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It's sad but true.

As much as i know blood is needed, I haven't given blood in years. If I got into a car accident on the way home they'd sell it back to me for an absurd rate. Fuck them.

Whole blood is not sold for profit, but organizations do charge hospitals a handling fee to cover operational costs... but I just realized as I was typing this that you aren't talking about the organizations that collect blood, but the hospitals.

I looked up what it generally costs for a one-unit (1pt, ~470ml) blood transfusion, and it's over $2000! I'd like to think that all the blood and platelet donations I've made over the years had saved lives, which objectively they probably did. But now knowing how much hospitals and insurance companies are profiting off of the act of donating makes it feel less like a selfless act of compassion and more like cattle being herded into a milking parlor.

In the US they’ve changed those questions.

O negative is one of the most valuable blood types. So they obviously want it.

If you're O- you're going to be begged to donate for the rest of your life now

An O- friend of mine donated blood ~10 years ago before learning he can get paid for plasma donations. 10 years of regular plasma donations (and no blood donations), he still gets monthly calls asking him to donate blood

Gotta make ends meet though. Free cookies and juice don't pay rent

I used to joke that the reason I donated was to reduce the microplastics in my blood. I feel so pleasantly vindicated now.

That's if you consume non-contaminated fluids and solid foods, right?

That's the terrifying thing about prion disease. It can lay dormant for decades then just pop up and kill you. Might be tomorrow, might be when you're 83.

I lived in Germany in the 80s and early 90s, and I can't donate blood still

Because ultimately it is needed to save someone's life, and there's no other way allowed to get it to them.

Because it's painless, barely takes any time, and can save a life.

I try to do it whenever I can, but sadly recently tats and piercings are a common disqualifying factor.

O positive is the most common blood type, and apperently O-neg folk can handle O-pos once, so O-pos is generally the most commonly used for a crisis. Source: MD partner just checked openevidence Edit: O-pos is 40% of the population, O-neg is 6%, so they prefer to use O-pos. The real risk is just not having enough blood. Reading more, some 2019 source says only 1 in 2 million O-neg would die from O-pos blood. So really, almost everyone can use O-pos

They're just looking on the bright side, stop with the negativity. /s

Most donor blood is O+

O- is great because it is (almost always*) usable by anyone of any blood type, but only like 7% of people have it, so the overall supply is not very high and it’s typically reserved for emergencies and O- patients.

O+ can be given to most people because most people have O+ blood. Something like 30-40% of people have O+ and can thus receive O+ donations. All the Rh+ blood types can receive O+ blood too, which accounts for the vast majority of people. A+ is something like 25-30% of the population and B+ is like 10%. Altogether, O+, A+, B+, and AB+ make up probably about 75-85% of the population, and all of those people can receive O+ blood donations, thus the supply of O+ blood is the most-needed most of the time.

Obviously they also want as much O- as possible too. Hell, they want all of them all the time except AB type blood from females.

*Blood typing is actually a lot more complicated than A/B antigen and Rh factor, so some people with certain antigens need very specific donor blood or autologous blood that they donate themselves prior to a procedure or whatnot.

Doesn't that attract vampires?

I agree in a high-level sense - people should be incentivised to give, and those who receive should not be charged. They shouldn't necessarily be connected, though.

The incentives are all fucked up, you would need loads of exceptions, and it would introduce a whole lot of excess red tape for not much benefit to either side.

What about people who can't donate blood, or can't do so without great inconvenience? Where do you draw the line for moral responsibility?

What about people who have a phobia of needles, suffered from medical abuse, or have adverse reactions to donating blood that makes them sick for a few days or weeks?

If we are talking about people who contribute to other's health through their own bodies, does that mean every mother is at the top of the list because birthing a baby is a contribution to another's health?

What about medical workers working 12hr shifts and completely wrecking their own bodies in the process? Is that a lesser contribution than someone who donates blood once a month? To go further, where would you put a factory worker with repetitive strain injury who makes the medical equipment that is essential to treating others?

If we want to allot the use of blood based on one's contribution of their bodies, we have to first ask what it means to contribute. No donor lives in a vacuum. If you can donate blood, it means you are supported by circumstances that leave you in good enough health to donate blood.