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What's your stance on "donating" blood plasma?

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

Elextra ,

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.

7bicycles ,

Considering you said you’re german, I think the whole Idea of “Ehrenamt” and subsidiaries of it runs counter to the entire system that has been built. If we monetize everything, I think it’s fine that people get paid for taking time out of their day and bodies to do good shit.

Basically, don’t do unpaid labour in this system?

intensely_human ,

If it’s an adult doing the selling, then it’s a consensual interaction.

Exploitation in the negative sense requires a violation of consent.

Hildegarde ,

The US has laws that bans paying for blood, but they can pay for plasma. All healthcare in the US is a for profit venture.

If you donate blood in the US, you are the only one in that process who is making a donation. Every other organization in the chain between your donation and the patient who receives it will add a markup for their own profit.

Organ donations work the same way. If you get killed by a car, and your heart is used to save someone’s life, they will be charged nearly two million dollars for the operation. Not only does your next of kin not get a cut of that two million, your estate will still get a bill for whatever treatment failed to save your life.

I can think of little that is more unethical than being the only one donating. Plasma is better because the donors are paid. If healthcare is for profit, at minimum the profits should go both ways. Plasma is the one time it does.

the_post_of_tom_joad ,
@the_post_of_tom_joad@hexbear.net avatar

I’m usually sitting or lying down.

Hello_there ,

Selling your body

FlashMobOfOne ,
@FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world avatar

TBH, it was a crucial life line for me at a tough time in my life economically.

I didn’t have the energy to work a part-time job and just 90 minutes a week translated to an extra $400-$500 bucks a month.

At its core, it shouldn’t be necessary for people to sell blood and plasma, but Americans vote for for-profit health care and their own impoverishment every two years, so regardless of one’s thoughts on the matter, your very blood is now commoditized at the consent of the voters.

DrBob ,
@DrBob@lemmy.ca avatar

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).

Phil_in_here ,

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)

Lemvi ,

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.

Xiisadaddy ,
@Xiisadaddy@lemmygrad.ml avatar

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.

DirigibleProtein ,

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.

BassTurd , (edited )

I get around $120 a week to sell my plasma in the middle of the US at a BioLife center. Payment varies a little depending on the center you go to and various promotions, but it’s usually pretty close. It’s about 2-3 hours a week commitment.

In college, the money was necessary, but now I do it for extra side cash. My wife and I own a home, two vehicles, and are doing well, so I don’t need the money. I do it to supplement non budgeted items for fun, like weed, one or more snowboarding trips to actual elevation, and bass guitars and bass guitar accessories to name a few. Could it pay more? Probably, but I don’t feel like I’m getting ripped off for the time I’m giving.

I used to double dip, and do my hourly job while donating, which got me out of the office earlier, and got extra money. Now I’m salary and have meetings and shit.

v4ld1z OP ,
@v4ld1z@lemmy.zip avatar

Holy shit, 120$ per week? Now I definitely feel like I’m being ripped off 🐧 I thought we were having it good with 25€ per donation plus the odd additional promotions.

It used to be like that for me too - extra money to spend on leisure time. Mostly video games, in my case. Nowadays, I can’t go that regularly, sadly, because my new apprenticeship is full-time and doesn’t leave too much time to go donate plasma. But 120 sounds amazing

frauddogg , (edited )
@frauddogg@lemmygrad.ml avatar

Anti. There will never be a day where they pay me enough to contribute to blood stocks for hateful amerikans.

Vanth ,
@Vanth@reddthat.com avatar

Anytime we ask questions about poor people doing things to make a buck, you probably won’t find me talking negatively or blaming the people with few to no options.

I’ve been in a financial situation where selling my blood plasma was an easy, safe, guaranteed amount of money that kept me from getting deeper into the hole. I’m not going to knock anyone who does it, only the shitty social services that fail people to the point they have to sell their plasma to survive.

v4ld1z OP ,
@v4ld1z@lemmy.zip avatar

I’ve been there myself too. I didn’t necessarily have to donate plasma twice a week for a couple months since I could have asked my parents for money, but I’m very reluctant when it comes to asking for money and want to do things independently, on my own as far as possible. So yea, while between jobs, I was reliant on this steady source of income to be able to afford rent. It sucks but that’s reality. And yea, I quite agree that this is an underlying systematic failure of the government and not necessarily a fault of the blood bank

BlueKey ,
@BlueKey@fedia.io avatar

If they see it as a scam then they seem to expect certain financial gain from donating.
In my opinion this is bad as donating life-saving goods should not be done just for the money.

You can't be scammed if you are doing it for saving lifes (except if they sell the blood to some shady labs instead hospitals).

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