A blood supply shortage in the US has reached a “crisis” level, according to the American Red Cross, which says it is the second time in its 150-year history that levels have been this low.
Factors including wildfires and extreme heat have combined to create the current situation, Dr Courtney Lawrence, who works with the American Red Cross, told the BBC.
Supply levels dropped by a quarter just last month. The crisis has struck during summer, when the amount of blood needed by hospitals typically increases.
That is because of an increased number of car accidents and more people spending time outdoors, resulting in more injuries that require blood transfusions, Lawrence said.
I can’t stomach the idea of “donating” blood only for it to be marked up and sold for thousands of dollars to those who need it.
Pay people and you’ll have your blood. Works for plasma centers.
It’s sad but true.
As much as i know blood is needed, I haven’t given blood in years. If I got into a car accident on the way home they’d sell it back to me for an absurd rate. Fuck them.
If you give blood, you should receive blood for free if you need it.
That’s common sense.
We live in a dystopia, though…
Even though companies are making a profit off of it, donating blood is still so important. Not doing it because someone is profiting off of the donation only hurts the people who need the transfusion more. The laws surrounding profiting off of donated blood need to change, but the need for blood still exists.
but the need for blood still exists
Whose blood?
Whole blood is not sold for profit, but organizations do charge hospitals a handling fee to cover operational costs… but I just realized as I was typing this that you aren’t talking about the organizations that collect blood, but the hospitals.
I looked up what it generally costs for a one-unit (1pt, ~470ml) blood transfusion, and it’s over $2000! I’d like to think that all the blood and platelet donations I’ve made over the years had saved lives, which objectively they probably did. But now knowing how much hospitals and insurance companies are profiting off of the act of donating makes it feel less like a selfless act of compassion and more like cattle being herded into a milking parlor.
Whole blood is not sold for profit, but organizations do charge hospitals a handling fee to cover operational costs…
Domestically… Blood and blood products are America’s 9th largest export, and we export 70% of the world’s blood plasma supply. It’s nearly a 40 billion dollar business.
The orphan crushing machine strikes again.
Similar stuff happens with some charities too and the amount of money eaten up by administrative fees.
Least they could do is give you a voucher to cover a future blood transfusion if you need it.
Literally all bad things lead back to trump… Severe cuts to federal funding sources that allowed for more drives, more personnel, offered incentives, funded training education programs to spread awareness. Head of the snake also lacks empathy and promotes the same in future generations.
We donated blood (O+) at every possible interval to help the community and then when we were gay one of the doctors had to inform me that we marked down that we had sexual contact with another man not thinking about it. Even though we explained it was with a condom and we didn’t have any std, we asked what if we had sex with a woman? He said it wouldn’t have been an issue. Sheet that we were denied. Then we eventually came out trans and was sure that now we could probably get around it but alas that was also not allowed.
Never had an std, blood borne illness/disease, were fit as a fiddle blood/body wise (our disabilities do not affect that) and our bi yearly donation hasn’t been done in 8 or so years.
Hopefully now in EU they’ll let us donate blood again, we do care about people and the good we can do, even if it’s a little.
In the US they’ve changed those questions.
Have they? What it saying now?
I used to donate platelets every two weeks, but I haven’t gone in a few years. The last time I went was beginning of 2024; at that time they still asked all the same questions.
If it’s still asking the same questions by then, then we wouldn’t have had the chance to see the new rules before moving.
I’m o negative and I donated blood once. I shit you not, they called me hundreds of times after that. They called me once or twice a day for months.
I asked them to change my phone number, to remove my phone number, to please stop calling. I told them that I had died, that I’d taken up heroin as a hobby, that I’d begun having gay sex. They kept calling.
I will never donate blood again.
O negative is one of the most valuable blood types. So they obviously want it.
I understand that but if my reward for donating is my phone constantly ringing with calls from unknown numbers, which then use a recording to leave voicemails, which I have to dial in to delete, I’m out. My good deed has been sufficiently punished. I have learned from my mistake.
Oh no you’re slightly inconvenienced. The horror!
Fuck off. Constant spam calls are not a negligible inconvenience.
Why would I donate blood so whoever can charge someone $25k to use it?
Because it’s painless, barely takes any time, and can save a life.
I try to do it whenever I can, but sadly recent tats and piercings are a common disqualifying factor.
