Blood Money

June 23, 2018 5:17 PM

Lift bans on paying for human-blood plasma. "Plasma is used to make drugs such as factor VIII, which helps haemophiliacs’ blood to clot, and vaccines for rabies, tetanus and Rhesus disease. Almost 50m litres of it were used in 2015, enough to fill 20 Olympic swimming pools. America, the OPEC of plasma, produces 15 of those swimming-pool equivalents. Forget steel and cars: plasma makes up 1.6% of America’s total goods exports. The secret of this success is simple: America lets companies pay people for their plasma. ...The aversion to paid plasma rests on three reasonable-sounding but largely groundless propositions. "
posted by storybored (12 comments total)

The real scandal about selling plasma is how little they pay - that's what's really preying on the poor. It takes several hours, it's fatiguing, the ambiance is not what you'd call the finest, and they basically scam you into walking away with, like, $30 or maybe less. And at least when I did it, I'd be hungry afterward, which meant just needing to eat part of what you'd made.

I bet the big corporations make a ton more exporting it.

The problem with exploiting the poor via plasma sales is the exploitation, not the sales.
posted by Frowner at 5:33 PM on June 23, 2018 [36 favorites]

And then there's bus fare to get there and back, that's more money. They spin it as "make up to $400 a month", which is pitifully little for two visits a week, several hours a time, and you don't get $400, that's their phony calculation with the new-donor bribe thrown in.
posted by Frowner at 5:35 PM on June 23, 2018 [5 favorites]

I heartily agree with the problem with "x"-exploitation is the exploitation and not the "x". This is a running theme in my politics: if we created a world where people were safe, fed, housed, educated, had access to medical care and rehab, and were believed when they report crimes and abuse, then a whole lot of mostly illegal activities I would be perfectly fine legalizing: gambling, sexwork, drugs, selling organs/plasma/stemcells/placentas/fetuses. In many of these cases our law enforcement has been obsessed with punishing the victims of poverty and abuse instead of the exploiters. I think we need to decriminalize first and continue to fight for a world with less and less coercion and exploitation and more and more social welfare. If you're desparate you're not really free to choose, if you are marginallized, you're not really free to choose. Social welfare for the economy is a corequisite for libertarian personal lives. Because ultimately these prohibitions don't stop these industries, they just deprive the people in it of the benefits and protections of regulation.
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 5:50 PM on June 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

You could argue that by refusing to pay for plasma and instead importing it from the US, other countries are in fact contributing to exploitation, since they would probably have better protections for the people providing the plasma than the US does. You don't solve the ethical dilemma by outsourcing it to a country that doesn't care very much about ethics.

I work with a lot of students who sell their plasma. I think they would deny that they were being exploited, but it's true that they aren't paid very much considering the time involved and the value of the plasma.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:04 PM on June 23, 2018 [8 favorites]

I did plasma donations when I was young and poor. I once saved up for a car with the money. (Mind you, a very cheap car.) There are much better ways to earn money.

I still have large divots in the crooks of my arms from the huge needles they used that make people wonder if I was ever a heroin junkie.
posted by Catblack at 7:09 PM on June 23, 2018 [5 favorites]

The real scandal about selling plasma is how little they pay - that's what's really preying on the poor.

Oddly, plenty folks would find it scandalous to suggest people, poor people included, be paid for plasma at all, were it not already legal. Precisely because the poorest would be most likely to be exploited. This very objection is pointed out in tfa. The argument teeters between poor people being exploited, to poor people not being exploited enough. It would be interesting to see how it would play out if payment were to double or triple. Would this be a good thing, because poor people are more fairly compensated? Or a bad thing because it would encourage even more poor people to give?

Of course, if payment for plasma were legalized in more countries, it would be an even shittier deal for poor people here, as good ole' America loses its exclusivity as a supplier. I wonder if this would be one of those jobs America somehow does better than the rest of the world?
posted by 2N2222 at 8:24 PM on June 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

I used to donate here in Australia before they introduced regulations to reduce the spread of CJD. Lots of people here are in the same position: there'd be many more donations if things like having lived in the UK were not a barrier to donations. I consider the risk of me being a carrier to be pretty damn low, but how could anyone tell? If I were desperate enough I'd probably assess the risk of me starving to be much greater than the risk of potentially infecting other people. I'm sure lots of people are even less scrupulous than me. Consequently, paying people for donations seems to be a really bad idea.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:52 PM on June 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

I used to work with human plasma at a biomedical manufacturing lab.

It’s amazing how expensive it is to buy and how little the people selling it are paid.

I’m glad I don’t work in that industry anymore.
posted by nikaspark at 11:56 PM on June 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

I live in a part of the USA where seeing bumper stickers saying "5-gallon donor" isn't uncommon. Selling blood and plasma isn't what people want to do, it's what they need to do to stay afloat for a little while longer. These companies are literal vampires.
posted by lineofsight at 6:52 AM on June 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure that the 5-gallon donor stickers are for people who donate whole blood. They don't get paid. They do it as a community service, because they want to save lives. It's a good thing that there are 5-gallon donors: they're not being exploited, and lots of people would die if they didn't do what they do. Plasma is a really separate issue. Because plasma donation takes a lot longer and involves a bigger needle, it's harder to find volunteer donors for plasma.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:11 AM on June 24, 2018 [6 favorites]

I guess I object to the idea that exploitation is exclusively a one way street. The very idea of payment for plasma says it is not. Both parties are exploiting opportunities. One gets plasma, the other gets money for the trouble. Even that 5 gallon blood donor is being exploited. And if he/she didn't get something in return, self satisfaction, if nothing else, it would be not likely to happen at all. Paying people seems like a very good idea, considering the alternative. To argue otherwise seems to me to argue that humans should not behave like humans. And to argue it would be better to do without, than have to deal with such uncouth details like money transactions. Especially when it comes to poor people, who need to be protected from the degradation of trading plasma for money.

It seems to be a common thread, things are being done for money, that should be done for the good of their fellow human beings, the world, etc. If poor people are doing it for money, it's bad. If you're doing it for your own self satisfaction, it's laudable.

But again, this is an area where people cannot decide how to deal with such things when it comes to monetary compensation. One post says payment isn't nearly enough, the next says payment at all is bad, even unscrupulous.
posted by 2N2222 at 9:39 AM on June 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

that's their phony calculation with the new-donor bribe thrown in.

Huh, when I would sell plasma back in my college days, it was the opposite. Starting out you'd only make $20 (maybe not the real number, just an example) the first time, then $25 for the next two, then $30 for the next two, and finally $40 each time, but you had to do it twice a week (???) and if you ever missed a 'donation' you went back to the initial payout again.
posted by Mr. Big Business at 5:42 PM on June 25, 2018