Donate blood today. I'm serious. So many labs and hospitals rely on the goodwill of the public to donate their blood for transfusions, treatments and research. If you're healthy and able-bodied, It's one of the most important things you can do to make the world a little bit better. Your blood can save somebody's life. Not my blood though. Mine will be going to ONE LUCKY CALLER!!!!!
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A packet of Rugi blood is out there for those who want it
- Thread starter Rugi
- Start date
I've been thinking of doing it for a while but I'm worried that my diet of only coca cola and egg mcmuffins may make my blood poisonous to the average person
on a real note I have actually been thinking of doing it. did a mobile clinic go to you or did you go to a center? and was it a pleasant experience?
on a real note I have actually been thinking of doing it. did a mobile clinic go to you or did you go to a center? and was it a pleasant experience?
I'm an Australian living in Japan so I was interrogated for like 30 minutes to make sure I was an eligible donor. It was a mobile clinic that was set up in a hall in the bottom floor of my office building.
I've donated blood back home as well and its something Im really passionate about. There really is no other good source of usable human blood beyond willing volunteers. Any sort of financial compensation for blood donations is both ethically wrong and extremely dangerous. Everyone at blood donation clinics and drives are very sweet and enthusiastic. Blood donation clinics are always very heart-warming, feel good places because everyone there knows they're contributing to the good health of their society in a way only they can.
I can't promise exactly what it's like for your country but I know a lot of places have an option to register yourself as a blood donor so that you don't need to repeatedly fill out the same questionnaire. After that it's 10 minutes of very mild discomfort and then you get a bunch of cookies and juiceboxes and cute little blood related toys and merch.
There is a tendency all across the world for the nation's blood supply to constantly be below demand unless some sort of disaster is happening in which case everyone all of a sudden donates. Your local medical facilities need your blood the most during mundane, ordinary times. If you've been considering it, just walk into a clinic and ask. A lot of places are prepared to educate and accept walk-ins and you will likely be able to donate blood within the hour if you're deemed eligible.
Worst case scenario you feel a bit sick and ask to stop (you can back out at any time no questions asked, you can even back out after the donation within a small window if you no longer consent for you blood to be used in quite a lot of places.)
Best case scenario your blood directly saves somebody's life, and you get to eat the mounds of random cookies and shit they keep in any blood donation site.
in all seriousness Rugi this is a great PSA and reminded me that I haven't donated in a few months so I'll get on that
in not all seriousness consider me the first caller, I would love authentic Rugi blood to add to my collection of Smogoff users' blood that I have collected by completely ethical means
in not all seriousness consider me the first caller, I would love authentic Rugi blood to add to my collection of Smogoff users' blood that I have collected by completely ethical means
I am lowkey not sure if I can even donate, but thanks for reminding me to go and see
can rocks donate blood? i probs should look into blood donation, but i worry that my species makes it inconvient to do so
ever heard of “pulling blood from a stone”?
I've donated blood and plasma a bunch. Definitely feels good to do good. If you're too poor to give to charity or too busy to volunteer it's a great way to make a difference with a relatively low amount of effort. I know cookies and juice are iconic but in my experience best dono snacks are goldfish
Rugi I don't want to drag this into a political discussion but since you brought it up, I'm curious why you think financial incentives are such a big issue? I think it's notable that (in the US at least) they're completely normal for plasma donations but I think actively banned for blood. I can see the issues but there are certainly upsides too (easy money for some people in need; increased supply of a vital resource). Tradeoffs are real, I don't really have a hard stance here.
Another option many people aren't aware of btw: bone marrow transfusion! It's much harder to find a match for this than blood, so typically a patient will need to search against a database of potential donors. You can register as a donor and get a quick test done to put yourself in the database, and if you end up matching someone down the road, you'll be able to donate for them. The process is more involved than donating blood, but not terribly painful, and you'll be back on your feet in a few days. In exchange you can save the life of someone who probably would have died if not for you, specifically, signing up. There are various charities that handle this but a notable one is DKMS: https://www.dkms.org/
Rugi I don't want to drag this into a political discussion but since you brought it up, I'm curious why you think financial incentives are such a big issue? I think it's notable that (in the US at least) they're completely normal for plasma donations but I think actively banned for blood. I can see the issues but there are certainly upsides too (easy money for some people in need; increased supply of a vital resource). Tradeoffs are real, I don't really have a hard stance here.
Another option many people aren't aware of btw: bone marrow transfusion! It's much harder to find a match for this than blood, so typically a patient will need to search against a database of potential donors. You can register as a donor and get a quick test done to put yourself in the database, and if you end up matching someone down the road, you'll be able to donate for them. The process is more involved than donating blood, but not terribly painful, and you'll be back on your feet in a few days. In exchange you can save the life of someone who probably would have died if not for you, specifically, signing up. There are various charities that handle this but a notable one is DKMS: https://www.dkms.org/
Paying people for medical donations is ethically wrong and dangerous.
Ethically wrong: Medical donations aren't like labour or providing a service. In typical work, your work itself is what is being renumerated. However with medical donation, you are literally giving away a physical part of yourself.
However small, there are health risks to this. It also inevitably encourages the poorest and sickest people to donate. In many countries welfare and accessibility to public resources is means tested. Imagine creating an underclass of people that literally have to sell their blood for money, and then this ends up becoming an assumed baseline. People incapable of selling their blood for whatever reason are forced into worse poverty still. Allowing people to sell their own blood and body parts as capital is deeply wrong and a red line we should not cross.
