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In 1972, the impoverished and oppressed people of Nicaragua suffered a terrible crisis when an earthquake struck the capital of Managua. An estimated 5000 people were killed, and the city centre was destroyed. International humanitarian aid flowed to the country, including blood and plasma donations from all over the world. Perversely, then dictator Anastasio Somoza intercepted large amounts of the emergency blood donations, which he then exported from his stricken country, at a huge profit.

Almost 60 years later, Alberta premier Jason Kenney seems to be taking a page from Somoza’s playbook. His government’s Bill 204, The Voluntary Blood Donations Repeal Act, will cast aside legislation that guarantees blood and plasma as public resources and open the field to corporate blood banks who sell blood products for profit on the international market.

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