To calm rumors’ Etablissement Français du Sang reiterates its attachment to voluntary, voluntary and free blood donation. “
If since February 1, the French Blood Establishment (EFS) no longer has the right to produce and market therapeutic plasma, it retains control over blood donation in France. The EFS was keen to cut all the rumors short by publishing a press release on Wednesday in which he states at the outset that “in France, the donation of blood is a voluntary act, voluntary and free. This principle remains and the law has not changed on this point. “
“Whatever the donation made (whole blood, platelets, plasma), it is provided by a single operator, the EFS, which carries out its mission in metropolitan France and in the overseas departments”, according to the press release which specifies that “every day , 10,000 donations are collected. “
The Establishment also expressed its opinion on the current operation of blood donation: “Blood transfusion is a public service. Its functioning is and must be one and indivisible. This collection model is the guarantee for donors and recipients that from one end of the transfusion chain to the other, the processes meet the same standards, the same conditions and the same requirements. “
Concern for the future
If the Blood Establishment clarifies the rumors of a hypothetical remuneration of blood donation, another point worries more the employees of the establishment. An IGAS report on the plasma industry, commissioned by the Ministry of Health, makes recommendations that do not bode well.
According to the unions CGT, CFDT, CFE-CGC and FO, its authors indeed propose to break the monopoly of the collection and to allow another public structure to collect the plasma of the donors. safe principles, established following the contaminated blood affair, to separate the collector from the fractionator? “, Ask the unions in a press release. In fact, the separation of the two organizations was decided in 1993 to avoid any conflict of interest.
Since last Sunday, the EFS can no longer produce or sell SD plasma, a mixture of plasma from different donors that is frozen and processed to reduce the presence of viruses, because this product is now considered a drug. after a decision of the Council of State to bring France into compliance with European legislation. This means that today only pharmaceutical companies are authorized to manufacture this product.
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