
The blood of poor Americans is now a leading export, bigger than corn or soy - howard941
https://boingboing.net/2019/12/09/leeched.html
======
rb808
It sounded surprising to me too. Looking closer the source is actually "Human
or Animal Blood". Also Ireland similar amounts as the US, so I'm thinking its
probably Animal blood, but I haven't found a good definition.

[https://oec.world/en/profile/hs92/3002/](https://oec.world/en/profile/hs92/3002/)

[http://www.worldstopexports.com/top-blood-exporters-by-
count...](http://www.worldstopexports.com/top-blood-exporters-by-country/)

~~~
circlefavshape
FWIW the population of Ireland is approx 1/70 of the population of the US, and
we don't do paid donations

------
Scoundreller
Meanwhile Canada bans paid donations.

While volunteer blood product is great and all, the supply isn’t enough and
just means we use American product.

Dunno why we (Canadians) disallow a homegrown industry and insist on paying
everyone in the process except donors.

Somehow domestic dairy production is a national asset that must be protected,
but it’s totally okay to depend on foreign nations for blood products.

~~~
moviuro
> paying everyone in the process except donors.

Probably to reduce incentives for people desperate for cash. If I ever need
blood (I'm in France, same payment system as in Canada from what I know, and
what you wrote), I want clean blood; and I'm not paying (with my tax money)
for dirty blood to be pumped.

If you pay donors, whatever drug addict might think about making a quick buck,
lying on their medical form, getting their next high. You could do ID checks
at each donation event, ban people for life - but how can you do that while
keeping their data secure? (Banned from giving blood = either addict, or
is/was seriously ill, or received a transfusion already, or had male gay sex,
etc. ; which is a serious privacy leak)

~~~
epmaybe
You know that blood products are screened for a number of sexually transmitted
diseases and other infectious products before transfusions, right? Off the top
of my head, HIV, hepatitis, syphilis, and CJD among others. I'd imagine this
list is similar in every country.

There's always a theoretical risk of getting an infection from blood
transfusions. In the US there is a reported risk of < 1:1,000,000 for HIV post
transfusion, but that is because we did not test for it in the past. We have
been for at least a decade if not more.

------
ajross
> blood now accounts for 2% of the country's exports -- more than corn or
> soya.

That seems to be the core fact in the article, and no source is given. It
seems ridiculous to my eyes, you'd think this would be an easy thing to
cite...

Edit: Yeah, this seems to be bunk. Here's a relatively authoritative-looking
source for "Plasma, Vaccines, Blood" which puts it at $23B per year:

[https://www.ustradenumbers.com/export/plasma-vaccines-
blood/](https://www.ustradenumbers.com/export/plasma-vaccines-blood/)

US total exports are around $2500B per a quick google, which puts that at
about half what is claimed.

And of course mixed in with that blood is the presumptively much larger trade
in vaccines, which is a known US export industry. I can't find anything that
tracks this number with blood donation products split out.

Second edit: As others in this topic are pointing out, in fact that
"plasma/blood/vaccines" number includes _animal_ products also. So this
article is garbage, sorry.

~~~
g4d
>corn increased 32.62%, from $8.39 billion to $11.13 billion. [1]

[1] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenroberts/2019/01/14/corn-
is-o...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenroberts/2019/01/14/corn-is-one-
of-2018s-fastest-growing-exports-might-slip-past-soybeans/#6190fd8c490b)

------
ngngngng
I fed myself in college off plasma donation money. It paid about $100 a week.
You could only donate twice per week, and the majority of the pay came on your
second donation each week. It took just over an hour to donate each time,
close to $50 an hour was amazing money a few years ago when I was a college
student.

While you were donating you could watch movies, read books, homework was kind
of an option since you didn't have the use of one of your arms.

~~~
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
Me too but received about $90. Would definitely do it again. My experience it
took about 2 hours but during this period I used the time to study or rest.

If they didn’t pay I’d probably donate maybe once a year. I never felt
“exploited”, and I’m sure somebody needed that plasma.

~~~
ngngngng
Exactly. I hate all these comments about how if we pay people for blood then
we'll get "dirty blood".

