Health Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2010

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

If you would like--

[Dr. John Akabutu]

I was going to say--

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Go ahead.

[Dr. John Akabutu]

--in our program, we ensure that both parents have custody of the cord blood, and the custody is assumed until the age of majority. Beyond that, it becomes the property of the child. That's how our program works.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I have a quick question. Perhaps I missed the answer. Is 20,000 the target for a Canadian blood system? Is it 20,000 units?

[Dr. Graham Sher]

That's the size we're targeting for our bank, and Héma-Québec has a similar target, as you've heard.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

So would we be looking at 40,000 for Canada, or is Héma-Québec going to meet the needs of...?

[Marco Décelles]

Yes, when the committee met on November 2, I believe Dr. Wall said that Canada needed between 20,000 and 50,000 units. So we are in that range with 40,000 units in Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you so much.

We'll now go to Monsieur Dufour.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Earlier, Mr. Malo had a question about restrictions being too tight. I was wondering whether Héma-Québec was satisfied with Health Canada's response.

[Marco Décelles]

Absolutely. To put the challenges surrounding recruitment into perspective, I would say that, last year, we recruited more than 6,500 mothers who had agreed, meaning they had signed the famous consent form discussed earlier. As Dr. Wall said, it is perfectly normal to have to comply with international rules. Our standards here in Canada need to be just as high. And obviously that gives rise to certain supply restrictions, but we need to come to terms with those restrictions.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you very much.

You said earlier that only 2% of all units in banks would be used. Could you elaborate on that a bit more?

[Marco Décelles]

That is every year, in terms of ethnic groups and the various HLA tests required. Clearly, that applies to mature banks. We are not there yet, because we are still a young and rapidly growing bank. A mature bank, however, will use, on average, 2% of its cord blood units a year.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you very much.

I have a question for the Canadian Blood Services officials. The provincial and federal health ministers have agreed on a business plan. Do you know what the schedule will be for that?

[Dr. Graham Sher]

We are in the process right now of negotiating our budget for 2011 with the provinces and territories, and we hope to have approval for the cord blood bank at the start of our fiscal year.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Rubinger, you said that we needed more and more young people, and young people from different ethnic groups, of course. How do you plan to get the word out or raise awareness in order to recruit young donors? Do you have any ideas or suggestions for us?

[Dr. Morel Rubinger]

Thanks very much.

The issue of having younger donors arises from the fact that the outcomes of transplantation--rejection, etc.--are much lower in patients who receive such a transplant, so I think the impetus in registering those potential donors has to go to that kind of population, i.e., schools, universities, drives, in which this population is made aware of the benefits of stem cell donation and the ease of stem cell donation.

I had a conversation with my kids over the weekend about that and both have already registered, without any kind of incentive. So what I'm saying is that you have to convince people that, yes, it is something good to do, easy to do, takes little time, and is renewable. The stem cells are renewed very quickly. You recover and do well after that. And you can save a life by doing this.

So getting drives in the right population age is important. The attrition rate of the banks, when you get to age 40 or 50, is very high, so we're losing a lot of donors. As I say, schools--even high schools--and universities should be targeted, and of course ethnic groups in a different format, be that through cultural or other events.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you very much.

I have no other questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

You have one minute.

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Oh, really? I will use it then.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Oh, I'm sure you will. It's one minute, Monsieur Malo.

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Thank you very much, Nicolas.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

In one of his earlier responses, Dr. Akabutu said that we needed to use what already exists in the field. I imagine he was referring in part to his work with the Alberta Cord Blood Bank.

I was just wondering whether Canadian Blood Services planned to use expertise that has already been developed in terms of moving forward with a Canada-wide bank.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Respond quickly, Dr. Sher.

[Dr. Graham Sher]

The short answer is yes, and we've indicated both to Dr. Akabutu and the Government of Alberta that we would like very much to work with them to get the bank and the samples that he has collected over the years accredited by the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy so that we can make an informed decision.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Dr. Sher.

I want to thank our witnesses very much.

I'm going to have to suspend for a couple of moments, and then we'll go into committee business.

Thank you for all your insightful comments.