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So Much Blood
- traktorn 1y agoI love Dynomights writing. I highly recommend subscribing to his newsletter.
- blakesterz 1y agoIt's worth a read, even if it's not obvious what it's about from that title. "To get the actual data, you need to go through a website maintained by the US Trade Commission. This website has good and bad aspects. On the one hand, it’s slow and clunky and confusing and often randomly fails to deliver any results. On the other hand, when you re-submit, it clears your query and then blocks you for submitting too many requests, which is nice."
- andai 1y agoOn a vaguely related note, I hacked together a WayBack machine type thing on top of Common Crawl in like 50 lines of Python. So it transparently lets you load any page directly from the dumps (it loads only those few bytes from the crawl dumps, and gunzips them). It was really easy, and I was surprised it apparently hadn't been done before. The only problem is the index IP blocks you if you query it too often, and it gets queried once for every resource on the page. I've been informed that there are ways around this (download an index?), does anyone know more about that?
- speerer 1y agoThis sounds a fantasic idea. Will you be releasing it?
- RestartKernel 1y agoCouldn't this still work as a service if you run all queries through the front-end?
- skylerwiernik 1y agoI imagine that they'd get blocked by CORS
- RestartKernel 1y agoGood point. CORS somehow didn't cross my mind.
- andai 1y agoThanks. I meant that light usage from a single user was already enough to get banned. (Though if you rewrite the HTML so there's no resources to fetch, it should be OK...) Also, it's just a proxy, there's no front-end. (Being a 50 line Python script with one dependency (Flask), the idea is that the end user would run it.) It's just http://localhost/URL http://localhost/URL, and it loads it from the hardcoded snapshot. I guess https://localhost/snapshot/url https://localhost/snapshot/url might work better. I'd also like to see how many lines it ends up being if you remove the one dependency. I've done this for other projects and the answer is "not much more" and "also runs way faster for some reason."
- RestartKernel 1y agoI see, thanks for the extra details. I'm pretty sure you can forgo Flask in favour of directly using the underlying WSGI protocol, while keeping the the Web server you are already using (Gunicorn, probably). The Web server would still be a dependency though.
- ytpete 1y ago> even if it's not obvious what it's about from that title Tangent, but: I wish Hacker News was a bit less dogmatic about preferring the original site's title over any better semantic summary the submitter might offer. Blog posts and news headlines have a strong incentive to be clickbait-ey or just plain catchy, which often makes them less informative and in turn makes the HN homepage harder to scan for interesting posts. It also feels like an arbitrary dividing line where if the original title is too long to fit HN's max limit, the submitter edits it and their take on what's a good summary stands. But if the original title could fit, the submitter's headline is often overwritten with the article title by mods even if it's less useful.
- zahlman 1y agoAgreed. I feel awkward sharing my blog here, because I title my posts to appeal to a hypothetical regular audience, but I'm trying to build a regular audience by showing it to non-regulars who lack the context to interpret the title. (Or rather: I want the title to be sensible and entertaining in hindsight.)
- taneq 1y agoCould you title your posts in a HN-friendly style and subtitle them with your actual preferred title? And then (if this wouldn’t be considered Poor Form) swap back to the original title once it’s dropped off the front page?
- zahlman 1y agoPossibly, but I already use title and subtitle in other ways. I suppose I could create aliases and redirects instead.
- smcin 1y agoAgreed. That's the second in the last few days: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43880951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43880951
- qwertox 1y ago
- boesboes 1y agoFunny, because it is illegal to pay donors here. I used to be a donor, but the energy and effort it takes were too much for me at the time. And plasma donors have to 'free up' a lot more time. Not to mention how i get a cookie and the semi-goverment organisation charges >600€ for a baggie to hospitals. Someone needs to pay for that CEO's third house and car collection!
