Could someone explain what is happening on those photos with the blood bags?
The man with the golden blood
81–90 of 105 posts
Re: The man with the golden blood
#82Just a note about the international travel described in this article : Geneva and Annemasse are twin city and share the same bus system. Thomas in this article could just get into a TPG bus from anywher in geneva and arrive in annemasse hospital less than 40 minute after. (geneva and anemasse are small cities)
However Amsterdam, the other place they mention is a smidgen further away.
Re: The man with the golden blood
#83This was a well written and inspiring article.
Reading this made me call the Red Cross and get back into giving blood.
Re: The man with the golden blood
#84For the person in the OP who needed heart
surgery and, thus, needed compatible blood for
the surgical procedure, why didn't that person
just donate their own blood, say, one pint at at time, over some weeks, have
it frozen, and then have it thawed out for them
just before the surgery?
Re: The man with the golden blood
#85For the person in the OP who needed heart surgery and, thus, needed compatible blood for the surgical procedure, why didn't that person just donate their own blood, say, one pint at at time, over some weeks, have it frozen, and then have it thawed out for them just before the surgery?
Or, to take it step further: if you have a rare blood type, start banking your blood early. Makes sense to me.
Re: The man with the golden blood
#86Earlier 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.
My local blood bank (in northern Virginia) has sent out post cards when my brother's, my father's, or my blood have been used in a donation. We're only O-, so not super rare but the blood bank does call if we've gone a while without donating.
Re: The man with the golden blood
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not just HIV. It's any infectious disease (there is a thick book of reasons to disallow a donation). The problem is that these infectious diseases are socially disruptive, therefore these folk, unfortunately, tend to have less marginal income. Therefore, they are exactly the people who would respond to a small monetary incentive. This has been studied. If anyone is acutely aware of the problem, it's blood banks.…
I'm advocating tax deductions as an incentive. If I give $350 in cash to the American Red Cross, I can take that charitable deduction from my annual filing. If I donate a unit of blood that gives ARC $350 in products, that's not deductible. The incentive side steps the donor-with-marginal-income problem, unless I'm missing something.
IRS Pub 526 on Charitable Contributions, Page 2:
Not Deductible As Charitable Contributions:
Cost of raffle, bingo, or lottery tickets
Dues, fees, or bills paid to ...
Tuition
Value of your time or services
*Value of blood given to a blood bank*
Re: The man with the golden blood
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
That would most likely result in another blood contamination scandal similar to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_Economy] in Henan China, where blood was mixed in centrifuges to save cost, subsequently infecting large amounts of the affected population with HIV.
But i had that image in my head as well, a big dirty vat of blood somewhere in a dipilated factory building.
Re: The man with the golden blood
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Standing alone it's impossible to derive the true meaning; it's the perfect doppelganger.
Based on the subsequent sentence I decided the author was in fact claiming that he couldn't save blood for his own exclusive use, but then immediately thought that can't possibly be true.
Poor machines will never learn to speak this language!
Re: The man with the golden blood
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
If that would disqualify then so would feeling good about it without telling people, it's the same kind of compensation. And he could even tell people the same thing without really donating, so the act itself is actually altruistic after all.
I'm not sure if that's the same for me. Just feeling good about it yourself says more about how you wish to view yourself as a good or moral person. Telling others about your charitable acts reflects more on how important we find showing that we are good and moral people to others. Of course I don't intend to bring the character of the parent to question, I think it's great when anyone engages in charitable acts. It'…
don't think of it as altruism, then, think of it as the relative values of money and warm fuzzies.