California Health and Safety Code Section 1603.5

CA Health & Safety Code § 1603.5 (2017)  

(a)  Notwithstanding any other provision of law, every person engaged in the production of blood shall, if the product is intended for transfusion, label each container of blood which the person produces with a label, upon which the following designations shall be printed in letters the size of which shall be no less prominent than the proper name of the product.

(1)  If the person giving the blood received no payment for the blood, the designation shall be “volunteer donor.”

(2)  If the person giving the blood received payment for the blood, the designation shall be “paid donor.”

(b)  As used in this section:

(1)  “Blood” means human whole blood or components of human blood, including plasma, which are prepared from human whole blood by physical, rather than chemical processes, but does not include blood derivatives manufactured or processed by industrial use.

(2)  “Industrial use” means a use of blood in which the blood is modified by physical or chemical means to produce derivatives for therapeutic or pharmaceutic biologics, laboratory reagents, or in vitro diagnostics.

(3)  “Payment” means the transfer by a blood bank, or any other party, to any person of money or any other valuable consideration which can be converted to money by the recipient, except that “payment” shall not include any of the following:

(i)  Cancellation or refund of the nonreplacement fees or related blood transfusion charges.

(ii)  Blood assurance benefits to a person as a result of a blood donation to a donor club or blood assurance program.

(iii)  Time away from employment granted by an employer to an employee in order to donate blood.

(c)  Any blood bank receiving blood from a blood bank outside of California shall comply with the labeling requirements of this chapter. Any blood bank receiving this blood may label the blood as “volunteer donor” blood only if the blood bank receives with the blood a certificate from the out-of-state blood bank which states either that the particular shipment of blood was acquired from volunteer donors not receiving payment or that all blood processed by the out-of-state blood bank is acquired from volunteer donors not receiving payment. If the blood bank receiving such blood receives no such certificate with the blood, the blood shall be labeled as “paid donor” blood.

(d)  No warranty shall be implied from the fact that any blood is labeled in accordance with the requirements of this section.

(Amended by Stats. 1989, Ch. 513, Sec. 1.)

Last modified: October 25, 2018