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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

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.

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%

whyNotSquirrel ,
@whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works avatar

In France you’re not paid for your donation, well, it is a donation, but the organization collecting it is kind of for profit as they are not entirely relying on public funds. The blood and plasma are still going to save lives so I’ll continue

propter_hog ,
@propter_hog@hexbear.net avatar

I side with you. I’ve donated over a gallon of blood and blood products throughout the years. You’re helping someone. The reason they pay you is to incentivize coming and doing it. It’s painful for the donor, and it takes a while for your body to recover. The company doing so is (in my experience, anyway) a non-profit organization. They exist to help people. They do make money, but that’s because they have to pay their employees and donors, as you’ve mentioned.

pancake ,
@pancake@lemmygrad.ml avatar

Tissue, cell and organ donation (including blood, semen and oocytes) can and should be done strictly not-for-profit. This is how it’s done in Spain (well, you do get a snack when donating blood and a small amount of money for oocytes since the process is quite long) and there’s usually no shortage of blood components in hospitals. Local governments do a lot of campaigning, set up mobile units etc., which seems to work; people see all of that, think of it when planning their day, and many even go in small groups to donate.

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.

cobysev ,

Yes, this is what I meant. The Red Cross said my blood type is rarely needed in my area so they don’t care about me donating blood. But they’re always needing plasma donations, and you can donate them more frequently than blood, so they recommend I do that instead.

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.

sentient_loom ,
@sentient_loom@sh.itjust.works avatar

In order to answer this, I’d need to compare the efficacy of both the for-profit and the non-profit organizations. In some countries you don’t get paid, and I don’t know if that leads to blood shortages.

RobotToaster ,
@RobotToaster@mander.xyz avatar

In the UK it’s illegal to pay blood or plasma donors, and I think the only time we’ve had a shortage is due to a cyber attack.

I think they do give you a medal or something after donating a certain number of times.

MrScottyTay ,

Yeah you get different levels of rewards the more you do it but it’s just stuff like fancy looking member cards, medals and pins

skullgiver ,
@skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl avatar

I first started donating blood when I read about shortages, but it turns out that was mostly other blood types. After the entry testing, they recommended me to switch to plasma donations because my blood type was common enough that they’d probably never need my full blood.

If you have a relatively rare blood type, you may be able to help people even if they have enough blood to help most people.

rustyfish ,
@rustyfish@lemmy.world avatar

Never heard anyone getting payed for donating anything in Germany. You can get an compensation for expenses, yes. But this is not supposed to be a payment for your donation, it is supposed to compensate for your expenses. For example: Finding a babysitter or paying for bus, train, gas. Sometimes you have to make a medical examination beforehand, which also can take some time.

The German Red Cross for example explicitly doesn’t pay the donors so nobody gets the wrong idea and tries to donate as much and often at the cost of their own health.

I think the idea that a compensation is equal to a payment is flawed beyond reason. If someone has a problem with any organisation misusing donations for profit, they should (rightfully) engage in changing the law. Categorically not donating at all is…well it’s just selfish and stupid.

Wrufieotnak , (edited )

Both from Germany:

I remember that in my high school time many in my year went to plasma donation as often as it was allowed to collect the compensation. So while you are right that is legally never called payment, people with a need for cash for sure sell their plasma for money.

Oh and in the public sector there is or at least was in the past also the possibility for donating blood and you get the 2 hours or so for that paid as normal. So the government donated the money for a good course.

golli ,

I am also from Germany and get payed for donating thrombocytes at my university hospital. The compensation is actually quite substantial imo at (up to) 75€ per session, which can be done every two weeks. The money is however mean to offset the time required, not the thrombocytes donated. So it is correlated to how long it takes.

You get 15€ (?) for up to 15min (if they have to abort very early for some reason or at your first visit where they just draw blood to test), 50€ for up to 1h (which equals to 1 instead of 2 pack of thrombocytes, usually done at your first real donation or if you maybe dont have enough for 2 on this particular day), and 75€ for anything over 1h (which is the norm).

Timewise the hospital is on the outskirts of the city, so most will have to travel a bit, then you have to fill out forms, have a quick talk with the doctor, and finally depending on your parameters it takes anywhere from ~55-70min to extract, during which you are tethered to a machine (which takes out some blood, then seperates out the thrombocytes with a centrifuge, pumps back the rest, and repeat).

One could get philosophical about the topic, but from a practical perspective the money makes a lot of sense imo:

  • It costs them a lot of money to investigate new prospects, so you want reliable repeat donors
  • Each donation already has other costs associated with it. Like for example the kit used during extraction, the staff handling everything and so on. So even those 75€ are just one more expense among many, and from donation to usage probably vanish in the overall costs.
  • For the donor it is quite a substantial time commitment, especially when done regularly every two weeks. Unlike for example full blood donations you’d maybe do twice a year. And you should be reliable and not randomly cancel at the last second, so ideally it also has priority over some other things in your life.
  • the small amount of blood that remains inside the machine is sometimes used for other research (if you agree to it, which i do)

From my own experience i can say that i might still do it without, but certainly not at the same frequency. And considering the time and effort required i don’t think anyone could be blamed for doing it less frequently without the incentive. So at least in this case it imo is a fair trade and net positive. Although it does also help that this is a university hospital that directly uses it themselves, rather than a for profit company.

HelixDab2 ,

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.

In the US, AFAIK you can’t get paid for whole blood. If you did, you would have to be paid significantly more than they pay for plasma, given that you can only do whole blood every two months.

To the question, it’s not a “scam” by any conventional definition. You are getting real money in return for the plasma.

The problem with the whole system is that if there was no payment for plasma, there wouldn’t be nearly enough people donating plasma for the need that there is. (You’re typically looking at 1+ hour per session, 2x/week.) That doesn’t include whatever travel time is involved. That’s a pretty steep time commitment every week for something that’s a very nebulous public good.

I think a better question is, is the amount that you’re being compensated fair and reasonable? Give the profit margins that are involved in products made from blood plasma, my inclination is that it is not a fair and reasonable amount. Plasma centers in my area vary in how much they pay, but it’s typically in the neighborhood of $50-$75 (USD); in other parts it’s lower, and in some areas it’s significantly higher. It’s clear that they can pay more, but choose not to because it increases their profit margin. That is something I have a problem with.

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).

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

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.

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

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