
The blood of poor Americans is now a leading export, bigger than corn or soy - cow9
https://boingboing.net/2019/12/09/leeched.html
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larnmar
Colour me skeptical. That certainly doesn’t _sound_ like a plausible number,
and the article doesn’t cite any sources.

This article [http://www.worldstopexports.com/top-blood-exporters-by-
count...](http://www.worldstopexports.com/top-blood-exporters-by-country/)
total US blood exports at $1.4 billion, a distant second to Ireland. That
includes both human and animal blood, and I’m not sure what fractions human.

Soybean exports, on the other hand, are closer to $17 billion a year:
[https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/international-markets-us-
tra...](https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/international-markets-us-trade/us-
agricultural-trade/outlook-for-us-agricultural-trade/)

Total US exports are $2.5 trillion, so blood is about 0.06% of that.

Edit: found a couple of reputable sources that put blood plus blood plasma
exports in the $20 billion range. Possible that the discrepancy comes from
whether plasma is included.

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downrightmike
Kind of crazy that they are able to generate off of the bottom half of the US
population. So out of the 175 million bottom 50% American population, with the
actual donors being much smaller, their actual bodies produce a crazy amount
of wealth that they can't capture and remain poor.

~~~
samatman
1.4 billion divided by 175 million is eight.

So a cheeseburger each, basically.

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surgeryres
I wonder what these for profit companies do with the red cells and platelets?
These are both heavily regulated with short shelf lives.

