PRINTSelling your body?
Plasma donation: examining a growing trend
CHRISTINE MARTINEZ
Anthony Macon shows the spot on his arm from regular donations of plasma. The mosquito bite-like bump will eventually fade but probably never completely disappear. Macon says that in recent job interviews he has had to explain these marks to potential employers. Macon, who is currently unemployed, has been donating plasma twice a week for seven to eight months to offset the cost of gas and other extras such as dates with his fiancee.
June 17, 2009 | 12:00 p.m. CST
When gas prices exploded last summer, the surprise increase didn’t break Judy Duba’s bank. Duba, 55, was able to use supplemental income she earned by donating plasma to cover the higher prices; the extra costs weren’t carved from her regular paycheck.
Kirsten Weaver, 21, has also used money from plasma donation to defray incremental expenses. “I got married last summer, so it was a good regular income helping with that,” she says. Weaver also used the money to buy gas last summer.
Romantic endeavors were also where Mike Ford’s plasma money went. Ford, 22, began donating plasma in September 2008 to supplement his income from a part-time job at Starbucks. “I had to do it because I was kind of strapped for cash,” he says. Ford mainly used the extra cash to pay for superfluous expenses such as entertainment. “My girlfriend may not like it,” he says. “But I’m using the money for when we go on dates.”
Regular donating of plasma has become an increasingly popular source of extra income, especially at a time when many are seeing their financial wells dry up. The medical industry uses blood plasma, also known as source plasma, to treat a variety of health problems ranging from hemophilia and autoimmune disorders to burns and shock. The demand for source plasma led to the development of plasma donation centers such as Plasma Biological Services Inc. in Columbia, which typically compensate people about $25 per donation session for their plasma. Plasma Biological Services Inc. has been operating in Columbia since 1998, though there has been a plasma donation center in Columbia for longer than that — its parent company, Interstate Blood Bank, bought the donation center from another company in 1998.
Plasma can be donated more often than blood, which can only be given once every 56 days, according to the Red Cross. Multiple donors say that Plasma Biological Services Inc. allows its clientele to give plasma twice in a seven-day period provided that 48 hours pass between each contribution. Donors are usually paid $20 or $25, depending on their weight, for their first donation of the week and $30 for the second, for a maximum of $50 or $55. Some make a habit of selling twice a week, every week and net roughly $225 a month.
It’s no wonder plasma donation has soared in popularity: $225 isn’t chump change. It will buy 86.87 gallons of gas at current prices (and 56.25 at 2008’s summer high of $4/gallon), 15 16-inch cheese pizzas from Shakespeare’s, a plane ticket to Miami for Labor Day or the newest model of the iPhone (plus a contract).
“When I go in, depending on the time of day, there’s usually roughly eight to 10 people waiting,” says Lauren Peterson, 25. Peterson and her husband, Chris, started donating at Plasma Biological Services Inc. in February after seeing a notice in the Add Sheet offering special rates for first-time donors. Peterson and her husband made $30 for their first donation and $40 for their second.
Weaver has been donating plasma in her hometown of Joplin since she was in high school. Weaver attends MU and hasn’t donated in Columbia but visits the plasma center in Joplin on vacations, school breaks and weekend trips home.
Since high school, Weaver says she’s seen plasma donation in Joplin skyrocket. “The waiting rooms are always full [now],” she says. “My mom still goes. She said they’ve hired a bunch of people, and they have ads on the radio all the time telling people to come in and donate.”
Anthony Macon, 27, has been donating at Plasma Biological Services Inc. for seven to eight months and says he began because of a friend’s recommendation. “I usually come here about twice a week,” he says. “Really just to make a little bit of extra money.”
In exchange for the quick cash, Peterson, Weaver, Macon and others must sacrifice their free time. For repeat donors, the entire process can take up to two hours, about one of which is spent laying on a gurney with needles in their arms.
According to the Plasma Protein Therapeutics Association (PPTA), an advocacy group, there were 10 million total source plasma donations made in the U.S. at federally regulated and industry-certified source plasma donation centers such as Plasma Biological Services Inc. in 2005. The figure is the total number of donations, not donors. The 2005 figure of 10 million jumped to 12.5 million in 2006, 15 million in 2007 and from January to November of 2008 was 17.5 million total source plasma donations.
