The Bloodsucker of Valentine

On a clear, cold day, two men stand on the sidewalk in front of 3715 Broadway, smoking mini cigars. One of the men, Carlos, wears a one-piece, navy-blue mechanic's jumpsuit; the other wears a sweatshirt and worn-looking pants. They're outside ZLB Plasma Services, a one-story white building with heavy white drapes pulled across each window. They look as though they're loitering, the way many young men do on this block. But they're actually ZLB employees on their smoke break.

"I love my freezer," Carlos says cheerfully. "Negative 45 degrees." Carlos' freezer is where donated plasma is stored. The plasma is the portion of blood that contains proteins and disease-fighting antibodies. It will be sent to one of three processing centers — in Illinois, Switzerland or Germany — where it will be made into pharmaceutical products. ZLB allows donors to give twice a week. Donors are paid about $25 to $40.

ZLB's spokespeople like to say that their donors come from all walks of life, which is true. But neighbors say the plasma center encourages drug addicts to trade blood for drugs. Dealers sometimes stand near the center waiting for addicts to walk out with their newfound cash. Some say dealers will front drugs to addicts waiting at the center — at twice the usual street price — knowing that they will have money in their pockets once they donate.

In the historic urban neighborhood surrounding ZLB, a lot of restoration has been going on lately. Old drug houses and by-the-hour hotels have been boarded up or torn down. Just west of Broadway, the Valentine area, with its stately old houses, would be among midtown's nicest neighborhoods if it weren't for the addicts that frequent ZLB.

Those addicts complicate Carlos' smoke breaks.

"I was out here one day, and a guy snatched my bag," Carlos says. "I beat his ass. We rolled right out there to the middle of Broadway." He points at the place with the lit end of his smoke.

Just then, four guys in baggy jeans and puffy coats approach the plasma center. They post up comfortably by the door.

The ZLB worker next to Carlos advises them, "You better move on. Security guard is right in that van." A white van blocks the entrance to the ZLB parking lot while a large truck is being loaded with biohazardous waste.

The men shuffle down to the end of the building. "We don't have a uniform on," Carlos says. "They don't know."

Just past the building, the men stop again, still aimless but off ZLB's property. Matt Martin sat on his porch drinking from a large green bottle of Perrier on a recent chilly afternoon. Martin lives on Washington, the street just west of Broadway on the 3700 block. Like many of the houses on his block, Martin's is a two-story shirtwaist with a limestone façade and a wide, sturdy porch. And like many residents in the Valentine and Broadway-Gillham neighborhoods, Martin says the plasma center depresses the area.

"It draws drug addicts, drug dealers, the unemployed, vagrants," he says. "Why not open a place like that closer to the hospitals in the community? It would make more sense to me to have a place like this closer to Truman or Kansas University. They could treat these people and offer more services. This is just ripping them off here and taking their body parts, is what it is."

Chris Jordan, co-president of the Valentine Neighborhood Association and a board member of the Broadway/Westport Council, says her two neighborhood groups banded together to start a security fund last year. They hired Westport Security guards to patrol Broadway on bikes for three months last summer, at a cost of $27,000. During those three months, residents said they felt safer on the streets.

Jordan says she spoke with Jason Herbster, who manages ZLB's location on Broadway. She asked him if the company would like to join the neighborhood groups and contribute to the security fund. She says Herbster said he'd check with ZLB American headquarters, located in Boca Raton, Florida. She says Herbster never got back to her.

"They were not willing, I guess, to participate," Jordan says.

Neighbors say ZLB has upped the area's crime, but police records show that most arrests on this block are made for auto thefts, shoplifting from the Family Dollar across from ZLB and miscellaneous assaults. Records show that cops sometimes go to ZLB to conduct interviews related to other crimes or to document the activities of a felon, but few crimes are connected to the address.

ZLB Plasma is owned by CSL Limited, a biopharmaceutical company with headquarters in Melbourne, Australia. There are more than 60 ZLB collection centers in the United States and eight in Germany. CSL collects an estimated 3 million liters of plasma annually — enough plasma to fill about 12 backyard swimming pools. The plasma is used in the manufacturing of products such as Helixate, which treats a disease that inhibits blood clotting, and TachoComb, which aids in wound healing. None of ZLB's plasma is used for transfusions.

Nadine Johnson, the compliance branch director for the Kansas City District of the Food and Drug Administration, says her office audits ZLB's list of donors and makes on-site inspections every two years. The FDA looks at factors such as donor history forms and the results of donors' medical exams. She says plasma-center employees who screen donors are told to do a "visual check" for puncture marks in the arms of donors to check for intravenous drug use, but there's no way to tell if donors have been using other drugs. "Vein puncture sites are usually in one place, and plasma donation centers always draw from the elbow area," she says. Donors are often quizzed about their drug history, but, Johnson says, "there's no psychic crystal ball to tell if people are lying."