I’ve had a little of a debate with a commenter recently where they’ve argued that “donating” (selling, in their words, because you can get money for it) your blood plasma is a scam because it’s for-profit and you’re being exploited.
Now, I only have my German lense to look at this, but I’ve been under the impression that donating blood, plasma, thrombocytes, bone marrow, whatever, is a good thing because you can help an individual in need. I get that, in the case of blood plasma, the companies paying people for their donations must make some kind of profit off that, else they wouldn’t be able to afford paying around 25€ per donation. But I’m not sure if I’d call that a scam. People are all-around, usually, too selfish and self-centered to do things out of the goodness of their hearts, so offering some form of compensation seems like a good idea to me.
In the past, I’ve had my local hospital call me asking for a blood donation, for example, because of an upcoming surgery of a hospitalised kid that shares my blood group. I got money for that too.
What are your guys’ thoughts on the matter? Should it be on donation-basis only and cut out all incentives - monetary or otherwise? Is it fine to get some form of compensation for the donation?
Very curious to see what you think
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Selling your body
I’ve donated plenty of times, because it makes sense that there is no other way to save lives than to donate.
On the other hand, I’ve been wondering for years, that while I’ve been told a million times that “blood reserves are low - donate blood now!”, I’ve not ever heard that a single person died due to lack of available blood.
Why would something like that not be reported if you want to motivate people to donate?My personal guess is that this comes because “lack of avaiable blood donations” isn’t a valid cause of death, the cause of death is whatever else (gun shot wound, knife severed artery / complication during surgery etc), thus it’s hard to pinpoint. Also Doctors may try to “save” blood, when they know little is available, and people may die that may have lived if they had gotten (more) blood, but also they may not have and it is hard to tell.
Well, that’s a new thought. Donating blood is necessary, so we get paid by the Red Cross to do it, in money or a small meal. But the Red Cross then immediately upsells that blood to the hospitals that need it. In a sense, we are exploited workers without a contract.
The real reason donating blood is unethical is because we cannot unionize.
I wouldn’t mind it for that reason. The Red Cross do good work that need to be financed.
Here in the Netherlands they do that by contracting out volunteers for first aid services to events like fairs and runs. The volunteer donates their time, gets trained for free, the Red Cross gets paid by the organiser and makes money for their mission and an small army of experienced first aid people and EMTs to help out when disaster strikes.
I’m such a volunteer and it’s a great distraction from my normal job. I also get to use my skills outside of the Red Cross, e.g. as an action medic at protests.
Cool sidenote: there’s this network any CPR certified person can join to get alerted by emergency dispatch when CPR is needed close to your home or work. This has helped massively to get CPR started within 6 minutes mostly anywhere in the country, even when ambulances can’t get there that quickly.
You lack the cultural lens of America. About half of our country governs from the perspective of “why should I?” with the most negative and self-preserving mindset possible.
Why should I pay for others healthcare, even if it means they pay for mine? Why should I donate my blood if it doesn’t benefit me?
Solve that problem by giving you $25-100 for your “donations”
As someone from the US i always saw it as people can’t afford to take time off to donate, so compensating them for their time makes it so they can afford to donate.
A few states make it illegal to be monetarily compensated for your blood or plasma, but others it’s completely fine.
I’m sure.its a bit of that too, but I do feel like the ultimate reason is still, “well why are you taking time off to do something that isn’t only benefitting you?”
basically the same mindset that created this culture is what developed compensation for our time, as opposed to just taking the loss for the day to do a good thing.
That’s a fair assessment, and I can definitely agree with that
100% and I’m sure you know this too but just to add to your point, I believe the US government spends more money per capita on healthcare than anywhere in Europe, so even under the “Why should I?” lens, the current approach costs individuals more because they have to pay for it in taxes and then also in insurance premiums, copay etc.
It’s not just for the benefit of society as a whole, “you” as an individual would also be financially better off under a socialised system.
The important part is that the individual people spend more per capita for worse healthcare, too. You, private citizen reading this, are worse off and are paying more than you would be with socialized medicine in this country. Pretty much no matter what level you’re at, too.
Donating blood/plasma is a good thing. Economic conditions in which poor people feel obligated to give blood just to make enough money, whilst rich people don’t feel this same pressure, are bad.
I don’t know how exactly private blood banks work (in plenty of countries blood banks are public and presumably non-profit), but regardless, I assume nobody can get blood transfusions if nobody donates. So until the political system is overhauled just keep donating? Your blood donations aren’t the root cause of capitalism
The only way you’re getting blood out of me for any reason other than medical purposes is if you pay me or commit a crime. That goes for the plasma too.
That’s a terrible sword to live by. How do you expect to get blood, then? If you’re unconscious you can’t take it by force.
How could selling something you naturally produce be a scam? I can see how easily you could get ripped off on the price, but in the end you’re still making money and automatically replacing the plasma lost. Even if they’re not actually using the plasma for their stated purpose, I’d still argue the donator is not the one getting scammed. I guess it really comes down to your definition of “scam”.
Blood is just as bad, but yes, the markup is insane in the US, compared to the machinery and time to collect plasma.
Blood, for instance gets sold by the red cross to hospitals for around $215 per unit. Hospitals in turn will charge anywhere from $580 to $3,000 for it.
Also, most blood is used for elective surgeries that are not life critical. Any time you hear about their being a blood shortage that could effect what hospitals can give, what they actually mean is that there’s plenty for emergency and necessary use, but they may have to postpone elective and cosmetic surgeries.
Obviously, the issue would be solved easily by paying people enough to be worth it to donate. People would be lining up if they got something like $100 to donate a pint. Something that only takes about 30 minutes to do.