- simonw 1y agoWhich country are you talking about? I believe it's legal to pay donors on the USA. Presumably a European county given you quoted euros? Looks like the EU encourages member states to encourage unpaid donations: > Furthermore, Member States should take measures to promote Community self-sufficiency in human blood or blood components and to encourage voluntary unpaid donations of blood and blood components. From https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2002/98/oj/eng https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2002/98/oj/eng
- boesboes 1y agoYeah, I am in the Netherlands. They say paying donors puts them & patients at risk, because it would stimulate donors' to lie about their health when donating and we can't be asked to test blood for everything. And the say it is unethical to pay for human tissues. Except when they are selling it ;)
- ozornin 1y agoI have the same story in the same country with presumably the same organization (Sanquin). I used to give blood, but not anymore because I don't find what they're doing ethical.
- aeternum 1y agoDoes it just not feel ethical or is one of their claims false? Both of the key claims do seem to have evidence to support them: 1) Paying for blood shifts the socioeconomic distribution of the donor pool. 2) The socioeconomic shift results in more contaminated blood due to greater incidence of drug use and/or related blood-borne diseases that cannot all be tested for with high accuracy.
- declan_roberts 1y agoDo we really have 38% of Europe's BLOOD as a bargaining chip in trade agreements? This does not bode well for them.
- busterarm 1y agoGlobalization has led to most countries deluding themselves about supply chain vulnerabilities for a long time. COVID was the first shock. Now Trump's tariffs are the second.
- kspacewalk2 1y agoHowever, I think people grossly overestimate the degree to which this state of affairs is static. If the supply chain shows itself to be vulnerable, economies often adjust quite easily. Even when it's not "easy", like natural gas in Europe post-2022, it's still very much doable without too much hullabaloo and frozen seniors. Point being: if it no longer makes sense to import 38% of blood from the US or whatever, it'll be imported from elsewhere or made locally, and that's pretty much the whole story. This is true of most goods and services, though not all.
- busterarm 1y agoThat's only really true for raw materials and assemblies. Chip production is the very obvious and real hole in this argument. It'll take half to a full decade to get new chip fabs up to what TSMC's Taiwan fabs are doing now. Quality steel production and machining is going to take time and investment as well.
- abxyz 1y agoit's outsourcing by choice rather than necessity. Europe can grow its own blood. The much more permissive laws in the U.S. which cause an oversupply for local usage mean it's cheaper to import it. During periods of high demand that exceed current supplies, countries are typically able to increase donations substantially to cover the shortfall, and long term, could pursue similar laws to the U.S. There is no prospect of blood being a meaningful bargaining chip in a trade war.
- AlfredBarnes 1y agoA nice write up! Thanks for making it. I used to donate ever opportunity I could. I only stopped for medical reasons. I know there are a lot of companies that sell the blood, but it's still needed and can save a life.
- weinzierl 1y ago0.5% of all goods is still a lot and much more than most people would have expected. Also interesting: "In 2023, total US goods exports were $2,045 billion, almost exactly ⅔ of all exports, including services."
- Havoc 1y agoIt’s because the US has a massive blood for money industry while other countries explicitly ban payments. That distorts supply/demand between countries
- sidewndr46 1y agoif I understand correctly you can only sell "plasma" which is just one component of blood
- orwin 1y agoAnd less dangerous to the donor to harvest I think.
- hlovdal 1y agoThe podcast https://behindthebastards.com/ https://behindthebastards.com/ had two episodes about the surprisingly large export of blood (products) from USA. Spoiler alert, it is mainly rooted in exploitation of the insanely large prison population: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-how-tainted-human-blood-270927413/ https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236... https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-two-how-tainted-human-blood-271097746/ https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236...
- aezell 1y agoBummed there wasn't one vampire joke or pun or allusion in this entire article.
