Musings on transfusion medicine: September 2017

September's blog will feature four news items in recent TraQ newsletters, items that are a tad different but worthy of featuring, nonetheless. For links to all featured news items see Further Reading.

EXECUTIVE VERSION: There's no need for one because this blog is just a few comments on a series of 'odds and sods' news items that I find interesting. I hope you do too.

The blog's title derives from a 1968 Beatles ditty by George Harrison I used once before in a 2012 blog.

ITEM #1
Why Canada needs USA sperm [and plasma] (13 Sept. 2017)

The article is by Peter Jaworski, who co-authored, 'Markets Without Limits', the primary thesis of which is, "Anything you may permissibly do for free, you may permissibly do for money."

Peter is a Canadian who teaches 'business ethics' (an oxymoron? - Just joking!) at Georgetown University in the USA and is associated with right wing organizations such as the Canadian Constitution Foundation.

He's getting his views that we should allow selling plasma, sperm, kidneys, indeed any body organ, published in many newspapers and journals. Same ideas, rehashed again and again. That's a well known marketing strategy for today's authors if they want to be successful. And it works because newspapers especially are desperate for free articles.

But in the latest oped to promote his book he (a 'business ethicist') doesn't mention - not one word - about the disgusting history of selling sperm in Canada. Facts (Further Reading), which include:

Donor lied about medical history, affecting 26 families;
Donors not fully screened for HIV and other infectious diseases;
Shortage of Canadian sperm is not that men are unwilling to donate without pay. It's about government health and safety regulations to protect people who use donated sperm and the children they conceive.

ITEM #2
The donor who saved over 2 million children (25 Aug. 2017)

80-year-old Australian James Harrison donated plasma with potent anti-D for ~60 yrs. He recently made his 1157th donation. Until 2015, every batch of anti-D [Rh immune globulin] made in Australia contained his antibodies.

If Mr. Harrison lived in the USA he could have opted to earn significant money from his plasma. Who knows how much if he wisely invested it, since he's unlike most US paid plasma donors, who are need the money and are willing participants (victims) in their own exploitation.

But the Australian chose to donate voluntarily for free. To revise a phase from US politics, 'I'm with him.'

ITEM #3
CSL (Australia): Bullying, sex toys and how CSL got rid of a complaining employee (6 Sept. 2017)

This is a fascinating case in which the employee being bullied was male and his boss was female. To get rid of him, CSL (world leader in the plasma protein biotherapeutics industry) started a campaign to find anything they could use against him, even to the point of discovering he sold sex toys on e-Bay. He was fired.

Australia's Fair Work Commission found that he was unfairly dismissed. His female boss apparently remains at the company.

ITEM #4
Case of a transfusion medicine physician, who with her then spouse, bought 4,000 shares of Immucor in 1982 for $11,000 (7 June 2017)

This real case focuses on the doctor's tax woes in the USA after her share became $1,717,038 in 2011. The Court found the doctor's tax issues were not due to her errors but rather the person who prepared her taxes.

Interesting 'What if': Would the transfusion doc, when she was publishing in medical journals decades ago, have mentioned her Immucor shares? In the 1980s did medical journals have conflict of interest or competing interest requirements?

For interest, the physician in question is now a septuagenarian but still active.

FOR FUN
I chose the song based on the first and third news items. In the first a 'business ethicist' promotes selling body tissues and organs without thought of where that will lead us. Especially how it will lead to the wealthy even more exploiting the poor people in this world.

And result in tissue/organ brokers getting rich off the misery of the poor and disadvantaged. Just as paid plasma companies gain incredible wealth from the needy selling their plasma.

All for the sake of a buck. But conveniently camouflaged under the guise of doing good by helping patients who need plasma-derived products. Kinda reminds me of Robin Cook's book, Coma, and the movie based on it.

In the third news item a man was judged to be unfairly dismissed but the issue is the company went after his private life to get evidence to justify firing him.

While my guitar gently weeps (George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Prince's Trust, Wembley Stadium, London 1987)

Love these words:

I look at the world and I notice it's turning
While my guitar gently weeps
With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps

As always, comments are most welcome.

FURTHER READING

NEWS ITEM #1
Jawarski articles