Ventura Blood Agency Says Red Cross Is Invading Its Turf

VENTURA — Call it a blood feud.

Worried that an out-of-town competitor is muscling in on its turf, United Blood Services is accusing American Red Cross Biomedical Services of Los Angeles of trying to lure away blood donors and take their blood out of Ventura County.

The Red Cross recently issued a call for blood drive volunteers and announced that it will hold half a dozen blood donation campaigns next month in Ventura County. It has already held two such drives, one on July 30 in Thousand Oaks and another on Aug. 20 in Camarillo.

But officials at United Blood Services--which holds the sole blood contract with all of Ventura County’s hospitals and has served the region for 21 years--said they worry that blood donated here to the Red Cross will probably go to recipients elsewhere.

“My concern is that we need every donor we can get, and the blood that is drawn by the Red Cross in Ventura County would be taken back to Los Angeles,” said Carolyn Tyner, executive director of United Blood Services.

“That would certainly make it difficult for me to go to those same [donors] again,” she said. “We spend a lot of time on donor recruitment and donor recognition, and those donors we have are very faithful.”

Either that, she said, or the American Red Cross is trying to undermine United Blood Services’ contracts with Ventura County’s hospitals.

The blood collected so far by the Red Cross has been distributed to hospitals outside Ventura County, possibly to Los Angeles County or even to other states, Red Cross spokesman Mark Jackson acknowledged.

But he said his organization has no intention of competing with United Blood Services, merely the desire to collect blood and send it where it is needed.

“We have no ax to grind with them whatsoever,” Jackson said. “We just want to make sure that everybody who needs blood gets blood.”

As for the accusation that the Red Cross is taking blood from Ventura County, he said, “Just as a natural disaster doesn’t know any man-made boundaries, neither do we. If there was a natural disaster in Ventura County, we’d be there.”

But if the Red Cross has not sought to collect blood in Ventura County in the past, why start now?

One reason: The organization recently signed a research partnership agreement with Amgen in Newbury Park to supply blood for the biotech firm’s studies of clotting agents, Jackson said.

But the Red Cross also wants to increase its own blood supplies “to help as many people as possible,” he said.

Tyner replied that United Blood Services also has an agreement to supply blood products for Amgen research--and that the Red Cross could harm the steadiness of Ventura County’s blood supply.

The argument may boil down to supply and demand.

Although the Red Cross estimates it meets 60% to 70% of the demand for blood in Los Angeles County, United Blood Services manages to meet all the demands of Ventura County’s hospitals.

The nonprofit agency draws 30,000 pints of blood each year, selling it to hospitals for $90 a pint (compared with an average $99 per unit charged by the Red Cross).

About 1.5% of Ventura County’s blood supply is disposed of because it does not get used within the 42-day storage period, Tyner said.

She said the Red Cross--with a bigger marketing arm and an even bigger thirst for blood supplies--is intentionally positioning itself to permanently lure donors away from United Blood Services--and their blood from Ventura County.

But Jackson called that view “myopic.”

“I think that some people really lose sight of what’s important,” he said. “The important thing in blood services is to make sure you’re providing the blood necessary to save as many lives as necessary, rather than attacking somebody you view as a competitor.”