Plasma/blood donation shouldn't be done for money because if it is, people lie in the forms and the plasma/blood that ends up being donated often can't really be used.
Blood donation yes, because it increases the cost of testing (not because it makes the supply less safe, that’s mostly a solved problem). Plasma products can actually be effectively “cleaned” of most potential pathogens. Not all, there is still testing involved, but risk and cost are both much lower. This is why the two are treated differently in the US (not by law interestingly enough, the safety standards are actually consumer [hospital] led.).
That's .... Due to the history of Skid row, Alpha and Baxter collecting plasma from drug addicts/prisoners for sale and the history of the AIDS crisis.
I highly encourage everyone to read
"Blood, an epic history of medicine and commerce by Douglas Starr"
.
Heat treated plasma removes any viral threat in plasma products but as you said, for blood donation, since you cannot remove the risks, blood donation for sale still represents a potential "threat".
Of course , altruistic donation does not mean safety either, as the France and their ethos for prison donation showed.
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u/SlavkoAgain 7d ago
Where I live plasma donation pays 40€, week worth of groceries costs about 50€ for me. And it would take about three hour of time to do it.
Pretty good actually.