Yeah, it’s the right thing to do and paying for blood can contaminate the results and get very dystopian
Oh my god dude just take some time off the internet.
You ever been to a hospital in the USA? Not even that hyperbolic of a comment.
Donating has always been on my to-do list, but I just never made the time. I think I did it once 25 years ago in high school.
I finally made the time about a month ago, and they made it so easy I told them to keep a standing appointment every two months (the maximum.) Found out I’m O-, so I feel like I’m doing some real good.
If you’re O- you’re going to be begged to donate for the rest of your life now
An O- friend of mine donated blood ~10 years ago before learning he can get paid for plasma donations. 10 years of regular plasma donations (and no blood donations), he still gets monthly calls asking him to donate blood
Gotta make ends meet though. Free cookies and juice don’t pay rent
I thought that O- has undesirable plasma.
Oh well, for me at least, I feel good about the donation for donation’s sake.
Morally it’s better for O-s to donate whole blood than plasma. Plasma donation is great but it’s usually for developing medicines and prefers AB+, while whole blood is more likely to go to people in immediate need of blood and prefers O-.
I’ve done both and personally prefer giving blood to plasma. Plasma takes so much longer, has worse phlebotomists (they damaged one of my veins) and is just a generally more depressing environment
That said, if it’s all the same, give where the shortage is
How much does he get for the plasma? That’s wild.
In my area you can make over $400/month selling your plasma.
That’s nothing to sneeze at.
How much does it impact your health if you do the maximum donation?
Can you still lift weights and get swole between donations or are you basically not able to exert yourself?
I’m not sure about plasma because I’m not a donor; I only know how much you can make in this area from coworkers who donate twice a week.
Back when I used to donate platelets, I definitely noticed that I wasn’t able to work out as hard and became fatigued more easily for a day or two afterward. I would usually eat a lot of beans and nuts, drink lots of water, and take a multi-vitamin right after my donation to help replenish my lost platelets. It’s likely something similar for blood plasma: lots of water, protein, iron/zinc/copper.
My mom is an ER nurse and she said a few times a year they get a batch of defective bags. You try to use them and they just burst, like they’re sealed wrong. So that sucks.
Article says
“Supplies of every blood type are currently needed, but especially O positive.”
I thought O Negative was the universal donner.
Most donor blood is O+
O- is great because it is (almost always*) usable by anyone of any blood type, but only like 7% of people have it, so the overall supply is not very high and it’s typically reserved for emergencies and O- patients.
O+ can be given to most people because most people have O+ blood. Something like 30-40% of people have O+ and can thus receive O+ donations. All the Rh+ blood types can receive O+ blood too, which accounts for the vast majority of people. A+ is something like 25-30% of the population and B+ is like 10%. Altogether, O+, A+, B+, and AB+ make up probably about 75-85% of the population, and all of those people can receive O+ blood donations, thus the supply of O+ blood is the most-needed most of the time.
Obviously they also want as much O- as possible too. Hell, they want all of them all the time except AB type blood from females.
*Blood typing is actually a lot more complicated than A/B antigen and Rh factor, so some people with certain antigens need very specific donor blood or autologous blood that they donate themselves prior to a procedure or whatnot.
What is different about AB type from females? That describes me and I’ve almost earned my 2 gallon pin, the ladies in the blood mobile are always happy to see me.
AB type females can develop dangerous antibodies during pregnancy, and so even if you’ve never been pregnant (or think you’ve never been pregnant) there is still statistically an additional risk because there’s no good way to know for certain whether a female has ever been pregnant. The tests and screening for blood antibodies are expensive. Because of the heightened risk, taking AB positive female blood can be more expensive and complicated than it’s worth, so many blood banks just don’t actively encourage AB females to donate as often. There is still use for any kind of blood, even if it is used for research or if they use the RBC and waste the plasma. They certainly would never turn you away, but they also won’t regularly pester you the way they will an O- or O+ donor
AB+ male donor plasma is compatible with all blood types (universal plasma donor) and so they really want that. They call it liquid gold
I don’t know enough about blood banking specifically but it’s possible that there are some blood banks who have the capacity to screen any female AB plasma for HLA antibodies and so they don’t care as much. Idk. I just know as an AB+ female, my local blood bank was like “Don’t donate unless we tell you we need it”
Fascinating, cool to know, thank you. I will ask about it next time i donate.
