictions were to be maintained. Upon this conclusion, Canadian Blood Services was encouraged to continue gathering more information on the subject. In 2010, the Ontario Superior Court—in response to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms challenge which was launched in 2002—ruled that the deferral criteria for MSM were not discriminatory as they were based on health and safety considerations. In 2011, the Canadian Blood Services' board of directors approved plans to remove the permanent deferral for MSM, and instead, agreed towards a defined term of not more than 10 years but less than five years since last sexual contact.