- fmsf 1y agoFascinating article, fun that even blood has tariffs https://www.searchtariff.com/?q=blood https://www.searchtariff.com/?q=blood I wonder when we are going to start seeing proper effects of all these tariffs in the market. Disclaimer: I am the founder of DataLinks which in turn powers the searchtariff website
- ilikecakeandpie 1y agoBehind the Bastards recently did a two part podcast on the blood industry in America, particularly how lack of regulation and taking advantage of the incarcerated (focused on Arkansas) led to the spread of blood borne illnesses and how it killed a lot of people. I had no idea blood was such big business and that it was in our top 10 domestic exports https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/part-one-how-tainted-human-blood-became-a-major-u-s-export/id1373812661?i=1000700727704 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/part-one-how-tainted-h...
- tvier 1y ago> and that it was in our top 10 domestic exports Note that a main point of the article is that it is not in the US' top 10 exports
- ilikecakeandpie 1y agoWell one of these has to be incorrect then as this was said it was the US's ninth largest export https://app.podscribe.com/episode/130950753 https://app.podscribe.com/episode/130950753
- abound 1y agoLike the GP said, the whole topic of this article is getting an accurate figure, and how the 2%/9th largest figure is incorrect.
- jknoepfler 1y agoIncorrect, yes, but to be fair .67% and 2% occupy the same "wow, that's a large proportion of the economy" order-or-magnitude band of surprise (for me). Obviously not as charismatic/sensational, but still significant and surprising (to me).
- tekla 1y agoBtB is not a serious news source, its mostly ragebait.
- ParacelsusOfEgg 1y agoI think there might be some confusion by commenters in this thread about selling blood in the US. Blood can be separated out into its plasma, red blood cells, and platelets by an apheresis machine. The machine cycles the unused components back into the donar so only one component is donated. Blood plasma (~55% by volume), the amber colored water and disolved proteins, can be sold. Red blood cells (~44% by volume), and platelets (~1% by volume) can NOT be sold in the US by donars. Most blood drives that you'd experience at school or in the workplace takes whole blood (so there is no need for the apheresis machine) which is more exhausting than if just one of the components was taken. Source: an O+ blood donar with 50+ pints donated.
- bee_rider 1y agoAm I misremembering that, also, donating plasma for whatever reason tends to be much rougher on the donor for some reason?
- sgerenser 1y agoI don’t think that’s correct. Specifically because it’s easier on the donor, it’s allowed to be done much more frequently than whole blood donation.
- smallpipe 1y agoDidn't expect to see Thor mentioned so much in a comment about blood donations
- dvaun 1y agoFun reference (I had to look up what you meant). For anyone reading: Donar is "Old High German" for Thor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor#Post-Roman_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor#Post-Roman_era
- Symmetry 1y agoMostly because its a lot harder to acquire an infection via plasma, though there are some diseases like Hepatitis E that can be transmitted that way.
- mehulashah 1y agoFirst — 0.69% of total exports is blood still is surprisingly high! Remember, you can get blood from humans in your own country, and prepare it there. So, why do you need it from the US? Second — it’s amazing the detail that you can achieve from public data. Third — I’m left wondering if a true “Deep Research” like tool would be able to provide the same analysis. I find that Deep Research is fine for secondary sources, but not for Deep Analysis of primary source data.
- youainti 1y agoThe reason the US exports blood products is because it is one of 5 countries that allow commercial blood product harvesting. Well, at least plasma. I don't remember which organization it is, but there is an international organization that tries to get countries to be "self-sufficient" in blood products so that they are not internationally traded (the organization is something like WHO, UN, or Red Cross). Only those 5 countries that allow some level of commercialization actually meet their goals of being self sufficient (and export as on top of that). Source: A guest lecture at my university by Al Roth, Nobel prize-winner in economics, who is currently focusing his work on these type of markets. Most of his work is on kidney exchanges right now.
- ajkjk 1y agoMan it is weird that the word for that is "harvesting".
- bliteben 1y agoJust wait till these robot maximalists figure out that a pile of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen is much cheaper than robots made out of steel and carbon fiber.