I googled it and this is from blood.co.uk:
Plasma from AB negative donations can help treat patients of all blood types, however fresh frozen plasma is only produced from male donations. This is because female donors (especially those who have been pregnant) can develop antibodies that, while no danger to themselves, can prove life threatening to patients transfused with their plasma.
To avoid waste and to achieve the balance of plasma and red cells required by patients, we manage AB negative donations differently to other blood groups.
We encourage our male donors to donate as frequently as possible while asking female donors to wait to donate until contacted directly by us.
Interesting. Thank you for googling for me, I guess I could have done that. I’ll probably google a bit more and maybe add the info here just for infos sake, because this seems to be referring just to ab- and I’m ab+
Personally, I’ve never been pregnant, but it sounds like the antibodies might still be present even before pregnancy.
The bloodmobile/bank where i donate is ALWAYS desperate for blood, and I’ve never read or heard anything about this exclusion in my 17 years of donating, the only time I’ve ever been turned away is for low iron.
Oh it’s not exclusionary. They’ll totally still take your blood. It’s just in the lowest demand in general, and blood banks often tell AB females (both + and -) that they will reach out when they want/need blood donation, rather than telling those donors to come for donations as often as possible like they do for other donors. If you’re willing to donate, by all means keep donating. The blood banks can figure out what to do with it and all blood has its uses!
Great reply Thanks
I’m due to give. I should make an appointment.
Supplies of every blood type are currently needed, but especially O positive.
Wouldn’t that be O negative, the universal donor?
They’re just looking on the bright side, stop with the negativity. /s
Too many vampires
There is too much microplastics in our blood now that not even vampires wanna touch that shit.
This seems like the kind of thing that would inspire scientists to discover a way to make artificial blood. It’d be nice to avoid the logistics and risk of using blood donors.
Doesn’t that attract vampires?
What are Thiel 's blood boys going to do to make ends meet after we make artificial blood, though?
Don’t worry, they won’t suffer. He’ll just kill them. Problem solved.
They used it all trying to bring mcconnell back to life
For some reason they kept shoving it in his ass until someone told them Graham was already dead.
People who have donated blood or organs should get access to free blood and organ donations when they need them.
People who are on blood and organ donation lists should get priority access to blood and organs when they need them.
We should still try to take care of people who refuse to donate but they should wait behind the people who are contributing to the health of society with their own bodies.
I agree in a high-level sense - people should be incentivised to give, and those who receive should not be charged. They shouldn’t necessarily be connected, though.
The incentives are all fucked up, you would need loads of exceptions, and it would introduce a whole lot of excess red tape for not much benefit to either side.
What about people who can’t donate blood, or can’t do so without great inconvenience? Where do you draw the line for moral responsibility?
What about people who have a phobia of needles, suffered from medical abuse, or have adverse reactions to donating blood that makes them sick for a few days or weeks?
If we are talking about people who contribute to other’s health through their own bodies, does that mean every mother is at the top of the list because birthing a baby is a contribution to another’s health?
What about medical workers working 12hr shifts and completely wrecking their own bodies in the process? Is that a lesser contribution than someone who donates blood once a month? To go further, where would you put a factory worker with repetitive strain injury who makes the medical equipment that is essential to treating others?
If we want to allot the use of blood based on one’s contribution of their bodies, we have to first ask what it means to contribute. No donor lives in a vacuum. If you can donate blood, it means you are supported by circumstances that leave you in good enough health to donate blood.
isnt there still a shit ton of restrictions for people, making its extremely inconvenient, plus the sites that does the donations are very low in each city. like you have std, or taking medication, or had sex,etc.
even though they "soft-lifted the resitrction from gay men, there still potential for discrimination.
It’s wild, they do “batch testing” with samples from many different people in one go, and if anything turns up positive, they discard everyone’s donations. I used to donate plasma, but a batch test revealed somebody with hepatitis. I immediately went to a doctor to get tested and it came up negative. Unfortunately, due to having my sample in the batch test, I was already deferred from ever donating anything in the US again.
Random people have told me there are ways to get back on the donor list, but that’s not what I was told by professionals. So here I am, with perfectly fine blood, barred from donating because I happened to donate at the same time as somebody who was sick. Such a great system.
they test for all the STDs, i assume they meant hep a and B, which are the most common test to be positive if you been vaccinated. they likely test for Hep C as well.
