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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

EABOD25 ,

Even if it is for profit, it can still be used to save someone’s life.

tpihkal ,

I don’t have a problem with a for profit model as we live in a monetary system and every donation requires a paid staff and medical supplies as well as a donor’s time and willingness as donating is not without some risk.

It is the infinite profit model that is a problem. The immoral example would be sucking every penny out of patients for blood coming from completely free donations. Or worse, requiring people to pay to donate and manipulating them into doing it.

EABOD25 ,

Preaching to the choir, bud

tpihkal ,

I’m agreeing with and expanding on what you said. It’s an open forum; that’s how conversations work.

EABOD25 ,

Did what I say offend you? I wasn’t being snarky. I was agreeing with you and had nothing further to add

tpihkal ,

No, sorry, I thought you were being snarky.

EABOD25 ,

Nah friend. I agree with you 100%

Damage ,

youguysgetpaid.jpg ?

Here if you go donate you get a sandwich and a day off work

MutilationWave ,

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.

lucullus ,

In germany - I think - blood and plasma donations are most commonly done with the DRK (German Red Cross). I might be wrong, but DRK is not a for profit organization, but “gemeinnützig”. Organizations with that status get controlled by the government for it, so they are non-profit. I think the 25€ are an incentive to come and donate, just as the chocolate and drinks and the small goodies, that you get there. And you only can get the money, if you go to one of the fixed DRK locations. If the DRK comes to somewhere near you (as they often do with churches, town halls, schools and universities) you don’t get any money. I can at least believe, that these two are monetarily similar for the DRK. If you come to them, they don’t need to pay for getting the equipment and people to you. And providing incentives for donating blood is in effect a good thing, as they are working, thus we have more blood to save lifes.

Ofcourse actors later in the chain are probably profit oriented. Though there I would see the discussion disconnected from the donation. It is more about if we want profit oriented actors in healthcare.

And - as always - the US healthcare system seems to do the worst thing possible every time. Sorry, americans, don’t want to bash you, but capitalism…

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)

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.

Monstera , (edited )

If you get paid it ain’t a donation. It is trading human body parts

shapesandstuff ,

Getting a flat rate compensation of expense isn’t really selling though. I think thats a bit too polemical.

Aatube ,

So?

Monstera ,

Just stating a fact.

BoxedFenders ,
@BoxedFenders@hexbear.net avatar

Yeah, it’s technically illegal to sell blood and plasma but they get around this by paying you for your time instead. Gee, I wonder why this loophole doesn’t work for prostitution.

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.

cobysev ,

People are getting paid to donate plasma?! The only scam here is that I’ve been giving it away for free!

I donate to the Red Cross here in America. Honestly, I’m happy to donate. I get to sit and relax for a couple hours, the Red Cross I go to has TVs attached to the chairs so I can watch a movie while I donate, and I get free drinks and snacks afterward.

They’re always hurting for plasma donations and you can donate every 28 days, so I visit frequently. I don’t really see how it could be a scam. They always tell me plasma is more important than blood donations. Blood goes bad quickly, but they can keep plasma for a long time. And pretty much everyone can use it. Unlike blood, which you need a compatible type to use.

I donate because I enjoy helping others. I’m not looking for a way to personally benefit from it, so I don’t really care if they offer to pay or not. I feel like that should be the default mindset going in. But I understand there are people who are hurting financially, and donating blood or plasma is an easy way to make a buck. So I’m fine with them offering to pay for donations.

SaltySalamander ,

Donating blood and donating blood plasma isn't the same thing.

folkrav ,

Where did he say this?

Wrufieotnak , (edited )

They didn’t say that, but the other commenter still speaks about a point that also caught my eye:

It doesn’t matter if donating blood or plasma is able to be longer stored. When you need one of them, you can’t substitute with the other. So the medical area still needs both. So you still need people donating both. If a medical institution is telling me they only collect plasma, I would question their motives, because both are needed for helping people.

Maybe the donating place just gave the short explanation and they meant, that for blood donations there are other better places, but it could also mean, they don’t earn enough money with that. And THAT is I think what the other commenter meant with their admittedly short comment.

folkrav , (edited )

I read it in the sense that they were hurting for plasma donations in particular, and that because they can store it for longer, a single donation has more potential impact, not that they only took plasma donations.

Kyrgizion ,

O- here. I frequently get called up when the red cross needs donations. We don’t get paid either but it’s an hour I’m off work and it does save lives.

kurcatovium ,

Hello fellow universal donor. I’m blessed with the same blood type, so I donate the blood when I can at my local hospital. Usually 3x a year.

At first there was not much thought behind it, as both my parents went there too. When I turned 18 they just asked: “Do you want to go too?” And my answer was obviously yes, because why not? It was day off school, after all.

Now it’s just automatic. Since I only donate in my local hospital (small town, 15k people) I believe my blood gets to help people. They don’t pay for it, it’s volunteer, organized by red cross. They used to cover bus ride, but lately switched that for “food stamp” instead. We also get juice, coffee and snack once donated. The good part is, it’s still day off work where I live.

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.

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