In reality I have a massive issue with needles that makes me super uncomfortable. Won’t go into details but I need a moment to recover when I get any work done around them . Legitimately less stress to not tell my partner something only for it to become a “surprise”
I gave blood routinely for years and years. Hours of my time on public transit and in the chair. Then, one time, I was sick and canceled because that is expected (nobody wants sick blood). They called me twice daily while I was sick to reschedule. Each time I said I would reschedule when I was healthy, but they didn’t stop calling. It made me think of them as some telemarketing predators that are profiteering on my good will. True or not that feeling made me not go back.
DARPA in particular has invested in several projects to try to develop a synthetic blood alternative. There’s no chance anytime soon of reproducing all of the functionality of real blood. The research is mostly targeting something that could be transfused in an emergency that could keep someone alive while they’re transported to a care facility (maintain pressure and distribute some oxygen without inducing toxicity), especially something that would be field-deployable with a longer shelf life, preferably without refrigeration.
They’re on the way. I saw something last year where they’re working on it. I think in its current state it can deliver oxygen but it’s not helping clotting or stabilizing blood pressure yet.
After they work those parts out, the next step will be getting approved which will take time.
It’s a good question. I’m not a biological engineer so I’m not sure what’s stopping us from cloning blood. I feel like that’s where the sweet spot would be for a while.
There’s a potential for abuse with paying for donations (not saying it should never be done):
risk of unsafe blood supplies if people lie about their health history in order to be able to sell their blood
ethical concerns around exploiting financially vulnerable people, and turning a life-saving act into another commercial transaction
In areas where those vulnerable people aren’t protected by the legal system, there’s also the potential of OTHER people “harvesting” and selling the blood
Voluntary and altruistic donations are best, and ideally those values are maintained all the way through the donation process. Hopefully technology continues to improve so that we can support those donations with synthesized alternatives
I believe we’ve had some discussion around this in Canada recently, specifically with donations for plasma. I’m not caught up on it to comment further about it
In America plasma donation is paid and the harvest locations are typically located in areas with a large population of people who need supplemental income.
Paid plasma, even in America, isn’t used in transfusions because it is frequently contaminated with various diseases, precisely because you can’t trust people with a paid motive to be honest in the health screening.
You can’t even trust them to be honest for their own health. People lie to donate at different clinics to avoid the wait period, which is a pretty big problem because the American wait period for plasma selling is already too low to be healthy.
The plasma from paid clinics is used in various manufacturing uses, anything from makeup to products for haemophiliacs, but even after processing and extensive testing there’s still a significant risk of infection.
Plasma centers pay about 40 dollars per visit, twice a week. Plasma cannot be donated for 8 weeks after whole blood donation.
Offering up to $40 per donation offers no advantage to entice a plasma donor to switch to whole blood, so should not increase the risk to the blood supply.
Suppose the Red Cross and CSL plasma both used the same payment system for donors. Both would then have access to donor records, and would be able to refuse donations from people who have donated too recently. Donating blood would cost the donor 8 weeks worth of plasma payments: $640.
CSL’s payment department would only be involved if donors want to be paid. Unpaid donors could be given a receipt for their $40 tax deductible charitable donation.
Why? Those “donation” companies take my free blood and sell it to hospitals for like 500 a bag and give me a t-shirt. I give when I can but don’t go out of my way unless the prize is good. If they want more donations give better prizes.
Personally I’m a bit tangential to this, if I’m donating I’d expect the blood to go to places that need it without cost to them.
If they’re selling it, I want a fair shake too but I’d be more willing to donate to someone who would be giving it to the hospitals in need free of charge.
I’m sure there are costs associated but non-profits exist, no? Maybe there’s something I’m unaware of with how these work
Tbh, the filtration Mashines are very expensive and have high cost to run, they also need to pay employees. And the blood is usually processed further before being used. But yes, 50 buck should be good per donation because it would definitely increase participation.
Fwiw, about a decade ago I had a conversation with (iirc) a red cross employee who worked with blood banks. They said they make about 350 a pint but it costs about 300 to do all the required testing like HIV/hepatitis screening.
Donations have to cover the costs of day operations. They need to be pay their employees, purchase supplies, money towards the buildings and/or vehicles they use, etc. I don’t know how much hospitals are paying for each donation unit, so I can’t speak on that. Blood donation centers might have a hard time operating on just monetary donations they receive. Paying donars for each donation would open the door to shady and ineligible people wanting some quick cash. There are places that pay for plasma, but I don’t have experience with them, so I’ve never looked into how they operate.
My personal experience. I had to pause donating platelets recently due to a medical issue, but I have donated regularly for the last few years. I’ve never done it for t-shirts or gifts. I donated because platelets help people. The Red Cross has a feature that will usually tell where your donation went after itvhas been processed. I would always have good day when mine was shipped to a children’s hospital. I hope I can start donating again soon.
I’ve looked into plasma, apparently a lot of the world won’t use US plasma because we pay donors for it, it does incentivize bad behavior, and most countries won’t allow plasma donation any more frequently than blood donation. Which is every 8-ish weeks. We can do two donations a week (and it’s incentivized to encourage just that). Some desperate people game the system to do it at multiple places, even resorting to eating various things (like ketchup packets) to trick the blood tests.
But even then these companies sell it for enough (I think it’s used for cancer treatments?) to make enough on the domestic market that even paying for it is highly profitable.
This is it. People have to stop believing that paying staff is apparently a “waste of funds”.
As a specialist in my industry, I don’t work at schools and nonprofits, not because I don’t want to, but because their pay is usually half of the industry average. It’s sad. And you can’t “donate your speciality” to these places either. Nobody wants a volunteer specialist.
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