Yeah, i used to be a blood donor in the UK, but after living & travelling extensively in SE Asia i was told they didn't want my blood anymore, too much risk of something nasty.
Never followed up since coming to the US, but now sounds like the mad cow thing would stop me? As a student at that time in the UK i was eating a lot of cheap minced beef

 

Sounds like you probably wouldn't qualify.

Seriously though, don't bring this sh|t up in front of my wife or she'll blow her lid

-Brian

 

I used to donate blood, until I found out the profit margin for each bag of blood is in the hundreds of dollars. The blood donation industry is a multi-billion industry.

 

(re: anyone, feel free to call me on any of this, fact check or disagree etc., though I think I got things pretty square)

Source? And for the American Red Cross or other blood banks?

ARC keeps its overhead low by accepting only donated blood, and in turn charges less for its "product" (legitimate "handling fees" of a finite, relatively short lived substance).

It's a bit dense, but the organization's tax returns and accounting balance sheets are publicly available, here. Other blood banks may operate on a for-profit model (and if a publicly traded company legally must provide tax returns and balance sheets as well), though it may prove hard to compete with an organization that gets its main resource for more or less free.

If there's a tipping point of shear volume of resource begotten per price paid and profit made, I imagine it to be a vary narrow and volatile margin, with demand going from high to higher and higher in the wake of disasters for example.

And for any bank, is that shear net profit, or costs of extracting, testing, handling, storing and delivering (all the while paying people, often with specialized skill sets) of a highly perishable, limited resource presumed to be bio-hazardous until proven otherwise (really... it's AIDS in a bag until then), produced only by humans, and smaller still only given by a fraction of those able to, that saves the lives of others?

If it costs all that much, so be it. Between the moderate health benefits to donor (not to mention inclusive STD testing in lieu of donating - do you "know" you're clean or do you know you're clean?) and much greater effect on recipient, that's worth blood sweat and tears, minus he sweat and tears parts conveniently enough.

What can complicate and elevate costs on the hospital side of things are so-called "codes" that classify various materials, prescriptions and procedures for medical insurance purposes, but that's another can of worms altogether.

For as little an effort, imo, as it takes to donate, I'd feel bad taking any larger slice of the pie than I already do/is given to me - free juice and cookies, maybe a t-shirt and a sticker.

 

dammit Gleb, we all know you are an ex KGB soviet spy, dont try to fool us into thinking you ruskies arent after out precious American blood
!! -_-