Blood For Extra Credit Points Offer Raises Eyebrows In Test-Mad China

An anonymous reader writes Parents in China's Zhejiang province can give their own blood to earn some extra points on their child's high school entrance exam. Four liters of donated blood will get your child one extra point; 6 liters adds two points; and 8 liters, three. From the article: "The policy burst into the national limelight this week, when a Weibo user posted a photo of a bandaged arm, saying, 'For my future child, I say one thing: Relax when you take the high school entrance exam. Your dad's already helped you gain points.' The post was widely shared. Though the user declined to be interviewed by China Real Time, he also clarified his original post, saying that he had in fact been giving blood since age 18."

Comments

4-8 LITERS?!

[itsenrique]

Man that's a lot of blood.

Re:4-8 LITERS?!

[i kan reed]

Yeah, most people don't even have that much blood.

Re:4-8 LITERS?!

[ShanghaiBill]

... 16.5 liters, or a bit over 4 gallons.

I got you beat. Last year I made my 80th donation, and was admitted into the ten gallon club. the Red Cross gave me a FREE T-SHIRT to prove it. Anyway, China has a big problem recruiting blood donors. There is a strong cultural taboo about losing blood. Even in America, where hospitals try to match patients with donors by ethnicity, there is a big shortage of Asian blood. My wife is Chinese, and she objected to me donating blood, insisting it would shorten my life, until I showed her that there was plenty of evidence that donating blood is good for you and may lengthen your life.

Re:4-8 LITERS?!

[GameboyRMH]

Keep in mind these are asians we're talking about, and according to their action movies and cartoons, they have about 10 gallons of blood stored under high pressure :-P

Re:4-8 LITERS?!

[Frobnicator]

So those medieval barber-surgeons were right, and blood-letting has health benefits after all?

Simply: Yes.

Regular donations help (causal relationship) with iron balance since you cannot donate if iron is low and it reduces your iron if it is high, can (causally) help slightly with weight loss as you lose a glob of body material without kidney filtering plus it works to replace it, is associated with (correlation) reduced risk of certain cancers, associated with (correlation) reduced risk of heart attacks, and is associated with (correlation) a slightly longer, higher-quality life. There are also short-term benefits for issues like high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and other metabolic problems.

Re:4-8 LITERS?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you're gay or bisexual in which case they don't really need the blood that much.

I used to love donating, but I got tired of being treated badly by the staff. Being required to ask questions that had no public health benefit in order to donate blood. I could literally have unprotected anal sex with an HIV infect prostitute in exchange for drugs and I'd eventually be allowed to donate again, assuming I didn't contract anything. But have sex one time with a guy's husband who doesn't have any communicable disease and you're struck from the list for life.

China is obviously a different culture and a different set of challenges, but if the blood banks in the US need blood that badly, perhaps joining the 21st century and stop turning down qualified blood donors would help.

Re:4-8 LITERS?!

[quantumghost]

... 16.5 liters, or a bit over 4 gallons.

I got you beat. Last year I made my 80th donation, and was admitted into the ten gallon club. the Red Cross gave me a FREE T-SHIRT to prove it. Anyway, China has a big problem recruiting blood donors. There is a strong cultural taboo about losing blood. Even in America, where hospitals try to match patients with donors by ethnicity, there is a big shortage of Asian blood. My wife is Chinese, and she objected to me donating blood, insisting it would shorten my life, until I showed her that there was plenty of evidence that donating blood is good for you and may lengthen your life.

Ummm.... I work in a hospital and order blood fairly regularly for my patient population. There is no way to specify the "ethnicity" of blood. Blood is "typed" for major antigen (A,B,O) and "crossed" for minor antigen or factors (Rh, Duffy, Lewis, Kell, MNS, P, Hh, XK, Etc). Now, different "ethnicities" have different distributions of antigens which may make it more likely that someone of the same ethnicity matches, but no-one transfuses "ethnic-specific" blood.

And for the record the typical human has about 80 cc/kg of blood (e.g. the "mythical" 70 kg (154 lb) adult has about 5600mL (5.9qts ~1.5 gal) of blood).

Let's Blood Let for the sake of the child!

[lmcgeoch]

That takes helicopter parenting to a whole new level...

Question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it have to be your own blood?

Where my points?

[methano]

I've given about 90+ pints over the years. Too bad my kids are out of college. I guess I'm not in China either. Maybe we could institute some Social Security points so that I could retire earlier.

Re:Where my points?

[FooAtWFU]

You could just suggest paying blood donors. It would simplify a variety of things.

Somewhat useless without percentage

[raymorris]

> Four liters of donated blood will get your child one extra point; 6 liters adds two points; and 8 liters, three.

That's significant if the scores go to 36, like the ACT test. If the max score is 2400, like the SAT, an extra point or three hardly matters.

Re:Maybe not so silly

[turp182]

It's a slippery slope (because of all the blood).

If it is used to "predict future results" then the conversation may become "We need your parents to give X units of blood for you to get an A on the upcoming test."

Re:Maybe not so silly

[danlip]

Although perhaps the child with the least supportive family who needs the most help, e.g. affirmative action. Isn't China supposed to be communist?

Something new

[dingleberrie]

Finally! A form of bribery that almost anyone can afford.

Re:Something new

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Really? Rich guys would enlist others to donate blood in their names.

During the Civil War the Confederates instituted the draft and conscripted their citizens. The rich people paid 300$ to make someone else (usually people who had already served their draft) enlist on their behalf. I think there was one case of one enterprising Southerner who enlisted several dozen times (and then deserting at the first opportunity).

Good!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi all,

Medical student here. Two points:

1) This happens in the USA as well; my upper division undergraduate biology courses ALL offered extra credit in exchange for blood donation (or proof of rejection by blood collection centers), though in this case by the students themselves. For minors, substituting donation by the parents makes sense.
2) There is a desperate need for blood donation. Blood substitutes don't work nearly as well as the real thing. As with organ donations, there is far more demand than supply. It saves lives.

Personally, I think the net effect is positive. Linking an important but undervalued action (blood donation) to a highly valued outcome (university admission scores) makes sense.
With the caveat that the execution is well thought out - eg, easy access to donation such as on-site donation drive timed with normal parent activities; award of points to students who can document their inability to donate or parents' unwillingness to donate, with documentation no more onerous to obtain than donation; limiting of effect on score to be more symbolic than a strong determinant of admissions; other things that further consideration would bring out.

I see some highly moderated comments on here building up straw men and then knocking them down. Good job guys.
"Slippery slope" - yeah, it's the name of a logical fallacy for a reason.