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The blood of poor Americans is now a leading export, bigger than corn or soy

14 points by cow9 7y ago

surgeryres 7y ago
I wonder what these for profit companies do with the red cells and platelets? These are both heavily regulated with short shelf lives.
larnmar 7y ago
Colour me skeptical. That certainly doesn’t sound like a plausible number, and the article doesn’t cite any sources. This article http://www.worldstopexports.com/top-blood-exporters-by-country/ http://www.worldstopexports.com/top-blood-exporters-by-count... total US blood exports at $1.4 billion, a distant second to Ireland. That includes both human and animal blood, and I’m not sure what fractions human. Soybean exports, on the other hand, are closer to $17 billion a year: https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/international-markets-us-trade/us-agricultural-trade/outlook-for-us-agricultural-trade/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/international-markets-us-tra... Total US exports are $2.5 trillion, so blood is about 0.06% of that. Edit: found a couple of reputable sources that put blood plus blood plasma exports in the $20 billion range. Possible that the discrepancy comes from whether plasma is included.
- downrightmike 7y ago
  Kind of crazy that they are able to generate off of the bottom half of the US population. So out of the 175 million bottom 50% American population, with the actual donors being much smaller, their actual bodies produce a crazy amount of wealth that they can't capture and remain poor.
  - samatman 7y ago
    1.4 billion divided by 175 million is eight. So a cheeseburger each, basically.
- sologuardsman2 7y ago
  OP cites a MintPress News article [1] which links to an OEC visualization [2], or in particular a page on "Human or Animal Blood" [3] like you mentioned. That page has the US at $28.6B to Ireland's $25.3B. [1] https://www.mintpressnews.com/harvesting-blood-americas-poor-late-stage-capitalism/263175/ https://www.mintpressnews.com/harvesting-blood-americas-poor... [2] https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/usa/all/show/2017/ https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/usa/all/... [3] https://oec.world/en/profile/hs92/3002/ https://oec.world/en/profile/hs92/3002/

14 points by cow9 7y ago

I wonder what these for profit companies do with the red cells and platelets? These are both heavily regulated with short shelf lives.

larnmar 7y ago

Colour me skeptical. That certainly doesn’t sound like a plausible number, and the article doesn’t cite any sources. This article http://www.worldstopexports.com/top-blood-exporters-by-country/ http://www.worldstopexports.com/top-blood-exporters-by-count... total US blood exports at $1.4 billion, a distant second to Ireland. That includes both human and animal blood, and I’m not sure what fractions human. Soybean exports, on the other hand, are closer to $17 billion a year: https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/international-markets-us-trade/us-agricultural-trade/outlook-for-us-agricultural-trade/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/international-markets-us-tra... Total US exports are $2.5 trillion, so blood is about 0.06% of that. Edit: found a couple of reputable sources that put blood plus blood plasma exports in the $20 billion range. Possible that the discrepancy comes from whether plasma is included.

downrightmike 7y ago
Kind of crazy that they are able to generate off of the bottom half of the US population. So out of the 175 million bottom 50% American population, with the actual donors being much smaller, their actual bodies produce a crazy amount of wealth that they can't capture and remain poor.
- samatman 7y ago
  1.4 billion divided by 175 million is eight. So a cheeseburger each, basically.
sologuardsman2 7y ago
OP cites a MintPress News article [1] which links to an OEC visualization [2], or in particular a page on "Human or Animal Blood" [3] like you mentioned. That page has the US at $28.6B to Ireland's $25.3B. [1] https://www.mintpressnews.com/harvesting-blood-americas-poor-late-stage-capitalism/263175/ https://www.mintpressnews.com/harvesting-blood-americas-poor... [2] https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/usa/all/show/2017/ https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/usa/all/... [3] https://oec.world/en/profile/hs92/3002/ https://oec.world/en/profile/hs92/3002/