The gate of Wunan plasmapheresis station involved in the case was closed. The Paper Zhao Chongqiang
August 23, the summer heat. After an autumn rain, the city appearance of Wuwei is much clearer than before. However, the "case of forcing minors to sell blood" that has recently attracted national attention has not been settled.
Seven suspects involved in the case were arrested, and six others were prosecuted except one because he was under the age of criminal responsibility. Wuwei Wunan Lansheng Plasmapheresis Co., Ltd. (affiliated to Lanzhou Branch of China Biotechnology Co., Ltd., hereinafter referred to as Wunan Plasmapheresis Station) was also revoked by Gansu Provincial Health Planning Commission. All these seem to indicate that this vicious incident will come to an end.
However, a survey in The Paper (www.thepaper.cn) found that the number of underage students who were victimized may be far more than the seven identified by the police. The time for illegally collecting plasma at the plasma collection station in Wunan involved in the case may also be longer than that announced by the police from November 2013 to May 2014. However, the serious shortage of plasma and the chaotic supervision of apheresis stations in some areas are the background that can not be ignored in rethinking this case of threatening to sell blood.
Blood-selling network inside and outside campus
Judging from the situation announced by Wuwei police, the detection of this blood sale case that shocked the whole country was very accidental.
Dong Dexiang, the captain of the Second Brigade of Criminal Police of Liangzhou Branch of Wuwei City Public Security Bureau, disclosed that on May 19th this year, when investigating a case of robbery of students’ property, the Public Security Bureau of Liangzhou District of Wuwei City found clues that Zhang Moumou and others involved in the case forced others to sell blood.
On June 6, Liangzhou District Public Security Bureau officially filed a case for forced blood selling. On July 8, the case was listed as a case of supervising evil forces at the municipal level. On August 15th, it became a provincial case of supervising evil forces.
According to police investigation, from November 2013 to May 2014, Huang Dahong, deputy stationmaster of Wunan Plasma Collection Station, lured by the company’s introduction of 50 yuan prize for the first plasma donor, instructed Zhang Moumou to find a plasma donor. During this period, plasma of 10 impostors (7 of them were minors) was collected.
The case detected by the police is probably just the tip of the iceberg of illegal blood collection at Wunan plasmapheresis station.
On the afternoon of August 21st, Huang Xiaotian (pseudonym), who lives in the village next to Wunan plasmapheresis station, walked quickly through the path in front of Wunan plasmapheresis station. He never dared to pass through this road before the Wunan plasmapheresis station was closed. "Mom told me that someone nearby fished (caught) the child to draw blood."
This road is the shortest road between his home and school. In order to avoid those who "fish for children", Huang Xiaotian has to make a detour every day.
Huang Xiaotian, a 14-year-old junior high school student, has been training in the school these days. He told The Paper that when he was in the fifth grade of primary school, he found that some students in his class went to Wunan Plasma Collection Station to "sell blood". There are nearly 20 students he knows who are involved in "selling blood". In his primary school class, there are seven or eight people involved.
Huang Xiaotian recalled that most of these students who participated in "blood donation" were "fished out" for the first time. After discovering that this was also a way to get money, they went by themselves. Usually little or no money is given when it is fished for the first time, and more and more "rewards" are obtained as the number of trips increases. However, he didn’t know whether those who "fished for people" at the intersection had any connection with Zhang Moumou and others in the above-mentioned cases. He only knew that it was easier to get money by "introducing" others to "donate blood" than by himself, "just like pyramid selling".
Some parents and teachers also found pinholes in their arms, but they generally used "bitten by mosquitoes or vaccinated" to hide the sky. Huang Xiaotian also found that a classmate in his class still wore long sleeves and wrapped himself up even in summer. In a fight, the classmate was stripped of his clothes. After everyone saw the pinhole on his arm and asked what was going on, he confessed that he often "donated blood".
Convert the time, when Huang Xiaotian was in the fifth grade, it was from the second half of 2012 to the first half of 2013, which was much earlier than the November 2013 to May 2014 announced by the police.
