The ("Association
of Voluntary Italian Blood Donors

Blood donation

A blood donation occurs when a person voluntarily has blood drawn and used for transfusions or made into medications by a process called fractionation....

") is the major Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 non-profit

Non-profit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

 and charitable organisation for blood donation

Blood donation

A blood donation occurs when a person voluntarily has blood drawn and used for transfusions or made into medications by a process called fractionation....

, bringing together over a million volunteer blood donors across Italy. It is headquartered in Lombardy

Lombardy

Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...

, Italy.

Pre-war

In the early twentieth century, the ABO blood group system

ABO blood group system

The ABO blood group system is the most important blood type system in human blood transfusion. The associated anti-A antibodies and anti-B antibodies are usually IgM antibodies, which are usually produced in the first years of life by sensitization to environmental substances such as food,...

 was discovered by Austrian scientist Karl Landsteiner

Karl Landsteiner

Karl Landsteiner , was an Austrian-born American biologist and physician of Jewish origin. He is noted for having first distinguished the main blood groups in 1900, having developed the modern system of classification of blood groups from his identification of the presence of agglutinins in the...

, and its application in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 led to a rise in the awareness of therapeutic blood donation

Blood donation

A blood donation occurs when a person voluntarily has blood drawn and used for transfusions or made into medications by a process called fractionation....

. In Italy, there were few hospitals that could provide blood transfusion

Blood transfusion

Blood transfusion is the process of receiving blood products into one's circulation intravenously. Transfusions are used in a variety of medical conditions to replace lost components of the blood...

s, and those that did held lists of suppliers; this closed market allowed a high price (up to several months' wages) to be charged to patients for a single unit of blood.

In 1927, Dr Vittorio Formentano founded the first voluntary organisation in Italy, in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

. Two years later, his group of unpaid donors became the , the first organisation of its kind in Italy.

The goals of the group were "organizing a network of regular donors under constant medical control, to fight the blood trade, to spread the idea that blood is a natural and anonymous gift and to enhance scientific knowledge of transfusion practice". The organisation developed quickly across Northern Italy

Northern Italy

Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...

, and in 1934 Il Duce, Benito Mussolini

Benito Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....

, issued a ("king's decree") asking the organisation to add an "F" for (fascist) to its acronym. The decree also embedded blood donation into a set of administrative bodies across Italy, and legally acknowledged the right of professional blood donors to profit from their donations. Francesco Carnelutti, a leading scholar of the time, even argued for the right to take blood without the donor's consent

Consent

Consent refers to the provision of approval or agreement, particularly and especially after thoughtful consideration.- Types of consent :*Implied consent is a controversial form of consent which is not expressly granted by a person, but rather inferred from a person's actions and the facts and...

.

Post-World War II

After the collapse of the fascist government

History of Italy as a Republic

After World War II and the overthrow of Mussolini's fascist regime, Italy's history was dominated by the Christian Democracy political party for 50 years, while the opposition was led by the Italian Communist Party ; this situation prevailed until the crisis of the Soviet Union and the...

 in 1946, the new Italian Republic abrogated responsibility for blood donation to the Italian Red Cross

Italian Red Cross

The Italian Red Cross is the Italian national Red Cross society that has its origin in the Comitato dell'Associazione Italiana per il soccorso ai feriti ed ai malati in guerra that was formed in Florence in 1863, and in Milan on June 15, 1864. Other committees were formed later...

, who were given a near-monopoly

Monopoly

A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...

 on blood donation until 1950, when, following concerted political pressure, AVIS was re-recognised and granted an official title (Associazione Volontari Italiani del Sangue).

Structured on a territorial basis, AVIS was permitted to operate autonomously, and began to slowly spread a culture of voluntary, unpaid blood donation across the country — although, even to this day, the north of Italy has a freer attitude towards blood donation than the south, where voluntary, free donation is only expected for a family member. By 1955, Formentano had become the president of IFBDO, the International Federation of Blood Donor Organisations.

1967 — Collection, Preservation and Distribution of Human Blood Act

In the 1950s and early 60s, the sale of blood in Italy was still permitted, and due to the shortages, particularly in the south of the country, a black market in blood trade spread. Blood was known as "" ("red gold").

On 14 July 1967, the Collection, Preservation and Distribution of Human Blood Act was passed by the Italian Government. The law regulated every aspect of the blood system in Italy, and marked the beginning of a stream of complex regulations surrounding blood donation, storage and transfusion in Italy — the laws specified every detail of how blood donation could take place, down to standardising the furniture in donation centres. The law did not, however, criminalise the paid donation of blood — only specifying the price charged not be "manifestly exorbitant". The right of a worker to receive a paid day off for freely donating blood, however, was enshrined in Italian law.

1990 — Blood Reform Act

In 1990, following a maelstrom

Maelstrom

A maelstrom is a very powerful whirlpool; a large, swirling body of water. A free vortex, it has considerable downdraft. The power of tidal whirlpools tends to be exaggerated by laymen. There are virtually no stories of large ships ever being sucked into a maelstrom, although smaller craft are in...

 of media and public pressure after a series of incidents involving Italian hemophiliacs receiving HIV

HIV

Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...

-infected blood, President Francesco Cossiga

Francesco Cossiga

Francesco Cossiga was an Italian politician, the 43rd Prime Minister and the eighth President of the Italian Republic. He was also a professor of constitutional law at the University of Sassari....

 passed the Blood Reform Act, which repealed the 1967 Act, and forced all transfusion activity, including that of AVIS, to take place under the auspices of the Italian National Health Service, and required all blood donations to be unpaid.

Between 1989 and 1999, AVIS had 871,779 donating members, and received 1,531,572 donations in Italy (plus 2,370 donations in Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

). In 1999 a total of 1,913,299 units of blood were donated; a shortfall of around 400,000 units. Few regions of Italy (mostly in the north) are self-sufficient in blood and plasma.

AVIS was granted the (the gold medal for civil merit) on January 7, 1998.