["Gift or good?"]

The European Union and many transfusion international organizations and societies held the unpaid blood donation as an imperative for enrolling donors, not always providing the means for implementing this regulation, in particular induced by the (pharmaceutical) industry's hesitations. In spite of this, all available data, whatever former or recent, prove that the unpaid blood donation has a higher transfusion safety level than the remunerated donation's. The author also stresses that blood industrialization, while considerably improving the transfusion safety, has also destroyed the past vicinity between donor and receiver within the hospital environment, detrimental to enrolling donors. He also evokes challenges to be coming up soon in transfusion centres as well as changing the role of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies to refocusing their activities on the promotion of blood donation and donor enrollment.