Worth remembering that a lot of serious life-changing surgeries are ‘elective’
By which i mean shit like joint reconstruction, endometriosis removal, ear grommets, cataract removal, etc.
Yes, but no one dies if they get pushed back 2 weeks. Also, the cosmetic surgeries are first on the chopping block.
And again, it’s supply and demand. The hospitals want the profit. They don’t want to pay any overhead for the product.
I donated blood for many years, starting the first day I was allowed (mom took me). I’ve been an organ donor from the day I was able and am loud about that. And for a few months after college I sold plasma for money. It definitely felt scummy, but I think it’s ultimately a good thing, though it is selling part of your body to a for profit company at a rate that’s pretty bad. So the cons are really that it definitely feels seedier than whole blood donation and that the phlebotomists are worse. I can’t donate blood anymore because they gave me a track mark and I can’t risk my other elbow’s veinous access.
But it got me through a rough time
how much did they ngive you?
Something like $100/week for two draws. But it was like 6 years ago in Kentucky
not bad
My disorganised thoughts in no particular order:
In Australia, donation of blood products is not paid. I think you get a cup of tea and a few biscuits (“cookies”).
I don’t have a problem with that, and I’m very grateful to those anonymous people who volunteered their time and blood so that I could have blood during my stem cell transplants.
I also don’t have a problem with people in other countries who are paid for their blood products; I understand what it’s like to be in dire straits, and blood is a renewable resource. However, I feel that if a company is making money from selling blood, they should be paying a fair price to donors.
Ethically, I feel that any donation of blood (or organs) should be completely anonymous, altruistic, and uncompensated in order to remove any hint of obligation between donor and donee. The idea of being paid for donations makes me personally uncomfortable, even though I just said that I don’t mind other people being compensated.
I’d like to contribute and save lives and whatever, but I have incurable blood cancer (multiple myeloma) and they won’t allow me to donate.
Donating blood plasma is good as it helps people in need. Sure, it sucks that there is a company in the middle making a profit, but not donating is not the solution to that problem, as it hurts the people in need more than the corporation in the middle.
I think its kinda similar to the tipping situation. Yes it sucks that restaurants don’t pay their employees properly and that you have to tip to support the employees. But not tipping hurts the employees rather than the restaurant owner.
In both cases, if we want change, we need to change the legislation.
In general even if your donating the blood for free they will still charge the person who gets the blood thousands of dollars at least in the US. They might just bill it as the service of sticking the needle in and hanging the bag up for you or whatever, but in essence they do charge for the blood and make a profit off of it.
I do think its a good thing to donate and help people, but i also do think that companies take advantage of the situation to make a profit off of it, and it is definitely exploitation. Donating blood plasma specifically is not a fun process, and it can leave a permanent scar on your arm if done a lot. The pay for it compared to the problems, and the profits they make on it is definitely understandable to see as a scam.
Now is the answer to that to just let people who need blood die? Obviously no. The answer is the make laws that say companies must provide a fair market rate for peoples plasma if selling it, or ideally just make laws that make all healthcare free so its not an issue anymore.
youguysgetpaid.jpg ?
Here if you go donate you get a sandwich and a day off work
Do you get paid for the work day? I used to donate plasma twice a week because that $240 a month was the only money I had. I stopped because now I don’t need that money and I work too much to have time for it.
If I got a paid day off work for every donation I would be there as often as they let me.
Depending on what you donate, you may have to wait 3 months between one donation and the next, we often donate whole blood; Plasma donations must be at least two weeks apart I think. I’m pretty sure there must be a limit to the numbers of days off you can get. It’s all managed through the national mutual assitance org, the employer must seek reimbursement through them as they would for sick days.
I’m assuming you’re in Germany? So envious of your labor rights there and in the broader EU.
We were allowed to donate plasma eight times per month. $25 first donation of the week $35 second.
Italy, actually. It’s bonkers to me how the labor movement, so strong in the USA at the start of the past century, is so weak nowadays.
For example it’s outrageous to me that you hold voting on a work day while not making it a national holiday or day off of some sort.
The thing about making it a holiday is interesting. Everyone in the service industry would be forced to work, probably extra hours as well. Because here any holiday means people who are lucky enough to be middle class and above will be consuming, especially eating out or ordering food in.
I’d prefer mandatory voting like Australia but with ballots mailed to everyone automatically. Make it as easy as possible.
Idk, we’ve got Ferragosto for example as a national holiday where EVERYTHING is closed…
You guys get a day off? All we get is time off to donate (also as many cookies and drinks as you want within reason, of course.
TBH most people I know don’t actually take the whole day, we’ve all got too much shit to do at work.
That makes a lot of sense.
U.S. here. I “donate” blood regularly to Vitalant. I enjoy the way they do it. You get “points” or often something free for donating (shirts, your name in their sweepstakes to win something large, etc.). You can use the points to redeem gift cards or choose to “donate” the gift card amount back to the organization.
My thoughts: I think these organizations have more donors when they offer compensation, even small vs if they did not. I saw Red Cross offer a chance to win a PS5 once and I’m quite sure it caught some peoples attention and earned them more first time donors -> potential long-term donors.
I think the larger issue is that the blood supply is for profit in the US. Everyone is getting exploited, including the people that require the transfusion.
I donate regularly in Canada and give it away for free as does everyone else. I don’t donate plasma because it’s not especially useful with my blood type (AB+ is universal for plasma, O- for other products).
I’m just surprised there isn’t a shadow industry of selling blood products fed on people altruistically donating for free (like, as far as I can tell, every country with public healthcare does) with corrupt pseudo-legal marketing ensuring that blood products are not sold for profit (because they sell the bag, not the blood, or they sell the service of delivering blood, or some bullshit like that)
