3 ms·

> it is absolutely, unequivocally the case that paying people for blood, plasma, and gamete donations (all of which we do, but we're circumspect about saying so

by wisty 15y ago

> it is absolutely, unequivocally the case that paying people for blood, plasma, and gamete donations (all of which we do, but we're circumspect about saying so) increases the amount of people who are willing to participate in blood, plasma, and gamete donation. This is the only problem. It's false. Well ... it might be false. Extrinsic rewards ($10) tend to displace intrinsic rewards (I saved someone's life!). If the reward is high enough, you will certainly get lots of donors. But if the reward is too high, poor people may get shut out. Because of the intrinsic reward, it might be better if blood was donated. I'm not so sure about bone marrow though - if there's enough of a shortage (due to it being much harder to donate than blood), then it might be worth it. Poor people won't be able to afford it (or will be really screwed by the costs), but at least some people will get it. And donors won't feel the warm glow of having saved a life, but they will feel the warmer glow of a big fat cheque (as I'm assuming the extrinsic reward will be higher than the intrinsic reward it displaced). As for organs, you could end the shortage now if you mailed out donation forms, and said that anyone who didn't sign on as a donor (after they don't need the bits, of course) would be shunted to the bottom of the list if they needed one later on.

Cass 15y ago
I'm not a huge fan of the idea of paying people for bone marrow, but "poor people won't be able to afford bone marrow" is fairly irrelevant as an argument. Poor people already cannot afford to pay for any of the costs associated with a bone marrow transplantation. You have to destroy the patient's immune system to allow the donated blood cells to grow - which means at minimum, if everything goes very well, six weeks in a high-tech isolation room, being treated with extremely expensive antivirals, antibiotics and antifungals, getting all sorts of expensive diagnostics, highly paid specialists taking care of your around the clock, etc. The last number I heard was, I believe, about 100,000 Euro if everything goes well. If things go wrong, you're looking at the ICU for ~10,000 Euro a day for a month or two, or maybe ten years worth of intense, state-of-the-art immuno-suppressive treatment...

by wisty 15y ago

Cass 15y ago

I'm not a huge fan of the idea of paying people for bone marrow, but "poor people won't be able to afford bone marrow" is fairly irrelevant as an argument. Poor people already cannot afford to pay for any of the costs associated with a bone marrow transplantation. You have to destroy the patient's immune system to allow the donated blood cells to grow - which means at minimum, if everything goes very well, six weeks in a high-tech isolation room, being treated with extremely expensive antivirals, antibiotics and antifungals, getting all sorts of expensive diagnostics, highly paid specialists taking care of your around the clock, etc. The last number I heard was, I believe, about 100,000 Euro if everything goes well. If things go wrong, you're looking at the ICU for ~10,000 Euro a day for a month or two, or maybe ten years worth of intense, state-of-the-art immuno-suppressive treatment...