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Prospectus
Dollars For donors
Reeling from rock
Walk this way
Rehabilitating
   rehabilitation
You are here
Before her time
A fighting formula
Making a scene

Illustration:
Christina Ullman

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Used to be the only similarities among most major American holidays were a day off with pay for many workers and telecasts of popular sporting events. But recent times have offered another common thread to the three-day weekends that often come with a holiday: pleas by the Red Cross for volunteer blood donors. 

Nonprofit blood collection agencies such as the Red Cross have long struggled to keep their donor rolls full. One problem voluntary agencies face is competition from for-profit blood plasma collection centers, which pay donors an average of $9 to $20 per donation. 

For-profit centers traditionally have attracted members of the nation's poorest populations, including homeless people. But beginning in the 1970s, for-profit agencies began targeting college students, a strategy that research suggests is working today. 

A new Ohio University study of 411 college students age 18 to 22 found that 10 percent have sold their blood plasma to a for-profit collection agency at least once. In that group, three out of five are former Red Cross donors who stopped donating blood when they started selling their plasma. 

And most student donors don't need the money to get by, but are using the funds to pay for nonessential goods such as alcohol, cigarettes, and entertainment activities, says sociologist and study author Leon Anderson. His study found that the college students who sell their plasma are more likely to come from families with incomes of at least $50,000 and more often are employed in part-time jobs than other college students. 

"I would have bet that the poorest students would have had the highest rates of paid donation," says Anderson, an associate professor of sociology and anthropology. "I was stunned when that wasn't the case." 

There are more than 400 for-profit plasma collection centers in the United States, making this country the largest supplier of blood plasma products in the world. According to plasma industry officials, there are between 1.5 million and 2 million paid donors, 70 percent of whom donate regularly. Because the body replenishes plasma more quickly than whole blood, plasma donations can be made twice weekly, to a maximum of 104 times a year. Whole blood can be donated only about once every two months. 

The move to target college students was driven in part by for-profit agencies' desire to improve the quality of the blood plasma supply. A large percentage of paid donors historically have come from the underclass and homeless populations, groups that tend to suffer from malnutrition, drug and/or alcohol addiction, and a range of other health problems. 

"If you're looking for a healthy blood supply, you need to have healthy donors," Anderson says, adding that this is one reason for-profit plasma collection agencies began to target more affluent sectors of the population, including college students. 

However, Anderson's latest study found that paid student donors do not always lead healthy lives. Paid donors were more than three times as likely as non donors and four times as likely as Red Cross donors to drink alcohol five or more days a week. And while just one eighth of non donors and one-fourth of Red Cross donors were smokers, more than one-third of paid donors said they smoked cigarettes. 

"These two, admittedly limited, health-related lifestyle indicators suggest that student plasma donors may indeed have less healthy lifestyle practices than other students," Anderson says. 

Anderson is quick to say that his findings don't mean paid plasma donation should be eliminated. Research suggests the world's demand for blood and blood products cannot be met solely by relying on voluntary blood donations. Instead, Anderson says nonprofit and for-profit collection agencies need to work together with regulatory agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration to ensure that the quality of the blood supply is high without compromising the health of the long-term paid donors. Recent advocacy by the National Institutes of health for a council of health professionals, health care consumers, and industry officials is a step in the right direction, Anderson says. Such a group would examine and monitor the effectiveness of current blood policies.

For more information about this project, e-mail Leon Anderson at la935798@oak.cats.ohiou.edu .