The man with the golden blood

Re:The man with the golden blood by niels_olson on Wednesday October 22, 2014 @12:22PM (#8493407)

It's not just HIV. It's any infectious disease (there is a thick book of reasons to disallow a donation). The problem is that these infectious diseases are socially disruptive, therefore these folk, unfortunately, tend to have less marginal income. Therefore, they are exactly the people who would respond to a small monetary incentive. This has been studied. If anyone is acutely aware of the problem, it's blood banks. So this issue is revisited routinely. Here is a recent review on the topic:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2847338/

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Re:The man with the golden blood by joezydeco on Wednesday October 22, 2014 @01:02PM (#8493629)

I'm advocating tax deductions as an incentive.

If I give $350 in cash to the American Red Cross, I can take that charitable deduction from my annual filing. If I donate a unit of blood that gives ARC $350 in products, that's not deductible.

The incentive side steps the donor-with-marginal-income problem, unless I'm missing something.

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Re:The man with the golden blood by zaroth on Thursday October 23, 2014 @01:09AM (#8496777)

IRS Pub 526 on Charitable Contributions, Page 2:

  Not Deductible As Charitable Contributions:
    Cost of raffle, bingo, or lottery tickets
    Dues, fees, or bills paid to ...
    Tuition
    Value of your time or services
    *Value of blood given to a blood bank*

It's amazing how many details the IRS pubs cover. I like your proposal though.

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Re:The man with the golden blood by eru on Wednesday October 22, 2014 @07:07PM (#8495756)

That's a clever way to pay richer people progressively more for their blood.

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