Iranian blood illegally exported

Shahrzadnews: News is circulating that heath officials have for some time been illegally selling blood – donated at Iranian state hospitals and private clinics – to foreign buyers. Furthermore there have been a number of cases in which hospital patients in urgent need of blood have been approached by people offering to sell them some. The relative of one such patient at Tehran’s Chamran hospital told Shahrzad News about the incident. We contacted the hospital management, but they refused to comment.

Recently the Iranian Centre for Islamic Information and Documentation, which is concerned with the compatibility between social issues and Islamic Sharia law, published a statement on the trade in donated blood. One section read: “The Holy Quran regards blood as unclean, and various edicts of Ayatollah Khomeini and other religious authorities support this. It does however have useful, positive applications in modern medicine, and as such transfusing blood and selling it are legal.”

Bloody business

Three years ago Ahmad Anvari, who is economics correspondent for various Iranian newspapers, wrote an investigative article entitled “Iranian Blood; Cheaper than a Soft Drink”.

“It is unclear which Iranian organization is authorized to store and export donated blood,” he said. “Customs documents exist which include details of the quantities of blood sold, its price and payments received. The name of the exporting body is missing however.”

According to Anvari these documents reveal that between 2005 and 2008, 70% of exported blood was sold to Afghanistan, 17% to Tajikistan, 10% to Turkmenistan, 2% to Iraq and 1% to Azerbaijan, all without the knowledge of donors.

Recently Iranian media reported that blood donated after the earthquake in the city of Ardebil had been exported. In an interview with the Mehr news agency however, Faramarz Dargahi, who heads the blood donation centre in the city, denied the reports.