The Paper found an adult plasma donor on the website of Wunan Plasma Collection Station. According to his memory, at least two years ago, every time he went to donate blood, he would see some students in school uniforms. However, he did not know which school these students came from and whether they were adults.
Some residents of the neighborhood opposite to Wunan plasmapheresis station also told The Paper that, especially on weekends, a group of students in school uniforms often walked out of Wunan plasmapheresis station, clutching their arms.
The Paper previously reported that Chen Yuhua (pseudonym) was lured to Wunan plasmapheresis station by Zhang Moumou and others in June and July 2013, and then escaped.
Several interviewed students told The Paper that some parents took their children to the local police station to report the case. When asking the Wunan police station for verification, Yang Binghao, the director of the institute, shirked the case on the grounds that it was under the control of the city’s criminal investigation team.
Paradoxically, according to the report of Western Business Daily in June 2013, in 2012, health supervision institutions at all levels in Gansu Province conducted 54 illegal blood collection and blood supply inspections on blood stations and apheresis plasma stations within their jurisdiction, and no illegal blood collection and blood supply behavior was found.
"Hungry plasma"
The so-called "plasma collection alone" refers to separating the collected human blood by a centrifuge, taking away the plasma and then returning the red blood cells to the blood seller, so that they can recover their physical strength quickly. The plasma provided by the plasma collection station is not used for clinical blood transfusion, but used as raw materials for refining expensive drugs such as human albumin, globulin and platelet factor.
According to the statistics of the Ministry of Health, the annual basic demand for raw plasma for the production of blood products in China’s medical market is 8,000 tons-that is, only when the amount of blood products reaches 8,000 tons can the products meet the basic needs of domestic patients. In 2013, the annual pulp production in China was 4,979 tons, which was only half of the demand. Because healthy human plasma is the main raw material of blood products, it is no exaggeration to describe the blood products industry as "valuable without market" under the condition of limited plasma source.
An industry insider who did not want to be named believes that the serious shortage of plasma is the deep background of this incident. "There are more than 20 blood products enterprises (nationwide) and more than 100 plasma collection stations, each of which is short of (plasma)."
According to Wuwei police, in 2014, the Wunan plasmapheresis station involved in the case required each employee to develop 30 new plasma donors, and 300 yuan was awarded every month if the target was met. If the task was not completed, the bonus of 3,600 yuan for the whole year was deducted. In 2013, the task of the plasma station is to develop 20 people each.
Wuwei police did not disclose how other employees completed the task. The Paper found a QQ group named "Wunan Plasma Station". Several people in the group said that they were employees of Wunan Plasma Station, but when asked about "coercing underage blood sales" and "task indicators", everyone chose silence.
On August 22nd, The Paper saw that there were still people in the office building of Wunan plasmapheresis station. Someone looked out warily through the curtains. People in white coats called on the stairs at the back of the building, but there was no answer at the door.
According to public information, Wunan plasmapheresis station is one of the subsidiaries of Lanzhou Institute of Biological Products, which is affiliated to China Biotechnology Co., Ltd..
On the "China Blood Donation Network" sponsored by China Biotechnology Co., Ltd., The Paper found an article "Lanzhou Company held the 2013 deployment meeting of apheresis plasma".
According to the article, on the morning of February 28th, 2013, Lanzhou Company held the deployment meeting of plasma apheresis in 2013, and the heads of relevant departments introduced the plasma collection tasks formulated according to the plasma doubling plan of Sinopharm Zhongsheng in 2013 to the plasma apheresis stations, and issued the annual and monthly plans for plasma apheresis in 2013. The person in charge of each plasma collection station signed the 2013 plasma collection task book.
Yang Xiaoming, president and secretary of the Party Committee of China Biotechnology Co., Ltd., made a request at the company’s blood source management work conference in May 2012: "From 2012, it is necessary to ensure that the average annual pulp collection of each pulp station will increase by no less than 1 ton."
When The Paper asked people in the industry whether every blood product enterprise and apheresis plasma station have assessment tasks, he only vaguely responded that "everyone’s work will be assessed".
