Re:Man donated blood every week for 60 years, saved 2.4M babies
by mkstowegnv on Wednesday May 16, 2018 @08:05PM
(#17087479)
Thank you for the link, but there are a few details in the article that conflict with my understanding. Sadly I don't have time at the moment to do the research and write a well documented essay on this subject. I note that that the cited report was from 1997.
For now I'll limit my thoughts to just this:
It would be nice for donors and the general public if there was more transparency in:
the breakdown of end uses of the donated products the safety record of the products the risk calculations behind the deferment questions the accuracy of the blood testing
For the non-biologists, can you elaborate on this? My understanding was that paid "donations" aren't generally considered to be as safe. For example, the GOA report (referenced at [1]) seems to say that California's plasma supply (which is not required to report whether the donors are financially compensated) had an HIV rate of around 5 times that of the red blood supply.
[1]: https://www.statnews.com/2016/01/22/paid-plasma-not-blood/
I agree that the deferments are often illogical, but from what I've read, I think non-payment makes sense. Blood banks are technically allowed to pay for whole blood, too, yet apparently no hospital would accept it, which leads me to believe it's not just a PR issue.