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Donating Blood to the Red Cross

IIRichard

Critical Thinker
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Feb 13, 2005
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I am heartened that Randi is doing well and applaud any and all efforts to help him and others undergoing surgery, etc. I would dearly love to donate blood but the Red Cross will not take mine.

My problem is with the constant calls from the Red Cross for blood donations, constant alerts about how low the supply is and the RC's general attitude.

I am a monogamous male married for nearly 35 years. I have high blood pressure and slightly elevated cholesterol levels. I am treated for both. I also have a genetic condition known as hemochromatosis, a condition in which the body is unable to regulate iron take-up from the gut. Left untreated, this can lead to live-threatening problems in the liver, heart, pancreas and other organs.

The treatment is fairly simple, the patient gives blood on a regular schedule. I'm phlebotomized every eight weeks. I have to pay to have this done and my blood is treated as medical waste. If I told the Red Cross of my condition, they would refuse my offer to donate. It is immaterial whether my blood pressure is a bit high or my pulse a bit fast - I have to be bled to live.

Hemochromatosis is considered to be the most common genetic disease, affecting perhaps 1 in 400 people. The disease usually manifests itself later in life so not all people who have the disease are treated for it. Even so, there are hundreds of thousands of people whose blood is drawn every month or two (or even more frequently in serve cases) and thrown out.

So, I know there are plenty of people with medical training in the JREF forums. Any thoughts, comments?

IIRichard - dying to donate
 
A quick wikipedia (is that a verb?) tells me that the basic physiology of this disease is that cells are fooled into thinking the body is in a constant state of iron depletion, causing them to perpetually increase their iron stores. It seems to have everything to do with proteins expressed on the surface of liver cells, and nothing to do with your blood/blood cells.

On what grounds, then, would the Red Cross refuse your donation?
 
Cecil said:
On what grounds, then, would the Red Cross refuse your donation?
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And if you didn't tell them, would you actually get paid for the treatment you now have to pay for? AND help people in need of blood?
 
Cecil said:
A quick wikipedia (is that a verb?) tells me that the basic physiology of this disease is that cells are fooled into thinking the body is in a constant state of iron depletion, causing them to perpetually increase their iron stores. It seems to have everything to do with proteins expressed on the surface of liver cells, and nothing to do with your blood/blood cells.

On what grounds, then, would the Red Cross refuse your donation?
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Actually, it's the cells of the villi that are at fault. They're replaced fairly rapidly and if the cell didn't have my defective chromosomes, the new cells would have the "Take up iron" switch left off when there is plenty of iron in my blood. My cells don't recognize that there is plenty of iron in my blood. I haven't checked the Wiki entry on this but WebMD has good info.

I have no idea why the Red Cross won't take my blood when they continually claim that there are acute shortages of blood.

IIRichard
 
Ririon said:
And if you didn't tell them, would you actually get paid for the treatment you now have to pay for? AND help people in need of blood?
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The Red Cross will not pay for blood. The only advantage to me would be that they would bleed me for free. The advantage to society is that there would be a lot more blood available.

There are a number of reasons why some donors are turned away, infectious disease for instance. In my, and millions of other's cases, the reason is not stated.

IIRichard
 
In Britain , we are never paid to donate blood. the process is entirely voluntary.
(You do get free tea and biscuits though.)
I once donated in Canada. Didn't get paid there either. Cheap colonial devils- chip off the old block!

I just hit 50 pints (units, whatever). I can't imagine why anyone would NOT donate blood. It's like communal life insurance. Herd immunity.

In the UK , we donate to the NHS Blood Transfusion Service, not the Red Cross. The regs. have tightened over time-(AIDS, CJD, etc, etc) for example you cannot donate if you have visited the USA in the last 2 months! (Due to a virus of one sort- I don't recall which, Green Rocky Mt. Monkey Bush Fever or some such).

I know squat about this blood problem you have. It seems a shame that the blood can't be used for testing or something if not for transfusion. Ye gods, if you must dump blood, do it yourself- this is not rocket science, you only need a sterile hollow needle, a bag of about 1/2 litre capacity and a bandaid!

By the way, my cholesterol is so high it's off scale in most tests. Always has been, even when I ran 5 miles every day. Humans vary. If I'm on an operating table and I need 17 pints of O+ or I croak, do I care if some of it has high cholesterol? I don't care if it's GREEN! I just want it NOW!
 
The red cross bothered me for months and months after my surgery to remove the tumor in my spine until I finally got someone to listen to me when I told them to mark me as ineligible to donate. The conversation went like this:

"This is (so and so) from the Red Cross and we were wondering if you could come in for an annual donation?"

"Okay, I will say this again, though I have told someone at your organization on at least 3 instances before this: I am a cancer patient, the cancer is Solitary Plasacytoma which means it begins in white platelet cells. I do not think I am eligible to donate, nor do I think it would be ethical to do so. Please remove me from your list."

