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Thousands of Low-Income Americans 'Donate' Blood Plasma to For-Profit Centers

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Re: Thousands of Low-Income Americans 'Donate' Blood Plasma to For-Profit Centers

#21

Post by dbg31415 »

rtkwe wrote: post #16
cylinder wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not about donating blood to the Red Cross, this is about the plasma donation industry, which is only for-profit in the US and supplies much of the world. Only a few companies operate in this space, I've studied it closely. Baxalta runs a big chain, BioLife, as does CSL. If we accept that selling organs is prohibited and unethical then we should also accept the same for selling plasma.

Except there's a huge difference between organs and blood plasma. Plasma donation is basically risk free, it regenerates, and has no long term health effects pretty much the exact opposite of any organ donation which are really risky and invasive and also leave the donor vulnerable to long term health risks. Equating them is pretty ridiculous.

And there are arguably other benefits to donating blood; at minimum you're getting a little checkup every time you donate. Donating regularly will help you better monitor your resting pulse, blood pressure, cholesterol levels...

Re: Thousands of Low-Income Americans 'Donate' Blood Plasma to For-Profit Centers

#23

Post by maxerickson »

dbg31415 wrote: post #9

I donate every 2 months. I also encourage everyone who can to donate as frequently as they can. It's an easy way for anyone to play it forward. * American Red Cross || http://www.redcrossblood.org/give/drive/driveSearch.jsp I had a family member in a near-fatal car accident a little over 12 years ago. It took a lot of blood to keep her alive, and I'm thankful for everyone who donated and made saving her life possible…

There's also lots of places where you can make an appointment to make a donation rather than showing up and waiting at a blood drive. Many are not affiliated with the Red Cross.

At the one I go to it is about 45 minutes between walking in the door and walking out the door.

Re: Thousands of Low-Income Americans 'Donate' Blood Plasma to For-Profit Centers

#24

Post by awqrre »

zaroth wrote: post #7
DanBC wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People desperate for money, who may not have blood suitable for donating, are incentivised to lie. Meanwhile, men can't donate if they've had sexual contact with men in the past 12 months. http://www.redcrossblood.org/donating-blood/eligibility-requ...

And if the alternative (not offering any payment) is simply not having enough plasma to manufacture the life saving treatments? It's almost as if people who are donating this frequently should be properly screened and truly compensated for the value they are providing...

Around here they don't pay for blood, they give you things like movie tickets or restaurant gift cards... sure the recipients could sell them for cash but it's not as easy.

Re: Thousands of Low-Income Americans 'Donate' Blood Plasma to For-Profit Centers

#25

Post by chimeracoder »

zaroth wrote: post #10
gech wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the share of the profit from this equitable though? Or do these companies take the lion's share?

Equitable? The raw material is a far cry from the final product which required perhaps hundred of millions in R&D. If people are willing the give a unit of plasma for $7.50 and supply is meeting demand, it seems precisely equitable. The key question is that donating so frequently must be safe for the donor. If there's long term health implications then the firms have to coordinate if necessary to ensure donations are…

> If people are willing the give a unit of plasma for $7.50 and supply is meeting demand, it seems precisely equitable.

The US actually provides 50% of the world's plasma supply, because there are more people in the US willing to donate under the current system than there is a need for it, whereas most of the world (which does not pay for plasma donation) has an ongoing shortage.

Plasma, like whole blood, also has a relatively short shelf life and cannot be donated on an as-needed basis, so it's preferable to have more than you need, since you never know when there will be a natural disaster, etc.

I've donated plasma. I think the whole process, from the moment I walked in the door to the moment I left, was about two hours. I read a book the whole time and they paid me about $100 (I don't remember exactly how much). It was pretty easy, and I'd do it again if I could.

Re: Thousands of Low-Income Americans 'Donate' Blood Plasma to For-Profit Centers

#26

Post by Houshalter »

This reminds me of "The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics": http://web.archive.org/web/20160806191858/https://blog.jaibo...

Our culture has a very strange belief that you shouldn't benefit from the less fortunate. Even if you benefit them too. People that have never donated a dollar to charity in their lives, will come out of the woodwork and complain about "exploitation".

Re: Thousands of Low-Income Americans 'Donate' Blood Plasma to For-Profit Centers

#27

Post by dbg31415 »

maxerickson wrote: post #23
dbg31415 wrote: post #9

I donate every 2 months. I also encourage everyone who can to donate as frequently as they can. It's an easy way for anyone to play it forward. * American Red Cross || http://www.redcrossblood.org/give/drive/driveSearch.jsp I had a family member in a near-fatal car accident a little over 12 years ago. It took a lot of blood to keep her alive, and I'm thankful for everyone who donated and made saving her life possible…

There's also lots of places where you can make an appointment to make a donation rather than showing up and waiting at a blood drive. Many are not affiliated with the Red Cross. At the one I go to it is about 45 minutes between walking in the door and walking out the door.

Post a link to help others find it. (=

Re: Thousands of Low-Income Americans 'Donate' Blood Plasma to For-Profit Centers

#28

Post by chimeracoder »

kgwgk wrote: post #19
x0137294744532 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can donate hair, milk, sperm or oocytes as frequently as you like without affecting your health. This is not the case for organs or plasma.

Could you donate sperm 100 times per day without affecting your health? I'm impressed! (Edit: assuming you're an sperm producing individual.(I was going to say 'man', but I don't want to risk offending anyone again.)) Seriously, egg donation seems to affect your health more than plasma donation. According to wikipedia: Birth control pills are administered during the first few weeks of the egg donation process to sync…

> Seriously, egg donation seems to affect your health more than plasma donation

Yes, for a healthy individual, the act of donating plasma is about as risk free as you can get. Perhaps sperm donation is the only less risky live tissue donation. The reason we pay for it is that, if we didn't, we wouldn't have enough, and people would die. That's not speculative - countries which don't pay for plasma donation end up buying it from the US.

Donating eggs can have really serious complications even for healthy individuals - its not a trivial procedure, and even when performed correctly, it carries a small risk of infertility.

That's not to say you shouldn't do it, but there's another reason that we shouldn't expect women to do it for free - that actually becomes a lot more exploitative than providing up-front compensation and a full explanation of the risks, which we do.

Re: Thousands of Low-Income Americans 'Donate' Blood Plasma to For-Profit Centers

#29

Post by sandworm101 »

The rules against paying donors in many countries can cause problems. Some people with very rare bloodtypes are in high demand. When someone needs that rare blood we could at least cover the traveling expenses needed to bring in the willing donor. But that just isnt allowed.

Re: Thousands of Low-Income Americans 'Donate' Blood Plasma to For-Profit Centers

#30

Post by chimeracoder »

DanBC wrote: post #4
ErikVandeWater wrote: post #2

Although somewhat grotesque to many on the face of it, this seems like fundamentally a good thing. Poor people get money they need, and people with severe injuries get their lives saved. I find it unusual there always seems to be an aversion to companies making money on healthcare (the emphasis on for-profit). This is weird, because no one would suggest companies should only be allowed to make money on irrelevant or…

People desperate for money, who may not have blood suitable for donating, are incentivised to lie. Meanwhile, men can't donate if they've had sexual contact with men in the past 12 months. http://www.redcrossblood.org/donating-blood/eligibility-requ...

For plasma donation, every individual is tested for blood-borne diseases. They draw an additional whole blood sample first for this test.

This is even more rigorous than what we do for whole blood donation, in which blood samples are pooled and tested as a batch. Ironically, the reason we're able to do this is that we make a larger profit off of plasma donations, whereas we don't for whole blood, and have to use the cheaper testing methods for that.

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