Medical group accused of "privatizing transplants"

The head of Spain's National Transplant Organization (ONT) is denouncing a German group that, he argues, "wants to privatize bone marrow transplants."

"What DKMS is doing is hitting the Spanish system below the belt," says Rafael Matesanz, the ONT chief, about an organization that has been active in Spain since October. After several meetings with DKMS executives and letters asking it to cease its activity, Matesanz has reported the case to the state attorney, claiming that the company may be in violation of the law.

DKMS, founded in Germany in 1991, branched out into the United States in 2004 and showed an interest in Spain following the case of Hugo Pérez Santos, a 35-year-old from Avilés (Asturias) who was waiting for a bone marrow transplant at a German hospital. The company launched a campaign to find potential donors, and obtained data from 1,204 Spanish volunteers, who are now listed on the world donor registry as "belonging" to DKMS.

This means that if the ONT needed to use the bone marrow of any of these individuals, it would have to pay DKMS 14,500 euros for it. The company gets the biological material for free, taking advantage of "a very emotional moment" such as a sick person's plea for help to expand its donor portfolio. After the donors are called up to donate their marrow for free, DKMS charges recipients 14,500 euros to cover costs.

According to Fundación Josep Carreras, whose registry is the only one in Spain that is officially approved to coordinate bone marrow transplants, DKMS' prices are 6,000 euros above the usual fees. The foundation offers prices of around 8,500 euros.

DKMS wrote to EL PAÍS to say that it is a health foundation and that its actions are legal.

"Due to the great number of requests that DKMS receives from Spanish patients, we consider it our obligation to continue to support them, especially since the law allows it," reads the message. "According to the pertinent legal analysis conducted by DKMS, all activities carried out in Spain respect Spanish legislation and rules."

Matesanz grants as much, but indicates that behind DKMS is a beauty industry multinational called Coty. The ONT director got moving when he learned that DKMS had sent letters to Spanish doctors claiming that they had permission from ONT to operate in Spain, which was false. Also, it turns out that the legal battle was started by the German company, which brought a suit against the ONT on charges of damaging its reputation.

The ONT believes that DKMS is in breach of the law for a number of reasons, including: its attempts to obtain donors in Spain without previously alerting regional governments; having sent samples to Germany, which could constitute tissue traffic; collecting personal information from Spaniards without authorization from the Spanish Data Protection Agency; and taking advantage of high-profile cases to find new donors, when Spanish legislation says that donations must benefit specific individuals.

This last point is very important, says Matesanz, because it could endanger the Spanish transplant system, in which donors do not charge and recipients do not pay, and where donors do not get the opportunity to choose who it is they are donating to, unless it is a relative. Things are different in other countries, such as Germany, where, the ONT chief admits, DKMS' actions are "completely legal."

This distinction between systems that are free and systems that involve payment means that France and Brazil do not let DKMS operate on their territory, while Poland and the US do.