Pretty sure I’ve seen a few sci-fi movies whose plots aren’t so different from the real-life Grifols blood plasma shocker that has been making the news recently. The story in a nutshell: A Spanish pharmaceutical multinational sets up shop in Canada to buy people’s blood plasma to sell into the global market. Even though death from plasma donation is reportedly very rare, two people then die. Health Canada reacts, Grifols shuts down its many Canadian collection centres, and the unsettling details about giant corporations paying people to sell their body fluids are suddenly the talk of the town. Grifols arrived in Canada in 2022, signing a 15-year agreement with Canadian Blood Services for commercial plasma extraction in Ontario even though CBS itself has a strict policy against paying people for their blood or plasma. (Things that make you go hmm….) A year later, Grifols bought up a chain of private plasma-collection facilities in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta, New Brunswick an...
I'm a communications strategist and writer with a journalism background, a drifter's spirit, and a growing sense of alarm at where this world is going. I am happiest when writing pieces that identify, contextualize and background societal problems big and small in hopes of helping us at least slow our deepening crises.