3 ms·

I've never heard of these companies that pay donors and every donation that I have been to was whole blood or RBC, administered by the Red Cross (in the US and

I've never heard of these companies that pay donors and every donation that I have been to was whole blood or RBC, administered by the Red Cross (in the US and otherwise). Would what you wrote apply to a lesser degree for whole blood or red blood cell donations? I'm sure they make a profit on any type of blood donations but as it's ostensibly a non-profit I would assume most of it gets funneled back into funding other Red Cross services, but now I'm actually curious.

disabled 6y ago
It really only applies to plasma donations. Plasma donations outside of the Red Cross and other nonprofits are usually paid. This plasma is made into blood products (as in medicines that are approved by a government regulatory body), and is facilitated by plasma companies (almost always publicly traded companies on the stock market), who own these plasma donation centers which pay the donors. They also create the blood product and get the regulatory body approval (like via the FDA) for the medicine that they bring to market. Here is a website about it, but I would take it with a grain of salt as this is from the coalition of plasma companies themselves: https://www.donatingplasma.org/donation/plasma https://www.donatingplasma.org/donation/plasma How Blood-Plasma Companies Target the Poorest Americans: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/03/plasma-donations/555599/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/03/plasma-... The plasma companies have experienced their share of scandals too: https://web.archive.org/web/20170401035608/http://taintedblood.info/timeline.php?mode=latest&launch=true https://web.archive.org/web/20170401035608/http://taintedblo... In more recent times: https://www.propublica.org/article/pharmaceutical-companies-are-luring-mexicans-across-the-u.s.-border-to-donate-blood-plasma https://www.propublica.org/article/pharmaceutical-companies-...

disabled 6y ago

It really only applies to plasma donations. Plasma donations outside of the Red Cross and other nonprofits are usually paid. This plasma is made into blood products (as in medicines that are approved by a government regulatory body), and is facilitated by plasma companies (almost always publicly traded companies on the stock market), who own these plasma donation centers which pay the donors. They also create the blood product and get the regulatory body approval (like via the FDA) for the medicine that they bring to market. Here is a website about it, but I would take it with a grain of salt as this is from the coalition of plasma companies themselves: https://www.donatingplasma.org/donation/plasma https://www.donatingplasma.org/donation/plasma How Blood-Plasma Companies Target the Poorest Americans: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/03/plasma-donations/555599/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/03/plasma-... The plasma companies have experienced their share of scandals too: https://web.archive.org/web/20170401035608/http://taintedblood.info/timeline.php?mode=latest&launch=true https://web.archive.org/web/20170401035608/http://taintedblo... In more recent times: https://www.propublica.org/article/pharmaceutical-companies-are-luring-mexicans-across-the-u.s.-border-to-donate-blood-plasma https://www.propublica.org/article/pharmaceutical-companies-...