[Blood components: Are they drugs or special medicines?].

Blood transfusion and plasma derived-drugs significantly differ from other medicines in that their availability strictly depends on blood and plasma collected from healthy donors. Blood collection must comply with a double objective: to maintain donor heath safety, and to avoid any transmitted infections in recipients. This raises several ethical concerns that appear to be different from usual ethical and deontological issues linked to other pharmaceutical and industrial processes. The main concern is the non-commercialization of the human body. Words and concept are of major importance in this context. This short review aims at presenting the main issues relevant to those questions with respect to the various stakeholders.