this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2024
149 points (94.6% liked)
Asklemmy
44129 readers
388 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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.
I'm in the US and the local blood centers near me give $20 gift cards for whole blood ($40 for platelets and "automation" whatever the fuck that means (that might be the whole blood donation idk (if that's the case then I don't know what specific donation the $20 is for exactly))). No idea about plasma though.
You get “compensated for you time” not paid so with whole blood it usually only takes 10 minutes so they don’t need to pay as much. With plasma it takes closer to an hour which is why they pay more. A lot of the plasma clinics don’t actually give the plasma to people but instead make drugs from them that they sell for a huge profit
That's what they say, but that's not what actually happens. If the phlebotomist fucks up the draw, and your flow rate is so poor that they can't get what they need, you don't get paid. (Ask me how i know this.)
And yeah, IIRC most of the plasma goes to create clotting agents for people with hemophilia.
That’s why I put it in quotes sinces it’s all bullshit but it’s how’s they draw the line
In the contry I live in you cannot be paid for anything from your body for a medical purpose; blood, plasma, marrow, organs, whatever. Everybody gets those free if needed.
Then again, its one of the countries with the highest transplant rates in the world per capita, so donating to savw others is deeply ingrained in society.