Places to sell my plasma near me

It’s a common misconception that the Food and Drug Administration bans paying for blood. In fact, it only says blood from paid donors has to be labeled that way. But hospitals won’t use it. In practice, nobody really pays for blood, said Mario Macis, an economist at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School who has studied incentives for blood donation. “Even though it’s legal, it’s still considered not totally moral or ethical to pay cash to blood donors.”

Aside from the ickiness of handing out literal blood money, the FDA worries that paying donors would jeopardize the safety of the blood supply. No one with a blood-borne illness is eligible to donate, but the agency worries that if money were on the line, donors might lie about their health or their risk behaviors.

advertisement

Related: FDA lifts ban on blood donations from gay men

The science there is far from settled. But the World Health Organization finds it convincing enough that they discourage countries from paying blood donors. “Evidence shows significantly lower prevalence of transfusion-transmissible infections among voluntary nonremunerated donors than among other types of donors,” their commentary in 2013 read.

Donated blood is tested for diseases, anyway, but the FDA says it intends those steps to be redundant security measures, “like layers of an onion.”

advertisement

Plasma donation — in which blood is drawn, plasma separated out, and then blood cells and other components put back into you — is often compensated. The FDA doesn’t require paid plasma donations to be labeled. The reason is that plasma collected this way never goes straight into another person. It’s broken into many different protein products that will become pharmaceuticals. Along the way, these components are processed to remove or kill any virus stowaways. “The risk of infection is inherently much lower,” said Dr. Christopher Stowell, who recently chaired the FDA’s Blood Products Advisory Committee. Whole red blood cells are too fragile to undergo the same kind of processing as plasma.

And there’s some evidence that paying for plasma does, indeed, lead more people to conceal their disease status or risk behaviors. For instance, the Government Accountability Office looked at California’s blood versus plasma supply back in the 1990s and found that the plasma had much higher rates of HIV. There are reports of desperate donors lying about illnesses to donate for cash.

However, the type of compensation matters. In a 2013 Science paper, Macis and others found that rewards such as gift cards, coupons, and T-shirts almost always boosted donations, and they didn’t find any effects on blood safety. (The FDA doesn’t count rewards like this as payment, as long as they can’t be easily turned into cash.) “Nonmonetary incentives do work,” Macis said. He thinks using more of these motivators could help the United States manage seasonal blood shortages.

Were you hoping for more than a T-shirt? Don’t even think about selling a kidney. The National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 made it illegal to pay for organs. But in the 2011 case Flynn v. Holder, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that a certain method of bone marrow donation could be compensated.

Related: Blood from embryonic stem cells? Trials still years away

Traditionally, bone marrow was collected in a surgical procedure, with a hollow needle stuck straight into the pelvis. But in a more common method called peripheral blood stem cell apheresis, donors take drugs that release the stem cells from their marrow into their blood. Then they donate the cells through a needle in the arm and an apheresis machine — just like a plasma donation.

Centers that collect such cells pay up to $800, but they haven’t seen that much interest, the AP recently wrote. And the cells can’t be processed like plasma, so it’s unclear what the risk might be from paying donors in this nascent market.

About the Author Reprints

Elizabeth Preston

Tags

blood

blood donation

plasma

Paul Stanford says:

Comment by Paul Stanford on January 24, 2020 at 3:00 pm

Kevin,
you seem very full of yourself. The USA is the “civilized world” that’s why if you need complicated surgical or medical procedures done the best place in the world to come is here. the profit motive has fueled more research, and technological advances than all of your tired taxpayer financed single payer systems put together. that is why when I travel abroad UK, Canada, Germany etc. the people I speak to always say not to fall ill while traveling in their country because you may not get to see a doctor before complications arise and or death occurs. I don’t make this up that is what I am told. Here if I am sick I can see a doctor within hours sometimes quicker. I too have had multiple surgeries but have never had a need for a transfusion. so stick to your side of the border and keep your “civilized” opinions to yourself. because the insinuation that this bastion of free enterprise we citizens of the USA cherish is uncivilized is NOT lost on me.

Martin says:

Comment by Martin on January 23, 2020 at 6:13 pm

Hospitals make NOTHING? Are you that far brainwashed? Hospital CEO are very wealthy as well as the doctors. It’s a corporation same with big pharm. Why make a cure when they make more money off keeping you sick? If there was a cure you probably couldn’t afford it just like so many other medical things. People are paid 75 in my area for blood but on average a transfusion costs 219 dollars Google it if u don’t believe me and yes they pay u for blood donation not just plasma. That’s just 219$ for the transfusion If u don’t have insurance u pay for it all if u do unless it’s state ur still paying that monthly bill that you rarely actually need. One trip to doctor for being sick just making sure it’s not serious. 1300$ bill sent out the door with advice to buy some DayQuil. This country is not right with big pharma taxing for sick people . Now let’s say you did need more my friend fell down the stairs and had to stay in hospital for three days head injury his bill was over 50,000$ just to babysit him if he didn’t have state insurance he would be so far in debt for a life threatening injury that’s just adding insult to injury salt on the wound what the hell is this turning into? That hospital has many of those constantly so tell me their not making money? Lol you may not pay out of pocket but ur insurance is either way these bills are way higher than they should be and unless u see ur own bill u wouldn’t know which only happened to him because he didn’t have his papers on him he fell coming home from work when the railing broke in our hallway falling backwards and smacking his head dead on the floor really badly.

Where can I get the most money for plasma?

How much can you get for selling for cell plasma?

Is donating plasma for money worth it?

Is donating plasma painful?