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Just to be clear: when I said "pool", they don't like, blend the blood--I just meant that your bag of blood is available for general usage. They can and do tra

by IvyMike 12y ago

Just to be clear: when I said "pool", they don't like, blend the blood--I just meant that your bag of blood is available for general usage. They can and do track individual packs. Regarding the postcard: I have donated in Illinois and California and have never gotten one. But I haven't been able to donate for a few years now because of trips into malaria zones, so if this is a recent thing, that would explain it.

Mandatum 12y ago
I had this nasty image of a big metal vat of blood being mixed with a giant wooden spoon Willy-Wonka-style.
- solistice 12y ago
  That would most likely result in another blood contamination scandal similar to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_Economy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_Economy] in Henan China, where blood was mixed in centrifuges to save cost, subsequently infecting large amounts of the affected population with HIV. But i had that image in my head as well, a big dirty vat of blood somewhere in a dipilated factory building.
  - Mandatum 12y ago
    Wow.. That's pretty terrible. It seems countries import blood, I wonder what the price they pay for it is, or if there's such thing as "blood farms".. According to this article, Australia spent $31M in a single year on blood/plasma 'products': http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/australias-blood-bill-hits-31m/story-e6frf7kx-1226430355269 http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/australias-blood-b... EDIT: It appears Pfizer and Baxter are the major suppliers to Australia.
georgemcbay 12y ago
I donate blood to Red Cross in California (most recently about a month ago) and have also never gotten a postcard, but they do have a pretty cool app now (called "Blood Donor") which tracks your donated blood through the various stages of their system (processing->testing->storage->distribution). I'd assume any postcards sent out probably happen at the distribution stage, when the blood is shipped out to a hospital as that is a close enough approximation for the time when it will be used.
paxswill 12y ago
My local blood bank (in northern Virginia) has sent out post cards when my brother's, my father's, or my blood have been used in a donation. We're only O-, so not super rare but the blood bank does call if we've gone a while without donating.
- dtparr 12y ago
  O- makes you a universal donor, so I'd imagine yours is always in demand.
DominikR 12y ago
Actually, a very small part of every donation is mixed together with that of other donors to reduce the costs of testing if the blood is safe. Otherwise they'd have to make every test once for every single donation.
- luch 12y ago
  I know for a fact that in France they test every single donation, since the "Contaminated blood products" scandal affair in 70'. They even use a 1000++€ AIDS test which can detect HIV within a 3-week time span, instead of 3 months. Thanks the blood donation tests, I found I had a punctual lack of iron earlier this year.

by IvyMike 12y ago

Mandatum 12y ago

I had this nasty image of a big metal vat of blood being mixed with a giant wooden spoon Willy-Wonka-style.

solistice 12y ago
That would most likely result in another blood contamination scandal similar to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_Economy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_Economy] in Henan China, where blood was mixed in centrifuges to save cost, subsequently infecting large amounts of the affected population with HIV. But i had that image in my head as well, a big dirty vat of blood somewhere in a dipilated factory building.
- Mandatum 12y ago
  Wow.. That's pretty terrible. It seems countries import blood, I wonder what the price they pay for it is, or if there's such thing as "blood farms".. According to this article, Australia spent $31M in a single year on blood/plasma 'products': http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/australias-blood-bill-hits-31m/story-e6frf7kx-1226430355269 http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/australias-blood-b... EDIT: It appears Pfizer and Baxter are the major suppliers to Australia.

georgemcbay 12y ago

I donate blood to Red Cross in California (most recently about a month ago) and have also never gotten a postcard, but they do have a pretty cool app now (called "Blood Donor") which tracks your donated blood through the various stages of their system (processing->testing->storage->distribution). I'd assume any postcards sent out probably happen at the distribution stage, when the blood is shipped out to a hospital as that is a close enough approximation for the time when it will be used.

paxswill 12y ago

My local blood bank (in northern Virginia) has sent out post cards when my brother's, my father's, or my blood have been used in a donation. We're only O-, so not super rare but the blood bank does call if we've gone a while without donating.

dtparr 12y ago
O- makes you a universal donor, so I'd imagine yours is always in demand.

DominikR 12y ago

Actually, a very small part of every donation is mixed together with that of other donors to reduce the costs of testing if the blood is safe. Otherwise they'd have to make every test once for every single donation.

luch 12y ago
I know for a fact that in France they test every single donation, since the "Contaminated blood products" scandal affair in 70'. They even use a 1000++€ AIDS test which can detect HIV within a 3-week time span, instead of 3 months. Thanks the blood donation tests, I found I had a punctual lack of iron earlier this year.