(I'm aware many parts of the world have crossed this line, and that plasma donation requires less stringent oversight than full blood donation, but this is still very much splitting moral hairs on an issue where the spirit of the argument should be "We should never create a system where people feel the need to assign monetary value to their own blood")
Dangerous: When I say that blood donations rely on goodwill, I don't just mean the goodwill of the public to donate. I mean the goodwill of the public to be honest about their health, disease status, recent travel history, and the dozens of other factors that influence whether one's blood can be safely used. With no financial incentive, people donate blood in order to donate blood. I give my blood because I understand that somebody has to give their blood, and so long as I am healthy and capable of doing so, it should be me. The moment you attach a financial incentive, blood donation becomes the means and not the ends. People can and will lie about how safe their blood is to use. Excessive vetting and safety checks are required. I do not want to be sick in a country where the majority of the donated blood pool comes from people who have potentially lied about how usable their blood is.
Secondarily, there is also the cultural aspect. If blood donations are considered to be something that the poorest and most desperate of society do to make ends meet, this will disincentivise other potential donors for a variety of reasons (not wanting to be associated with an activity seen as 'low-class' or 'demeaning', not wanting to contribute to the profit of some big pharma company selling their own blood for profit etc)
For a specific example, Hepatitis B in donated blood is extremely common in countries that allow people to sell their blood.
I liked Rugi’s post, so I did a bit of research myself so I could prove it was a good post. Congrats, it was!
On safety (dangerous):
Generally speaking all sources I found agree with the WHO in that monetary compensation increases the risk of disease spread, especially in developing countries. Considering the HIV epidemic in the 80’s was caused in no small part by tainted blood, it’s hard to argue against recommending caution (2) (3). The WHO also states that there is a risk to donor’s health if they donate too often; however, I did not find any studies cited in what I looked through that substantiated this claim with an amazing level of rigor. (the drop-out rate of people in plasma trials is very high, making it hard to get reliable data)
On the ability to actually collect plasma (ethics):
70% of the global plasma supply is from the U.S. specifically because they allow compensation of donors, and donors are allowed to donate more frequently than most other countries (1). So from the standpoint of ability to collect blood, money motivates.
1 page deeper into the same paper a survey of plasma donors found that 64% said the primary reason to donate plasma was for day-to-day essentials & emergencies (1). “Put differently, our results are not driven by openings in booming areas but by openings in struggling areas” (page 29, 1).
Anecdotally, a friend of mine coincidentally corroborated every word of these last two paragraphs with the exact same observations.
What can be done about that:
There has been research done into non-monetary (or not explicitly monetary) rewards for donations, which may be a better direction that direct compensation to meet in the middle. The straightforward example are things like concert tickets, or for those of us who like boring stuff: having health insurance companies offer credits for donating plasma (4).
We love citing scientific papers here on smogon (dot) com!
On safety (dangerous):
Generally speaking all sources I found agree with the WHO in that monetary compensation increases the risk of disease spread, especially in developing countries. Considering the HIV epidemic in the 80’s was caused in no small part by tainted blood, it’s hard to argue against recommending caution (2) (3). The WHO also states that there is a risk to donor’s health if they donate too often; however, I did not find any studies cited in what I looked through that substantiated this claim with an amazing level of rigor. (the drop-out rate of people in plasma trials is very high, making it hard to get reliable data)
On the ability to actually collect plasma (ethics):
70% of the global plasma supply is from the U.S. specifically because they allow compensation of donors, and donors are allowed to donate more frequently than most other countries (1). So from the standpoint of ability to collect blood, money motivates.
1 page deeper into the same paper a survey of plasma donors found that 64% said the primary reason to donate plasma was for day-to-day essentials & emergencies (1). “Put differently, our results are not driven by openings in booming areas but by openings in struggling areas” (page 29, 1).
Anecdotally, a friend of mine coincidentally corroborated every word of these last two paragraphs with the exact same observations.
What can be done about that:
There has been research done into non-monetary (or not explicitly monetary) rewards for donations, which may be a better direction that direct compensation to meet in the middle. The straightforward example are things like concert tickets, or for those of us who like boring stuff: having health insurance companies offer credits for donating plasma (4).
We love citing scientific papers here on smogon (dot) com!
(1) John M Dooley, Emily A Gallagher, Blood Money: Selling Plasma to Avoid High-Interest Loans, The Review of Financial Studies, Volume 37, Issue 9, September 2024, Pages 2779–2816
(2) WHO. 2009. Who global consultation: 100donation of blood and blood components. World Health
(3) Organizatioon, Meeting Report, 9-11 June, Melbourne, Australia. 1, 3, 8, B.6
WHO. 2010. Sixty-third world health assembly. World Health Organization, Resolutions and
Decisions Annexes, Geneva, 17–21 May, WHA63/2010/REC/1. 1, B.6
(4) Farrugia A, Penrod J, Bult JM. Payment, compensation and replacement--the ethics and motivation of blood and plasma donation. Vox Sang. 2010 Oct;99(3):202-11. doi: 10.1111/j.1423-0410.2010.01360.x. PMID: 20576023.
(2) WHO. 2009. Who global consultation: 100donation of blood and blood components. World Health
(3) Organizatioon, Meeting Report, 9-11 June, Melbourne, Australia. 1, 3, 8, B.6
WHO. 2010. Sixty-third world health assembly. World Health Organization, Resolutions and
Decisions Annexes, Geneva, 17–21 May, WHA63/2010/REC/1. 1, B.6
(4) Farrugia A, Penrod J, Bult JM. Payment, compensation and replacement--the ethics and motivation of blood and plasma donation. Vox Sang. 2010 Oct;99(3):202-11. doi: 10.1111/j.1423-0410.2010.01360.x. PMID: 20576023.