CBC News has learned two people — including a 22-year-old international student — died after giving plasma at Winnipeg collection centres that pay people for their donations.

The deaths are under review by Health Canada, which confirmed it received two reports of fatal adverse reactions in plasma donors — one in October of last year and another on Jan. 30, 2026.

The federal regulator says it is still assessing these reports and has not made a link between the plasma collection and deaths.

Rodiyat Alabede died on Oct. 25 after friends say the 22-year-old went to an appointment at the Grifols Plasma Donation Centre on Taylor Avenue to give plasma.

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[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 34 points 4 months ago (1 children)

There are some great documentaries about these predatory companies. Monetary compensation for blood/organ donation must be banned, its an obvious disaster unless we implement UBI.

[–] StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website 6 points 4 months ago

On the blood products recipient end, we want to ensure safety and ethics in the products people need to live.

Unfortunately, donations are not adequate such that Canadian Blood Services buys blood products to make up the difference.

A significant portion of the product purchased and imported into Canada from the United States comes from incarcerated populations.

Paying Canadians for plasma donations is an arguably lesser harm than importing plasma and fractionated blood products from incarcerated persons in the United States.

A healthy adult should be able to make plasma donations very frequently. This raises questions about what was happening in that donation centre’s screening and drawing procedures.

In fact, there is a long history, when the blood supply was less reliable, where parents of children with bleeding disorders often donated plasma biweekly in order to make sure their children had a safe and timely supply of essential coagulation factors.

Ensuring that the donations are safe both for the person donating and the recipients is nonnegotiable. It’s also however essential that we have the blood products available for those who need them and not condemn those with inherited bleeding disorders to disability due to insufficient availability of fractionated products.

[–] streetfestival@lemmy.ca 16 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The public system gets to pay for treating these patients seemingly made sick by a for-profit business and the investigation of said business. I'm so glad we let for-profit companies back into blood collection after kicking them out after the tainted blood scandal of the 1980s in which 1000s were exposed to HIV or Hep C /s

[–] forkDestroyer@infosec.pub 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Over here in the USA people don't typically get money for donating blood or plasma (there are plasma donation centers that pay, but they are much harder to find), but the business still sells it to profit, iirc.

I'd rather get money as a donor, though. For now, I'll take the free cookies instead.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Same here, but in both places they do pay for platelet "donations"

[–] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Where I live it's illegal to pay for stuff like that. Well, you do get a sandwich and juice!

[–] Vex_Detrause@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Where do you live?(If it's not too intrusive) It might be illegal here too but they get around it by saying it's a honorary $100 per donation.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 months ago

When I lived in sweden you got 50SKR (nothing to live off lol, it's like 5€) through a loophole, like money paid because you got hurt / the hassle (or something, I might be wrong about how the loophole worked).

Today I live in France, and it's completely illegal here. Giving blood isn't very hard, but people giving ovocytes go through lots of pain and so on, and they aren't compensated for that either. Guess you can't have it all. Better than poor bastards dying though.

Cheers!