Asklemmy

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.

I'm not allowed to give blood since I'm gay and have an active sex life

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

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.

You can donate blood in 20 minutes. It takes an hour plus to donate plasma

Am I going to sit in a chair for an hour plus without any compensation? Maybe once or twice here and there. But you can donate plasma at least twice a week.

It requires two donations for a single unit. If you donate once and don't donate the second, then your first donation is unusable. You have to get them to donate twice.

When I was donating plasma, it paid about $75 for each donation. 50 first, 100 for second. The money is pretty good. $300 a month is a lot for a lot of people.

If you didn't compensate people for plasma donations, a lot wouldn't do it. They currently need more people to donate.

Plasma "donation" is a good thing.

If your blood plasma helps save somebody’s life, either directly as an infusion or indirectly in research, that’s not a scam. The monetary reward is compensation for time and an incentive to try to meet demand. The donation is free, but the time and energy required to make the donation are an expense. That’s what the compensation covers. It’s only a scam if your donation goes to feed a literal or wannabe vampire or their bathing fetish.

Maybe it should be like other charitable donations and there should be a set tax deduction per ml or better yet how about they take enough for donation and decanter a portion out an do blood testing both to make sure the blood is clean but alsoso the individual is aware of they are free of X. You could get like a qr code you can use to identify the results later.

When people start getting paid for their blood, overall quality of the blood in such country suffers.

I think paying for blood or other bodily fluids is bad. It provides incentive for desperate people (addicts etc.) to lie on the safety forms to keep getting paid.

I know a few people who donate blood despite not getting anything in return. I personally stopped donating plasma after a few times for health reasons (nothing dangerous in the plasma itself, luckily). To me, being able to help a hospital or a person by simply sitting back and watching shows on my tablet is probably the easiest, laziest charity you can support. The snacks are nice, too.

Not everyone can donate blood, but everyone who is able to, you should consider it, even if you won't get paid for it. You can doom scroll and browse Lemmy like normal, except you're sitting in a weird chair and get free food.

I suppose in the shittier countries, where all blood donation stuff is run for-profit, you should let them pay you if they're making a profit off of you, but I still think it brings a bad incentive.

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...

youguysgetpaid.jpg ?

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

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.

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?

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

Exploitation in the negative sense requires a violation of consent.

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.

I'm usually sitting or lying down.

Selling your body

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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