SaS MP Vladimíra Marcinková. (source: TASR)
Opposition MP Vladimíra Marcinková of the Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party has raised concerns over how a company with ties to the Smer party is profiting from umbilical cord blood collected in Slovakia.
In her blog post from October 14, Marcinková writes that Slovakia has not established a public bank for umbilical cord blood donations, which would benefit the public interest, as mandated by the European Commission. Despite warnings from the Health Ministry’s ethics commission in 2011, no action has been taken.
For example, in the Czech Republic, cord blood collections were once handled by a hospital-based bank, but were discontinued due to the slim chances of using this blood for personal treatment, the MP writes. Cord blood may also be collected for a sick sibling or donated for research or other patients. In Slovakia, the Swiss-based Cord Blood Center Group holds a monopoly in the market. According to Marcinková, Slovak doctor Zohdy Hamid, co-founder of the ruling Smer party, and Slovak businessman Martin Kollár, are key figures behind the company.
Hamid also launched the public cord blood registry, a non-profit organisation, in Slovakia back in the nineties.
Collecting umbilical cord blood is not recommended, but not in Slovakia
Slovakia’s cord blood, the MP claims, is shipped to a private clinic in the Netherlands, despite the European Commission and Czech Haematological Society advising against collecting umbilical cord blood.
“A mother should know that the probability of using collected umbilical cord blood is just 0.04 percent, and stem cells can also be harvested later in life from bone marrow,” Marcinková writes. “It’s not a one-time opportunity, as companies often claim.”
The Slovak Haematological Society claims the opposite, but Marcinková points out in her blog that Professor Mikuláš Hrubiško, founder of the society, was linked to the company now known as the Cord Blood Center in its early years.
Families storing cord blood at the Cord Blood Center can expect to pay between €690 and €1,490 for the service, with annual fees ranging from €78 to €191. According to Trend magazine, the company generated €26 million in profit over a decade.
Marcinková alleges that Slovak healthcare workers receive commissions of up to €150 for each cord blood collection from the company. The Slovak Register of Placental Stem Cells, a cord blood bank and a subsidiary of the Cord Blood Center Group, is responsible for managing both blood donations and private blood collections, as well as reported revenues of €3.8 million last year.
Dutch clinic
Further investigation by Marcinková reveals that the Cord Blood Center Group owns a clinic in Eindhoven, Netherlands, which offers experimental stem cell therapies for various conditions at a cost of €44,000 per treatment. The clinic confirmed to Marcinková that the stem cells are sourced from Slovakia.
“The cord blood bank in Slovakia makes no mention of collaborating with this clinic and does not boast of supplying this private facility,” claims the MP.
Marcinková concludes that profits from these treatments end up in the hands of the same individuals incentivising healthcare workers to collect cord blood from Slovak newborns—blood donated to the firm’s cord blood bank without charge.
In her blog’s final remarks, Marcinková underscores the health benefits of umbilical cord blood, which contains unique stem cells that can aid a child’s development. However, she stresses that this blood should ideally be transferred to the newborn via delayed cord clamping after birth, a practice that has been shown to boost iron and oxygen levels in infants.
“Collecting cord blood requires the cord to be cut before these benefits can be passed to the newborn,” she writes.
