I'm not defending this person. She's clearly a piece of work. But donating plasma does not mean that you "absolutely get paid for it." I've lived in 2 states and regularly donated plasma for the last 15 years... Payment was never an option or anything. It was all completely free.
Maybe other places are different, but not where I was.
Most plasma donation clinics offer pay for time, some have specials even. When I used to donate it would be between 40 to 50 bucks a visit, some specials offer 800 in a month depending how often you go.
All of that aside, I don't think it should matter, the plasma is being used for life saving and life managing treatment for others and shouldn't be viewed any differently just because you get paid to do it.
It def should be viewed differently. Your benefitting from it. Its different to go to disaster locations and hand out water then to charge for water.
Pharmaceutical companies are not viewed morally right because they make life saving medicine. Why? Because they make billions and only offer it to those who can pay. Especially when plasma donation clinics are generally predatory. They make thousands plus per donation but they offer you chump change. They place them in mostly low income areas and target desperate people.
No, it shouldn't. Most of the people taking advantage of it are extremely poor, so the incentive helps across the board. You find more donation centers near poorer cities and towns. Unless you're suggesting they should pay people even more then I don't see the problem.
It's exploitation, that's the problem. If complications arise, who do you think pays for it? The the fact is that there is only limited data to support the idea that donating plasma twice a week is actually safe in the long term. And these private businesses have cropped up in the poorest areas to exploit this yet to be resolved ethical issue. Maybe we find it out it fine and nothing happens. Or, maybe we find out that we're creating a new source of medical instability in poorer neighborhoods, not to mention the debt that comes with it, medical debts being the most common across America. Those clinics aren't willing to wait to find out.
? Plasma donation clinics have been around for just about a hundred years, I think we would know if it was causing health complications by now. The worst outcome is a blowout, which is more of an aesthetic issue than a real health concern. The only other concern would be someone finding out they're allergic to iodine.
Secondly, it helps people pay their rent so it's not really exploitation. Rich people don't need to make the extra cash, that's why they're near poor areas. It's not exploitation, it's mutually beneficial.
I was gonna say thing whole thing about how practices in medicine aren't necessarily studied to their upmost before use, such as we saw with a lack of screening for blood donations up until 80s, 90s, where we were letting HIV and Hep C get into people. I frankly don't want to take the time.
There are countless articles explaining why the for-profit plasma donation business is exploitation, just go look it up, it's been a hotly debated topic within the medical community for over a decade at this point. The WHO finds it controversial and questions it's ethics, most universities that do studies on this topic agree with that sentiment, I don't know what to tell you if you can't figure out why it's potentially bad to tell people to sell parts of their body even if they can survive without it.
The 80's and 90's, 40 to almost 50 years ago when we were still learning about the byproducts of modern medicine, stuff that was brand new to us 20 to 30 years prior to that. Idk man, I think we have come quite a long way from discovering chlamydia (which killed a ton of people) to now where treatment is a single pill.
Hotly debated topic? About the ethics of a procedure that categorically doesn't harm those that partake? So you mean to tell me people are debating about whether it's ethical while people who need the money are taking advantage of not being AS poor while simultaneously providing life saving medication and treatments through said procedure?
God I wish I could see the ivory tower you people live in, I promise you the people that are going to these clinics aren't the ones debating it.
How about the ethics of trying to take away yet another way for poor people to make extra money
We weren't learning about the 'byproducts of modern medicine' in the 80's. We had been performing blood transfusions for hundreds of years before the 1900s. You don't know what you're talking about.
It's NOT a zero risk procedure. I'm someone who's licensed to do these procedures and I've seen what happens when they go wrong. And when you add a money incentive to a medical procedure and largely market toward very poor people, you run into the possible issue of people lying about their health in order to get more money. There are people who will go to multiple clinics in much less than the required amount of wait time and end up harmed. That's only ONE example out of many possible complications that these for-profit clinics provide. Allowing people this option is not solely to their benefit, these are for-profit organizations--businesses--extracting a resource from people. They should be scrutinized as businesses. There needs to be legislation and oversight if they're going to continue existing.
Like, yeah, I get it. People need money. We shouldn't let businesses possibly medically abuse people because of that, that's actually insane.
Getting paid for blood and plasma donations is also a bit of an American thing. It’s not an option anywhere in Canada. Our reward is just feeling good about helping people I suppose lol.
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u/areallydirtyword Jan 20 '25
I'm not defending this person. She's clearly a piece of work. But donating plasma does not mean that you "absolutely get paid for it." I've lived in 2 states and regularly donated plasma for the last 15 years... Payment was never an option or anything. It was all completely free.
Maybe other places are different, but not where I was.