Selling Blood is Big Business

RED GOLD! As the nickname implies, this is one highlymake some $200,000,000 in profits each year from
valued substance. It is a precious fluid, a crucial naturaljust one plasma component, albumin.
resource that has been compared not only to goldThe Federal Republic of Germany consumes more
but also to oil and coal. However, red gold is notblood products than the rest of Europe combined,
mined from veins in the rocks with drills andmore per person than any country in the world. The
dynamite. It is mined from the veins of people bybook Zum Beispiel Blut (For Instance, Blood) says of
much subtler means.blood products: Over half is imported, mainly from
Please, my little girl needs blood, implores a billboardthe U.S.A., but also from the Third World. In any case
that looms over a busy avenue in New York City.from the poor, who want to improve their income by
Other advertisements urge: If you’re a donor,donating plasma. Some of these poor people sell so
you’re the type this world can’t live without.much of their blood that they die from blood loss.
Your blood counts. Lend an arm.Many commercial plasma-centers are strategically
People who want to help others evidently do get thelocated in low-income areas or along the borders of
message. They line up in droves, worldwide. No doubtpoorer countries. They draw the impoverished and
most of them, as well as the people collecting thethe derelicts, who are all too willing to trade plasma
blood and the people transfusing the blood, sincerelyfor money and have ample reason to give more than
want to help the afflicted and believe that they arethey should or to conceal any illnesses they might
doing so.harbor. Such plasma traffic has arisen in 25 countries
But after blood is donated and before it isaround the world. As soon as it is stopped in one
transfused, it passes through more hands andcountry, it springs up in another. Bribery of officials as
undergoes more procedures than most of us realize.well as smuggling is not uncommon.
Like gold, blood inspires greed. It may be sold at aProfit in the Nonprofit Realm
profit and then resold at a larger profit. Some peopleBut nonprofit blood banks have also come under
fight over the rights to collect blood, they sell it atharsh criticism lately. In 1986 reporter Andrea Rock
exorbitant prices, they make fortunes from it, andcharged in Money magazine that a unit of blood costs
they even smuggle it from one country to another.the blood banks $57.50 to collect from donors, that it
The world over, selling blood is big business.costs the hospitals $88.00 to buy it from the blood
In the United States, donors were once paid outrightbanks, and that it costs patients from $375 to $600
for their blood. But in 1971 British author Richardto receive it in a transfusion.
Titmuss charged that by thus luring the poor and sickHas the situation changed since then? In September
to donate blood for the sake of a few dollars, the1989 reporter Gilbert M. Gaul of The Philadelphia
American system was unsafe. He also argued that itInquirer wrote a series of newspaper articles on the
was immoral for people to profit from giving theirU.S. blood-banking system. After a yearlong
blood to help others. His attack prompted an end toinvestigation, he reported that some blood banks beg
the paying of whole-blood donors in the Unitedpeople to donate blood and then turn around and sell
States (although the system still thrives in someas much as half of that blood to other blood centers,
lands). Yet, that did not make the blood market anyat a considerable profit. Gaul estimated that blood
less profitable. Why?banks trade about a million pints [half a million liters]
How Blood Remained Profitableof blood every year in this way, in a shadowy
In the 1940’s, scientists began to separate blood$50,000,000-a-year market that functions somewhat
into its components. The process, now calledlike a stock exchange.
fractionation, makes blood an even more lucrativeA key difference, though: This blood exchange is not
business. How? Well, consider: When dismantled andmonitored by the government. No one can measure
its parts sold, a late-model car may be worth up tothe exact extent of it, let alone regulate its prices.
five times its value when intact. Similarly, blood isAnd many blood donors know nothing about it.
worth much more when it is divided up and itsPeople are being fooled, one retired blood banker told
components are sold separately.The Philadelphia Inquirer. Nobody is telling them that
Plasma, which makes up about half of thetheir blood is going to us. They would be furious if
blood’s total volume, is an especially profitablethey knew about it. A Red Cross official put it
blood component. Since plasma has none of thesuccinctly: Blood bankers have for years fooled the
cellular blood parts—red cells, white cells, andAmerican public.
platelets—it can be dried and stored. Furthermore,In the United States alone, blood banks collect some
a donor is allowed to give whole blood only five13.5 million pints [6.5 million L] of blood every year,
times a year, but he can give plasma up to twice aand they sell over 30 million units of blood products
week by undergoing plasmapheresis. In this process,for about a thousand million dollars. This is a
whole blood is extracted, the plasma separated, andtremendous amount of money. Blood banks
then the cellular components are reinfused into thedon’t use the term profit. They prefer the
donor.phrase excesses over expenses. The Red Cross, for
The United States still allows donors to be paid forinstance, made $300 million in excesses over
their plasma. Moreover, that country permits donorsexpenses from 1980 to 1987.
to give about four times more plasma annually thanThe blood banks protest that they are nonprofit
the World Health Organization recommends! Littleorganizations. They claim that unlike big corporations
wonder, then, that the United States collects overon Wall Street, their money does not go to
60 percent of the world’s plasma supply. All thatstockholders. But if the Red Cross did have
plasma in itself is worth about $450 million, but itshareholders, it would be ranked among the most
fetches much more on the market because plasmaprofitable corporations in the United States, such as
too can be separated into various ingredients.General Motors. And blood-bank officials do have
Worldwide, plasma is the basis for ahandsome salaries. Of officials in 62 blood banks
$2,000,000,000-a-year industry!surveyed by The Philadelphia Inquirer, 25 percent
Japan, according to the newspaper Mainichi Shimbun,made over $100,000 a year. Some made more than
consumes about a third of the world’s plasma.twice that much.
That country imports 96 percent of this bloodBlood bankers also claim that they do not sell the
component, most of it from the United States. Criticsblood they collect—they only charge processing
within Japan have called that country the vampire offees. One blood banker retorts to that claim: It drives
the world, and the Japanese Health and Welfareme crazy when the Red Cross says it doesn’t
Ministry has tried to clamp down on the trade, sayingsell blood. That’s like the supermarket saying
that it is unreasonable to profit from blood. In fact,they’re only charging you for the carton, not the
the Ministry charges that medical institutions in Japanmilk.