Poor != dirty

------
JRKrause
Anecdotally: a new plasma donation center was constructed just by my office on
high-value real-estate directly on the light-rail line. Everyone I've seen
using the debit cards issued by the donation company look terribly beat.

------
sosuke
By value not by volume. Just wanted to clear that up.

~~~
glofish
data needed to back that information up.

US exports total 2.5 trillion ... basically this source claims that the US
sells 25 billion dollars worth of blood plasma.

Ok even if we were to entertain that idea as being true, if that amount of
plasma is indeed needed, how would you get it in any other way than paying
people?

------
glofish
For some reason, possibly because it is overly dramatic, ridiculous and has no
real data sources the article immediately felt made up, aka fake news.

Then I saw this in the Wikipedia about one of the alleged sources labeled as
"interviews by MintPress":

> _By 2016, MintPress News had begun reprinting copy from RT (formerly Russia
> Today) and Sputnik._

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Spouting "fake news" for shit you disagree with is just beyond lame.

It's fine to argue that "MintPress News" is not a reputable source, but that
MintPress News article is _loaded_ with verifiable sources that you can easily
look up yourself:

[https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/usa/all/...](https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/usa/all/show/2017/)

[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/03/plasma-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/03/plasma-
donations/555599/)

[https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/usa/show...](https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/usa/show/3002/2017/)

But instead of arguing about the interpretation of the data, or pointing to
other data sources, you choose to parrot "fake news" because that's apparently
what passes for logical discourse in this day and age.

~~~
arcticfox
From your oec.world source, "Human or Animal Blood is also known as vaccines,
toxins.

Human or Animal Blood is a 4 digit HS92 product."

What does that even mean? I think they're looping in vaccines and more in
their human or animal blood category.

[https://oec.world/en/profile/hs92/3002/](https://oec.world/en/profile/hs92/3002/)

Edit: among other things, they seem to be including all of the following as
"human and animal blood", among others:

* 300220 Vaccines; for human medicine

* 300230 Vaccines; for veterinary medicine

* 300290 Toxins, cultures of micro-organisms (excluding yeasts) and similar products

[https://www.foreign-
trade.com/reference/hscode.htm?code=3002](https://www.foreign-
trade.com/reference/hscode.htm?code=3002)

~~~
simoes
Hello, I am the lead developer on the OEC. I was brought here by an open issue
someone made referencing this article. @articfox you are 100% correct in that
the data is factual (or as reported by source) but the text is missing some
context. The HS product 3002 does include vaccines and this was missing from
the label.

------
slowhand09
Gee, and all my college buddies did it for beer money.

------
trevyn
Wait, what? Where does one even go to get paid for a blood donation?

~~~
gruez
probably talking about plasma "donations".

------
jodje
fluxuate?

------
tantalor
Mods: blogspam, real link is here:

[https://www.mintpressnews.com/harvesting-blood-americas-
poor...](https://www.mintpressnews.com/harvesting-blood-americas-poor-late-
stage-capitalism/263175/)

~~~
glofish
That now really sounds like fake news.

\- Zombifying America’s poor

------
hackeraccount
Further proof that America is the greatest country in the world. So loved that
people pay money for our blood.

------
minikites
Even if the magnitude is wrong, this is still a problem of perverse
incentives. Should people be allowed to sell a kidney to make rent?

------
stopads
The divide in this society is becoming so deep stories like this almost seem
like a parody.

If you're at a high enough level you get paid in equity-based compensation or
benefit from a close relationship where someone gets paid in equity, then
you're golden. These are the greatest times in history, every number keeps
going up and everything keeps improving. Endlessly increasing buybacks and
endlessly increasing equity compensation is doing nothing but accelerate this
massive growth at the high level.

For everyone else it's a nightmarish hellscape of gig jobs and poverty and
debt and zero healthcare. It's such a different experience that rich people
might as well be living on the moon.

~~~
solotronics
Not disagreeing with you but is the relative inequality better or worse than
other periods in history? I would argue the world is more fair today for more
people than it ever has been before. Of course there is inequality, there
always has been, but its getting better.

~~~
Ididntdothis
There has been a trend towards more inequality in developed countries over the
last decades. So we have to be careful not to regress.