- caycep 1y agoI mean, they haven't glommed onto the daily experience of giving a kid a snickers bar and asking them a question is cheaper than building a nuclear reactor to power GPT4o levels of LLM...
- femiagbabiaka 1y agoPlasma from teachers who don't get paid enough to cover the bills shipped to Europe. There's a great sci-fi novel in there.
- iamthepieman 1y agoThe film "Never Let Me Go"[0] is kind of about that. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Let_Me_Go_(2010_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Let_Me_Go_(2010_film)
- morninglight 1y agoMarket trends show this as a growing industry in the 2025 economy. https://www.cslplasma.com/be-rewarded https://www.cslplasma.com/be-rewarded
- aeternum 1y agoExcellent writeup. Is there any aggregator that focuses on "let's look at the actual data" articles like this?
- archermarks 1y agoDynomight (the author of this article) does a lot of articles like this, and if you enjoyed it you'll enjoy their other content.
- 11235813213455 1y agoI donate a lot to mosquitoes
- coolspot 1y agoBzzz?
- caycep 1y agoAlso - it might be worth looking in donations from Mex/canada. The anecdotal tidbit is that during Trump I with the border shenanigans and COVID, the drop in Mexican nationals crossing the border to donate blood/plasma (paid opportunities apparently), led to a nationwide shortage of derived products like IV IG infusions, etc. At least according to some of the Pharma reps that passed thru the office
- andai 1y agoThe article links to this, which I also enjoyed. "Please show lots of digits" https://dynomight.net/digits/ https://dynomight.net/digits/
- philipwhiuk 1y agoI enjoyed it, but I'm not convinced by it.
- sour-taste 1y agoDoes anyone know of, when I give blood to the red cross or other charities can it end up getting sold for a profit, overseas or otherwise?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- thimkerbell 1y agoI don't understand why an otherwise reputable forum (HN) would be so tolerant of meaning-uninferrable clickbait link titles. Sentience, posters, sentience.
- makmanalp 1y agoThis is my time to shine - I know the cause of this mistake. Like the article mentions, international trade is specified using the HS (Harmonized System) encoding mechanism. Now, product groups for which data is most frequently and easily available is the 4-digit level, which is quite broad. If you look at the code 3002 in the HS classification system (of which there are many versions but we'll ignore that for now), you'll find a category, succinctly named: > "Human blood; animal blood prepared for therapeutic, prophylactic or diagnostic uses; antisera, other blood fractions and immunological products, whether or not modified or obtained by means of biotechnological processes; vaccines, toxins, cultures of micro-organisms (excluding yeasts) and similar products; cell cultures, whether or not modified:" https://hts.usitc.gov/search?query=3002 https://hts.usitc.gov/search?query=3002 People new to trade data, especially programmers, with some hubris, tend to think this is way too long a category name to fit in a title or dropbox, so they chop it at the semicolon and call it good, resulting in "Human Blood" or similar. Better data sources tend to shorten these based on the real world percentage of the subcategories, e.g. see here "Serums and vaccines": https://atlas.hks.harvard.edu/explore/treemap?exporter=country-840&view=markets&startYear=2012&product=product-HS92-1012 https://atlas.hks.harvard.edu/explore/treemap?exporter=count... If you search for 3002 (Serums and Vaccines) in the US's exports in 2023 you'll see the figure 1.58%: https://atlas.hks.harvard.edu/explore/treemap?exporter=country-840&startYear=2012 https://atlas.hks.harvard.edu/explore/treemap?exporter=count... Which seems to me to be how they arrived at that incorrect number - some other website showing comtrade / us trade data with bad category names. Lesson here: classification systems are hard.
- dezzadk 1y agoGosh, "Hacker News" has become such an abstract garbage can for farfetched longwinded bs articles.. Today I'll unsubscribe, I won't miss your preference for normie filler content..