"Oh, well let me ask the doctor here. Can you hold?"

"Fine."

After 10 minutes...

"Okay, thank you sir, we will remove you from our lists, and mark your file as ineligible."

"Forgive me if I tell you I've heard that before, but thank you."

Never heard from them since. Now why would they pester the crap out of me when I repeatedly tell them I should not donate, and yet they will not take blood from others who are healthy and able? For example a gay man who has been in a monogamous relationship for over 10 years is ineligible. Richard is apparently ineligible (though I don't see on what grounds, but that's ok, I'm not a doctor) as is my friend Caitlin who lives in London and spent time in Africa and Eastern Europe.

That confounds me.
 
IIRichard said:
I am heartened that Randi is doing well and applaud any and all efforts to help him and others undergoing surgery, etc. I would dearly love to donate blood but the Red Cross will not take mine.
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Yeah, this is kind of annoying. I couldn't donate blood for a couple of years because I had high bilirubin once. This was back in the days before Hepatitis C was identified, and it was considered Non-A, Non-B Hepatitis. After, I think, three years, I got a notice that since I hadn't seroconverted, I was OK.

I haven't had much desire to donate since then. But that's OK, because I had donated about three gallons over the years.

Anyway, most of what the Red Cross does with donated blood is to sell it and make money.
 
They won't take my AB+, because I have high blood pressure. What's the major side effect of donating blood? It LOWERS your blood pressure! Make sense to you?
 
They won't take mine either (damn hereditary anemia). Actually, probably just as well, since I hate needles and don't like seeing my own blood. I'm a big wimp when it comes to stuff like that.
 
epepke said:
Anyway, most of what the Red Cross does with donated blood is to sell it and make money.
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Probably true for blood through any source. Any out of date blood is not just dumped in the sink- it is used to make many blood product- platelets, Gamma Globulin, things like that. And I suppose the same hols for lots of the 'defective' donations too. Aand, the good stuff is paid for by the patient too, or his insurer.

And, if you have friends donate to your account, the Red Cross still charges for all the 'processing', hundreds of dollars per pint. I think the 'donation' amounts to a $32 discount.

Overall, the Red Cross is a very lucrative business. The head of our county group was getting paid $300,000- until that fact hit the newspapers.
 
I really hate needles and blood but I had an ex-girlfriend who was a medical student. She convinced me to donate blood and I used to go every month. This lasted for about a year until the Red Cross noticed how good I was at donating and they moved me to donating plasma.

This meant that instead of taking 5 - 10 minutes to pump out a bag of blood (believe me, I tried to get it over with as fast as possible), I then moved to a 45 minute procedure where my blood was pumped out, the plasma extracted and then it was pumped back into my veins.

I was finally saved by Mad Cow Disease. Since I'd spent 3 of my formative years in England I was considered ineligable to donate. You have no idea how happy I was when I found that out!
 
the red cross used to pester me constantly with phone calls tlike "there's a hospitalized baby who desperately needs your blood type!"

when you get to the donation center and there are 50 people there for the same baby you start to wonder if maybe they lied to you.

otoh they have successfully infected me with the irrational fear that if i do not donate there won't be enough of my blood type available if i ever need it, so off i go every 60 days or whatever the limit is.
 
Soapy Sam said:
snip................

I know squat about this blood problem you have. It seems a shame that the blood can't be used for testing or something if not for transfusion. Ye gods, if you must dump blood, do it yourself- this is not rocket science, you only need a sterile hollow needle, a bag of about 1/2 litre capacity and a bandaid!
snip................
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Let's see, I put a tourniquet on my arm one-handed, guide aroughly 12 gague needle into a vien (also one-handed) and let the blood flow into pickle jar.

Let me know when you've done it and I might try ;)

IIRichard
 
Hey- child's play. I removed my own spleen once, using homoeopathic accupuncture as anaesthesia.

Putting it back was a bugger.

I was pulling your leg just the teeniest bit.
 
IIRichard said:
Let's see, I put a tourniquet on my arm one-handed, guide aroughly 12 gague needle into a vien (also one-handed) and let the blood flow into pickle jar.

IIRichard
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Druggies do it all the time. But medical personnel are not one of their options.
 
The red cross do not pay you for your blood because when they did a lot of poor people would donate an excessive amount of blood under many names. This put their own health at risk. Plus the blood had a greater chance of carrying some decease.
 
rjh01 said:
The red cross do not pay you for your blood because when they did a lot of poor people would donate an excessive amount of blood under many names. This put their own health at risk. Plus the blood had a greater chance of carrying some decease.
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Makes sense. That would explain the american popular culture references to donating blood for money. In Norway you get some blood-donor gifts like branded coffee mugs and t-shirts. Are there any institutions in the world now that pay blood donors?
 
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