Kara Flynn, director of global communications at PPTA, says the increase in the number of centers led to the increase in donations. “We opened a number of centers — 60 plus centers [nationwide] were opened between 2005 and 2008,” she says. Flynn also says an economic downturn can play a role in increased plasma donation — in certain parts of the country. “In some regions the economy can be a part of it, but it’s not happening across the board,” she says. “It depends on the area.”
PLASMA: YOUR BODY'S MAGMA
There’s a reason why plasma is so sought after; it contains a host of vital proteins for everyday body function. Plasma is the liquid portion of blood, according to The Gale Encyclopedia of Science. It carries and moves important elements through the body such as nutrients, wastes, antibodies, ions, hormones and other molecules. Blood is composed of roughly 55 percent plasma. The other 45 percent is all red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets.
Plasma is culled from donors because the proteins it carries are vital to immune system health, blood clot formation and blood pressure moderation, according to Dr. Clay Anderson, medical oncologist and associate professor of clinical medicine at MU. Eight percent of plasma is protein — the most important ones are albumins, globulins and fibrinogen. Albumins help regulate blood pressure. Immunoglobulins, a class of globulins, are the antibodies that defend against bacteria and viruses. The plasma protein that helps the blood form clots is called fibrinogen, according to The Gale Encyclopedia of Science.
When plasma is donated, the donor’s blood is drawn through a needle into a machine, Anderson says. The machine separates plasma from blood cells and platelets, which are returned to the body afterward via the same needle. In addition, the water and salts that the body loses through plasma donations are replaced by a room temperature saline solution after plasma donation, also through the needle.
Anderson says the insertion of room temperature saline solution into the body is uncomfortable and cold, and that donors feel “wiped out” after the process. But both Weaver and Duba say they never feel tired post-donation unless they haven’t eaten sufficiently beforehand.
“You’re supposed to eat a full meal before you go,” Weaver says. “If I didn’t, sometimes I’d feel lightheaded if I stood up too fast. I would eat something or wait it out a little bit, and I would just go back to normal.”
After donation, a donor’s proteins are pooled with those of other donors and ultimately manufactured into therapies, Flynn says. Medicines derived from plasma proteins are typically prescribed to patients suffering from rare chronic and genetic diseases affecting the immune system or blood disorders such as hemophilia or von Willebrand disease.
Anthony Macon fills his gas tank with his fiancee, Heather Day, at the Break Time ...
Blood separated after centrifuging is divided into plasma, which rises to the top, and blood ...
SAFETY AND SCARS
Much of the concern surrounding plasma donation remains on the receiving end — there are worries of diseased plasma and unhealthy donors, Anderson says. Although all donation centers in the U.S. are overseen by the FDA, the PPTA addressed this concern by developing the International Quality Plasma Program (IQPP), which requires centers desiring certification to hold more rigorous standards than the FDA demands. IQPP-certified centers must check the names of potential donors against the National Donor Deferral Registry, a database with the names of people deferred from donating at IQPP-certified centers due to positive HIV, Hepatitis B or Hepatitis C test results. Other IQPP practices include educating donors about HIV and accepting plasma only from donors who are permanent residents of the area where the donation center is located.
IQPP has made plasma safer for recipients — on the flip side, what are the effects of dishing out your body’s essential proteins week after week?
Plasma donation could negatively affect those with high blood pressure or low protein levels, Anderson says, so the donor’s blood pressure and protein levels are checked every time he or she donates. These safeguards also serve to ensure the quality of the donated plasma.
Anderson says donating plasma is safe because a healthy human body constantly produces plasma proteins. After donation, vital proteins return to previous levels in a matter of hours to days, depending on the specific protein. The protein fibrinogen, which helps the blood to clot and is one of the more sought-after plasma proteins for treatment, is actually produced about 10 times in excess of what the body needs. Depleted reserves of fibrinogen, Anderson says, are regenerated rapidly as well.
