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The man with the golden blood

mosaicscience.com

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Re: The man with the golden blood

#51

Post by Nzen »

dandelany wrote: post #34
davegardner wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a regular whole blood and plasma donor and I'm quite sure that I'd be much less likely to donate if I was being paid for it. I'm not really sure exactly why I feel that way, but I guess that if you put a dollar value on it I'd be calculating whether it really was worth my time. Right now, because there is no compensation (aside from a muffin and a cup of tea afterwards), I get the emotional benefits of having per…

An interesting point, but for me at least there is a significant difference between earnings and reimbursement . One might be more likely to donate if they're not being paid , but if they knew that donating involved spending a non-trivial amount of money that would not be reimbursed I think it would be a deterrent.

I had trouble parsing this. "People are okay with not being paid (for charitable effort). People dislike not being reimbursed (for charitable effort)."

Reimbursement seems a non-sequitur in the context of donating blood. Without an alternative market for blood, framing it as foregone reimbursement would be actively antagonistic on the part of the charitable recipient [within the culture in my area]. eg, "we could pay you, but you shouldn't want us to."

Unless you are referring to a situation, expressed below, like not reimbursing significant travel expenses for mr blackfan-anemia. It's not clear to me.

Re: The man with the golden blood

#52

Post by astrocat »

sosuke wrote: post #7

Really interesting situation, and very frustrating that none of the rare blood donors costs can be paid for by hospitals. Seems like there should be some loop hole to get them compensated.

It's unclear to me why paying individuals with very rare blood types for the blood they provide to the medical industry would in any way alter the landscape of general blood donations. I understand why it's a bad idea to attempt to pay for regular blood donations in general, but rare blood is not a "regular donation" - the individual is in possession of an insanely lucrative product. It just happens to be their blood, instead of something more "normal" like artistic talent.

Re: The man with the golden blood

#53

Post by x0x0 »

niels_olson wrote: post #42
psykovsky wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except, in most cases you donate the blood to a blood bank that will sell it to wherever it is needed. The blood banks are profiting from your blood and hospitals are ill-spending money. You get the worse of both worlds.

It costs money to keep the lights on and pay employees, refrigeration, databases, transportation (we get blood shipped from ARC three hours away twice a day), etc. And if you're not making money, you're losing money. Money is how societies manage these costs. Most blood banks are associated with a hospital or university. Some centers are free standing, like Blood Source or American Red Cross (ARC), and they are often…

The ceo of the red cross makes $600k, with plenty of the execs making over $400k (form 990 available [1]; page 49). I don't know if I can draw a bright line, but I think that's excessive compensation for running a medical charity.

Re: The man with the golden blood

#54

Post by Mandatum »

IvyMike wrote: post #48
mrfusion wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get a postcard whenever they use my donated blood. I wonder how that works, does everyone in a given pool get the postcard?

Just to be clear: when I said "pool", they don't like, blend the blood--I just meant that your bag of blood is available for general usage. They can and do track individual packs. Regarding the postcard: I have donated in Illinois and California and have never gotten one. But I haven't been able to donate for a few years now because of trips into malaria zones, so if this is a recent thing, that would explain it.

I had this nasty image of a big metal vat of blood being mixed with a giant wooden spoon Willy-Wonka-style.

Re: The man with the golden blood

#55

Post by ars »

antimagic wrote: post #32
ceejayoz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read it as him having a separate personal bank of blood units, that are reserved for his use unless he gives them permission to take from it.

He has to permit anyone - in other words they're not really asking him permission. I read that sentence to mean that he doesn't actually have any say over who gets to use his blood.

No, you are reading that incorrectly. You should email the author and ask him to rephrase it.

Re: The man with the golden blood

#56

Post by ars »

tnorthcutt wrote: post #49
masklinn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's possibly slightly unfair that he's not allowed his own 'stash' He is allowed his own stash. > it can only be stored for 42 days Fresh blood can be kept 42 days at 4C, blood can also be frozen and kept for decades (at -80C) or more (virtually indefinitely at -196C) but thawed blood must be used within 48h .

He is allowed his own stash. Source? The article seemed to indicate that he must permit any blood he donates to be used for other people, thereby implying he may not reserve any of it for himself.

No, I read it as that he donates for himself, but if someone needs blood, and he allows it, they take from his pool reducing what is available for himself.

Re: The man with the golden blood

#58

Post by gwern »

niels_olson wrote: post #30
gwern wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's modern medical 'ethics' for you: damn the consequences, what matters is what it looks like and whether it offends anyone.

No, it's about the safety of the blood supply. It's a weird quirk of human psychology and economics that paying for donations means fewer healthy people and more people with infectious diseases donate when it's fee-for-blood.

If you were designing based on consequences, would covering basic expenses for rare blood donors result in so many people signing up with infectious diseases that it exceeds the deaths from the Rube Goldberg scheme described in OP which limps along with just a few rare blood donors?

Re: The man with the golden blood

#59

Post by function_seven »

ars wrote: post #55
antimagic wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has to permit anyone - in other words they're not really asking him permission. I read that sentence to mean that he doesn't actually have any say over who gets to use his blood.

No, you are reading that incorrectly. You should email the author and ask him to rephrase it.

Is there another source for this? Using phrases "has to" and "anyone" implies requirement.

In fact, the very next sentence is "This leaves Thomas dependent on other Rhnull donors", which re-enforces my reading of the previous line. If he could have a private stash, he would not be dependent on other donors.

Re: The man with the golden blood

#60

Post by gioele »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #50

I wonder if it's possible to create a blood-producing machine (with bone marrow culture and whatnot). And then by manipulating its genetic code slightly make it produce whatever blood we want. Better yet, take a sample from one perfect donor and make golden blood at a scale.

> I wonder if it's possible to create a blood-producing machine (with bone marrow culture and whatnot).

People have been trying since the 17th century: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_substitute

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