My own daughter has had to sell plasma to pay her bills for the past 2 years and it breaks my heart. I had a heart attack in 2018 and am on SSDI. Still I found a way to give her $900 over the winter.
They can't/wont use hand veins for this, since they have to extract, process, and return the volume not used. IME they wanted an arm vein and only went after the inner elbow for the needle site. The hand vein likely isn't large enough to use for this purpose.
Donating blood is uncompensated to my knowledge, but donating plasma is definitely compensated, but very low. My wife was just complaining that the local donation center only offers $90/week, and that's with 2 donations. It's like 35 or something for one session, and a total scam for those who are desperate for money.
Yeah where I'm from you can't donate blood, plasma, platelets, your eggs or sperm, or be a surrogate in exchange for money. That was working okay for a while but after the pandemic hit they've become desperate for donors.
You could make $400 a month for 30 minutes a week. It was better than a part-time job, but definitely still a testament to the fact that we're all being robbed of our labor, seeing as how you shouldn't need it if you're a working adult.
Interesting fact though: plasma donation is an effective way of dramatically lowering PFAS and other "forever chemicals" as well as possibly microplastics in the bloodstream.
Got it. I was responding to the comments, which are mostly complaining about plasma being paid for.
The issue of someone selling plasma specifically to pay rent is obviously worse, but at least they get paid. No compensation at all for donating for-profit blood to "charities", which is way crazier and exploitative.
Boy Boy made a great video about this. A lot of the blood is actually going towards silicon valley tech billionaires who think other peoples blood can cure aging. Companys also sell the blood at a profit so it's not like they're actually better than the red cross who give the blood to actual hospitals. There is a reason we don't allow people to sell their organs. Giving too much plasma can be dangerous. It shouldn't be any different.
In germany there is a limit how often you can donate. I think that is something that every country should implement. If you can only donate 5 times a year there is no real medical problem with doing it.