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What's your stance on "donating" blood plasma? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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

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[–] BussyCat 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You get “compensated for you time” not paid

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.

[–] BussyCat 2 points 3 months ago

That’s why I put it in quotes sinces it’s all bullshit but it’s how’s they draw the line