Bane’s $400,000 Study Plan Could Benefit Friend

Assemblyman Tom Bane is attempting to steer $400,000 in state funds to a controversial study that critics say is part of the Tarzana Democrat’s three-year effort to help a Sherman Oaks blood firm whose medical director is a friend and campaign contributor.

Bane and the firm, HemaCare Corp., in turn, maintain that they are trying to make blood transfusions safer and are not motivated by self-interest.

Bane’s action is part of his ongoing effort to allow the use of blood components from paid donors, a practice that state Department of Health Services officials say could be harmful to public health. It is also the latest in a series of recent controversies involving the chairman of the Assembly Rules Committee, who is a top Democratic fund raiser.

The blood debate extends back to 1986 when a much-disputed bill sponsored by Bane permitted the use of platelets--a blood component that helps clotting--from paid donors until the end of 1989. This created an exemption from a 1977 law that banned use of paid donor blood unless volunteer blood was unavailable.

The 1977 law sought to reduce the incidence of transfusion hepatitis. At the time, paid donor blood was regarded as three to 10 times more likely than voluntary blood to contain the hepatitis virus because it came primarily from indigent donors.

Faced with opposition from Health Services and voluntary blood banks, Bane agreed to a compromise that included a study to determine whether blood platelets harvested from the blood of paid donors through a process known as hemapheresis pose a greater health risk than those obtained from voluntary donors.

The study was mandated in a 1987 Bane bill that provided funding by diverting $200,000 a year from the state Lupus Appropriations Board, another of Bane’s pet projects. Bane said he decided to redirect the money because concern about transmission of AIDS-contaminated blood was a higher priority and there was no money in the state budget for new programs.

Lupus support groups, already irate that Bane decided earlier this year to terminate funding for research into the potentially fatal autoimmune disease, expressed renewed anger last week when they learned in a newspaper story that $400,000 previously had been diverted.

The blood study, however, has not been initiated and three members of a medical panel appointed to oversee it say it may be impossible to do. At Bane’s behest, the state Senate last week voted to carry the $400,000 for the study into the 1989-90 fiscal year.

With the exemption from the ban on selling paid blood components due to expire Dec. 31, Bane introduced a measure, since taken over by Assemblyman William J. Filante (R-Greenbrae), that would allow continued use of paid platelet donors until a year after the study is completed.

Opponents contend that the prime beneficiary will be HemaCare, a driving force behind the legislation and one of few facilities statewide that pays donors for blood platelets, which it then sells to hospitals.

The firm, which is located in Bane’s 40th Assembly District, has given his campaign committee $4,850 in the last four years.

Its medical director and vice president, Dr. Joshua Levy, has known Bane for 15 years and provided critical medical referrals when the lawmaker was stricken in 1984 by Guillian-Barre, a paralytic and occasionally deadly disease. Levy has also contributed $2,375 to Bane’s campaign committee since 1978; Thomas Asher, HemaCare’s chairman, has given Bane another $1,000.

In addition, Levy is one of three members of the lupus board, which is chaired by Bane’s wife, Marlene, and has appropriated $6.2 million to scientists for research on the disease since 1977. Levy, who has conducted lupus research and treats lupus patients, was appointed to the panel in 1985 by Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) on the Banes’ recommendation.

Lupus groups charge that Levy had a conflict of interest in his capacities as a member of the lupus board and medical director of HemaCare, which stood to benefit by the diversion of $400,000 in lupus research money. Levy denied this assertion.

Bane and Levy said last week that the contributions and HemaCare’s interest were not the motivation for the controversial blood bills, or the transfer of lupus research money to fund the blood study. They maintain that the hemapheresis process and screening safeguards make the use of the paid blood safer than blood from voluntary donors.

Bane is pressing to increase the use of hemapheresis, a process of obtaining enough blood platelets from a single donor for a complete transfusion by removing the platelets and then returning the blood to the donor’s system. In contrast, most voluntary blood banks need blood from as many as 10 donors to obtain enough platelets for a transfusion.

“I would much rather have, and would insist on having, a hemapheresis blood product,” Bane said. “The danger of infection is 10 times as great when you take it from 10 people as when you take it from one.”

Donors need to be paid because the hemapheresis process takes several hours, Bane said.

But opponents, including voluntary blood banks and Health Services officials, point to the studies that have found that paid donor blood is far more likely than voluntary blood to contain the hepatitis virus because payment for blood components attracts donors from high-risk groups. They also say that paid donors are less likely than voluntary donors to tell the truth about their medical history on screening questionnaires.

“The philosophy of the (state health) department is that we should have a voluntary donor blood supply system,” said Dr. Ronald Roberto, a section chief with the Health Services Department. He said this mirrors the position of the American Blood Commission, an umbrella group including the American Red Cross and the American Assn. of Blood Banks.

Levy contends that those studies are outdated and irrelevant because HemaCare’s donors are middle-class college students and hospital employees, not Skid Row residents.

The study of the relative safety of platelets from paid or unpaid donors was intended to resolve this question. It has been delayed amid ongoing debate about whether such a study can be done that is scientifically valid.

Bane dismisses the debate, contending that the Health Services Department has just been dragging its feet.

Roberto, meanwhile, called Bane’s 1987 study bill “special-interest legislation.” Referring to HemaCare, he said, “If the sponsors want such a study, they should conduct it themselves.”

Levy responded that HemaCare would not necessarily benefit from the study if it finds that platelets from paid donors carry a higher risk of infection. He also said that there are at least two other California distributors of platelets from paid donors. Finally, he said, HemaCare believes the study is unnecessary and would be just as happy if it is never done.

Filante’s bill would allow the continued sale of paid platelets until one year after the study is completed. On Wednesday, however, he abruptly shelved the measure, citing a need for more information but reserving his right to reactivate it.

Filante, a physician, has also received $2,000 in campaign contributions from HemaCare and its executives, Levy and Asher, since 1985. Filante said there was no connection between the contributions and legislation.

The blood issue, including the diversion of lupus funds to the proposed study, illustrates Bane’s clout in health-care appropriations. Most recently, the veteran lawmaker agreed to the termination of funding for the lupus board, apparently because he was upset that Health Services officials intervened after they determined that some of the board’s funding decisions raised questions of favoritism and fairness.

Southern California representatives of the two major lupus support groups expressed outrage that lupus research money had been funneled to a study that they said was not lupus-related and could benefit lupus board member Levy, who sits on both their medical advisory boards.

“This whole thing is sleazy,” said Nancy Horn, president of the Southern California chapter of the Lupus Foundation of America. “There’s just too many bypasses of the way we should be running things. Something’s not right here.”