When The Paper asked the employees of several apheresis plasma stations whether there were any task indicators and reward and punishment measures similar to those of Wunan apheresis plasma station, they all denied that "Wuwei must be a case, which shamed our apheresis plasma station."
Lanzhou Institute of Biological Products Co., Ltd., which belongs to Wunan Plasma Collection Station, has not yet responded to the assessment task of Wunan Plasma Collection Station.
A blood station that is difficult to supervise
A few years ago, a similar thing happened in Wunan plasmapheresis station.
According to the Lanzhou Morning Post reported in March 2009, five local unemployed youths in Wuwei coerced 14 minors to go to Wunan plasmapheresis station to "donate blood" for three times in order to raise the Internet fee, and four of them (one at large) were convicted of "forcing others to sell blood" and sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from 4 to 6 years. However, the article does not mention whether the blood station bears legal responsibility.
Perhaps, the seeds of chaotic supervision were planted at that time.
Southern Weekend once reported that since the beginning of this century, the blood collection and supply system in China, which is the guarantee of raw materials for plasma products, has experienced an extremely chaotic stage. Commercial institutions and blood stations take profit as the sole purpose, and do not standardize blood collection, resulting in the spread of blood-borne diseases such as AIDS, hepatitis B and hepatitis C through blood transfusion and blood products, and the plasma that was originally used for saving lives has become a fatal "culprit".
The situation began to change fundamentally in 2006, and the government made up its mind to issue the "Work Plan on the Transformation of Plasma Collection Stations", requiring all domestic plasma collection stations to complete the restructuring task of separating from the management of the health department before December 31, 2006. In this process, a large number of unqualified plasma collection stations were shut down. The Plan sets a deadline for the transformation: December 31, 2006. However, there are many delays in operation in various places, but by the end of 2007 at the latest, the era of plasma collection stations attached to the government was over.
This policy undoubtedly played a strong and effective role in regulating the chaos in the industry at that time, but at the same time, the direct result was that in 2007, the national pulp production dropped sharply from more than 5,000 tons at the peak to 2,700 tons, and the production capacity of enterprises dropped sharply. According to the data on the website of the National Family Planning Commission, it was not until 2013 that the national pulp collection volume recovered to 4,979 tons-still less than 5,000 tons.
It is against this background that Wunan apheresis plasma station was established. On April 3, 2009, Gansu Legal Newspaper reported on Wunan apheresis plasma station. This report entitled "Insisting on scientific development and devoting to blood donation-Sidenotes on the work of Wunan apheresis plasma station" may be the only public report on Wunan apheresis plasma station at present.
According to the report, Wunan plasmapheresis station was established in March 2007 after institutional transformation, and passed the transformation acceptance of the station by the provincial health department in June 2007, and passed the evaluation acceptance of the provincial AIDS screening laboratory in October 2007.
The report also mentioned that there were 18 employees in Wunan plasmapheresis station at that time, including 13 health professionals and technicians, and all the 18 employees in the station obtained the employment certificates of the national blood collection and supply institutions.
Wuwei police did not announce when Huang Dahong, the deputy stationmaster of Wunan plasmapheresis station, was hired and whether he obtained a work permit.
On August 22nd, there were still people in the office of Wunan plasmapheresis station. People in white coats called on the stairs at the back of the building, but no one answered the door. The Paper Zhao Chongqiang
According to Article 46 of the Administrative Measures for Plasma Collection Stations, plasma collection stations shall report the collection of raw plasma to the health administrative department of the local people’s government at the county level every six months. However, when The Paper contacted the Wuwei Health Bureau affiliated to Wunan Plasma Station, the staff responded: "This is under the Lanzhou Institute of Biological Products, so it belongs to the provincial health department and does not belong to our management scope."
The office building of Wunan Town Government is separated from the Wunan plasmapheresis station by a wall. A staff member surnamed Liang said that they have no jurisdiction over the plasma station and have not found any illegal blood collection.
According to the report of Western Business Daily in July, 2007, Gansu Province will establish three supervision systems and measures for all plasma collection stations in the province according to the requirements of the Ministry of Health. However, has these supervision played a role? This question may not be answered until the case is heard.