“It’s actually very safe, and it’s true that within 48 to 72 hours everything has gone back to 50 percent or higher,” he says. “If you did it every day, which you’re not allowed to do, it would deplete the clotting factor to the point that your blood would become thin.”
However, Anderson also says that constant needle use is likely to leave a small, permanent scar in the crook of the arm, and some donors might be allergic or develop a sensitivity to the chemicals involved in plasma donation such as iodine and isopropyl alcohol. Regular donors would be repeatedly exposed to cleaning solutions as well as trace amounts of citrate EDTA or heparin, chemicals that keep the blood from clotting.
Although he considered donating plasma, safety concerns prevented Eric Westmoreland, 22, from ever entering Columbia’s plasma donation center. “I don’t know what their standards are for keeping things sterile,” he says. “And I heard it can cause some short-term and long-term medical effects.”
Westmoreland’s mother is a nurse, and he says she advised against donating for money and warned Westmoreland that it could put him at risk for contracting a disease. “She listed a whole slew of things,” he says. “Just anything that could be transferred by blood.”
A relative’s concern also interfered with Ford’s plasma donation. “I received a letter from my aunt with a $500 check, and it said, ‘I only ask that you stop selling your blood for money,’” he says. Ford says he never wavered on taking the money. “I thought that it would be completely unethical to accept this and continue giving plasma, so I stopped,” he says.
Conversely, Weaver says she never worried about safety in her five years of plasma donation. “They give you the whole 411 on possible risks that could happen to you, but I don’t even remember what they are because they’re so insignificant,” she says. “The worst I ever had was that my arm bruised up.” Bruising does not cause pain, Weaver says, though in her mother’s case she was unable to donate for two months until her bruise healed.
Peterson says her husband researched plasma donation and didn’t find anything negative, so the couple didn’t worry about donating. But she also says she has small veins that are hard to find and is concerned about scarring.
“That’s why we don’t go twice a week, every week,” she says. “We want to give our arms a rest. With me pricking the same area every time ... I don’t want to get a scar there, that would be bad. It wouldn’t look good.”
Peterson worries about scarring because she doesn’t want scar tissue to complicate access to medicine she may need in the future, but she also has another concern. “I wouldn’t want someone to think that I’ve ever done drugs when I was younger or something,” she says. “I’ve never done that and I’d never ever want someone to think that I had.”
TO PAY OR NOT TO PAY?
“Sold my plasma in Amsterdam/spent it all in a night/buying drinks at the Melkweg/for a soldier in drag.” The song “Eurotrash Girl” by Cracker is about a hedonistic European vacation; these lyrics illustrate one stereotype of those who sell plasma to make money.
Some worry about the quality of donated plasma that has been paid for. “It’s assumed that people who are going to sell their plasma are more desperate than people who would donate, so it’s considered unsafe until proven otherwise,” Anderson says.
Although he thinks some consider paying donors for plasma to be “unsavory,” Anderson says he also understands why it is done. “It’s a necessary evil in the sense that science needs human proteins to advance, and there probably isn’t enough blood and plasma donated to meet that need,” he says. “There’s a market for paying for plasma, and that market meets a need.”
To make $50 per week selling plasma, donors must submit to hours of waiting with a needle stuck in their arm and those pesky scars. But both Weaver and Peterson say it’s a quick and easy way to earn a few extra dollars. Although he donates for free to benefit his patients, Anderson says using donation as a source of income perplexes him.
“People have to be a little bit desperate to put up with several hours a week and needles and blood and feeling wiped out afterwards to get their $80 or whatever it is per session,” he says. “And if you’re doing it for donation, you get absolutely nothing except a cookie and maybe a T-shirt.”
Weaver says she doesn’t mind the time commitment to donating and likes the fact that she is doing something altruistic while making a few extra bucks. However, she doesn’t think everyone in the waiting room is on the same page.
“You see a lot of people who clearly are there because they need money and they may not always look like the most upstanding citizens, but then at the same time, it is still the donation that’s helping people,” she says. “In the end, they still give them the tests and everything.”
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