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Human Blood Substitute Could Help Meet Donor Blood Shortfall
Zothecula (1870348) writes According to the World Health Organization, over 107 million blood donations are collected around the globe every year, most of which goes on to help save lives. However, while the need for blood is global, much of that which is donated is not accessible to many who need it, such as those in developing countries. And of the blood donated in industrialized countries, the amount often falls short of requirements. To help address this imbalance, scientists at the University of Essex are developing an artificial blood substitute. It would be able to be stored at room temperatures for up to two years, which would allow it to be distributed worldwide without the need for refrigeration and make it immediately accessible at the site of natural disasters.
The reason that gay men typically aren't allowed to donate isn't because they're gay. Rather, it's because the sexual practices they often engage in, namely anal sex, happen to readily transmit HIV and other STIs. The higher prevalence of such carriers within the gay community further increases the risk of contaminated blood.
How do you propose this be dealt with? Clearly allowing tainted blood to be used is not an option. It does no good to have large amounts of unusable blood available.
Then i found out how much blood banks were making selling donated blood to hospitals and other places that nneded blood or plasma.
Then donate to the red cross. They are not selling it for a profit. People who won't donate for some perception of money changing hands -- should remember, that one day you may be on the other side of this equation, and dependent on some stranger to make a blood donation, as vital to your own survival.
The fewer donated units are available, the more expensive it will get, and the more people that may die, because the supply or money wasn't there to get them the transfusion they needed.
By law, all the blood donations in the US have to come from volunteers -- donors are not allowed to sell blood.
It is very expensive to administer a blood bank; there are a lot of costs involved in getting the product, maintaining the product, ensuring the safety of the product, and distributing the product.
Red cross says they do not charge for the blood itself --- but they do recover costs from hospitals for each unit distributed which they say are the costs of recruiting donors, screening potential donors, collection of blood by trained professionals, processing, storing, labelling, and the testing of each unit of each blood unit in state of the art laboratories.