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The man with the golden blood

mosaicscience.com

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Re: The man with the golden blood

#91

Post by xerophyte12932 »

function_seven wrote: post #21
masklinn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article specifically mentions that he can and has since he turned 18: > When he turned 18, Thomas was encouraged to donate blood for himself. There is now no frozen blood bank in Switzerland, so his blood is stored in the rare blood banks in Paris and Amsterdam. And that his approval is required for doctors to draw into his "personal stash": > Since his blood can be given to anyone with a negative Rh blood type,…

> If he donates a unit for himself, he has to permit it to be used by anyone else who might need it. That sentence could have been worded better. This is the way I read it: If he donates a unit for himself, he must allow it to be used by anyone else who might need it.

As I understand, the original is not clear on whether: 1) Any one who seeks to use his blood, must first ask his permission. 2) Donating his blood automatically makes it available to whoever needs it.

I think your rewording still leaves that ambiguity, somewhat (though it does seem better), because i keep reading that as:

> he must allow it to be used..

Perhaps it would have been best to right it to break it down into two sentences.

    He can donate blood for himself.
    If someone needs it, they have to ask for his permission.
or

    He can donate blood for himself,
    but then this makes it accessible to whoever is in need of it.

Re: The man with the golden blood

#92

Post by Confusion »

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.

However, that effect does not extend to many kinds of gifts. Which is why I receive some stuffed animal or similar every 10th donation (I politely refuse them, not to add to the waste in the world).

People with rare blood could be gifted things like emergency taxi rides without adverse consequences and it's just bureaucracy, not science, that is in the way.

Re: The man with the golden blood

#93

Post by cthalupa »

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.

Fairly sure he's reading it correctly - the article goes on to talk about how he has to depend on other donors, and how he has to be very careful since there aren't any nearby.

The sentence by itself is unclear, but the context of the surrounding paragraph makes it pretty clear that while he can donate blood to have on reserve in case he needs it, he might be screwed if someone else needed it, because he has to allow them to use it.

Re: The man with the golden blood

#95

Post by PhantomGremlin »

It's amazing the Kafkaesque rules that have evolved about blood donation. The article does touch on them.

I'm not allowed to donate blood (any more), for what I think is an absurd reason. I spent a few months in England, over 30 years ago. So now the USA is afraid that any blood I donate will infect America with Mad Cow disease.

If those same rules were applied in the UK, nobody there would be able to give blood. The actual Red Cross text is:

   You are not eligible to donate if:

      From January 1, 1980, through December 31, 1996,
      you spent (visited or lived) a cumulative time
      of 3 months or more, in the United Kingdom (UK),
      ... [1]
Those same rules go on to ban all of Europe from donating blood:

   You spent (visited or lived) a cumulative time of
   5 years or more from January 1, 1980, to present,
   in any combination of country(ies) in Europe, ...
I did get my "gallon pin", which they give out after 8 donations, before the rules were changed. So there could be quite a few vCJD infected people wandering around the USA because of me.

Given the litigious environment in the USA, I understand why the Red Cross has these rules. But it doesn't make sense from a scientific point of view.

[1] http://www.redcrossblood.org/donating-blood/eligibility-requ...

Re: The man with the golden blood

#96

Post by DominikR »

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.

Actually, a very small part of every donation is mixed together with that of other donors to reduce the costs of testing if the blood is safe.

Otherwise they'd have to make every test once for every single donation.

Re: The man with the golden blood

#97

Post by puzzlingcaptcha »

MrJagil wrote: post #45
wffurr wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was highly distracted by the nonessential photos of bagged blood, which I found super creepy.

Yeah, in the bottom it says "name changed" so I assume the anonymity resulted in an overdose of stock photos.

Each photo is credited to the photographer listed at the end of the article, so I am not sure what your point is. They were likely all taken at IBGRL, mentioned in the text.

Re: The man with the golden blood

#98

Post by luch »

DominikR wrote: post #96
IvyMike wrote: post #48

Earlier 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.

Actually, a very small part of every donation is mixed together with that of other donors to reduce the costs of testing if the blood is safe. Otherwise they'd have to make every test once for every single donation.

I know for a fact that in France they test every single donation, since the "Contaminated blood products" scandal affair in 70'. They even use a 1000++€ AIDS test which can detect HIV within a 3-week time span, instead of 3 months.

Thanks the blood donation tests, I found I had a punctual lack of iron earlier this year.

Re: The man with the golden blood

#99

Post by Nursie »

PhantomGremlin wrote: post #95

It's amazing the Kafkaesque rules that have evolved about blood donation. The article does touch on them. I'm not allowed to donate blood (any more), for what I think is an absurd reason. I spent a few months in England, over 30 years ago. So now the USA is afraid that any blood I donate will infect America with Mad Cow disease. If those same rules were applied in the UK, nobody there would be able to give blood. The…

As a Brit who has lived abroad.... yeah, nobody wants my blood. Well not the Aussies or Americans anyway.

Hopefully vCJD is played out now. Hopefully.

Re: The man with the golden blood

#100

Post by dtparr »

paxswill wrote: post #86
IvyMike wrote: post #48

Earlier 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.

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.

O- makes you a universal donor, so I'd imagine yours is always in demand.
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