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| Bleeding
for Dollars |
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| by
Rick Giombetti |
Not many people get paid to bleed, but I do.
I count myself among a small class of people,
about 400,000 nationwide, who earn cash selling
their blood plasma at the more than 400 plasma
centers nationwide. It's not a pleasant experience,
but it helps me get by.
I was a journalism student at Colorado State
University in need of money when I first sold
my blood plasma in May 1997. What I thought
would be just a temporary method of paying
for groceries has become a permanent source
of income for the foreseeable future. Whatever
the benefits of plasma-based products for
sick people, I do it out of economic hardship,
not magnanimity. The $45 in cash I make in
two weekly trips to the Sera-Tec plasma center
downtown - $15 for the first bleed and $30
for the second one, always paid out immediately
after the plasma is drawn - is not going to
pay my rent. It doesn't even cover my entire
shopping bill, but $180 every four weeks means
food on the table and money for rent for some
people.
During a visit to Sera-Tec a few months ago,
I met first-time bleeder Randy Toupes, 38,
of Seattle. Toupes, who is single and responsible
for two dependent children, works as a forklift
operator at Max West, Inc. in Seattle. He
made his first stop at Sera-Tec strictly for
the money. Like me, he was doing it because
he had to.
"If money wasn't an issue for me right now,
you could bet that I wouldn't be here," he
told me. "I have to borrow money from family
every now and then to make ends meet, and
I like to avoid doing that as much as possible."
Toupes' job gets him by, but there is no money
left over after bills come due the first of
the month.
Selling blood plasma should not be confused
with donating blood. An individual can only
donate his or her whole blood once every two
months. An individual can undergo plasmapheresis
twice a week. During plasmapheresis, a seller's
plasma is separated from their red blood cells
by a machine called a centrifuge. It's then
used to manufacture a myriad of medical products,
like Antihemophiliac Factor, a medication
used by hemophiliacs that enables their blood
to clot.
Since a seller's plasma will eventually be
used to manufacture medical products that
will be used to treat illnesses in others,
the eligibility guidelines for plasma sellers
are very strict. Only healthy individuals
aged 18-59 who weigh at least 110 pounds are
eligible. In this age of HIV, Hepatitis C,
and other diseases, a laundry list of behaviors
are strictly verboten: intravenous drug use,
having been paid or paying for sex anytime
since 1977, etc. You must live at a verifiable
residential street address in order to sell
your plasma. Also, for you fashion victims
in trendy Seattle, you can't sell your plasma
if you have gotten a tattoo within the past
12 months.
Other barriers are not so formal. If you don't
like needles, then a plasma center is about
the last place you want to be, since plasmapheresis
entails receiving a considerable puncture
wound in your arm. The hollow needle, through
which the blood is drawn, is inserted by a
staff medical worker called a phlebotomist.
While the Food and Drug Administration licenses
plasma centers, it requires no certification
to be a phlebotomist. Sera-Tec, for example,
is responsible for training its staff; this
particular center requires a medical background
for the job. The only job an individual without
a medical background can get at Sera-Tec is
in processing plasma sellers before they undergo
plasmapheresis.
In the two centers I have sold my plasma,
a NABI-owned center in Fort Collins and now
at Sera-Tec downtown, the needle insertion
has always been done with great precision
and care. It should be noted here that you
have to have a vein that is big enough to
encompass the diameter of the needle. Even
if your vein is big enough, it is no guarantee
that the puncture wound won't injure it. I've
seen blown-out veins; it's not a pretty sight.
Selling plasma is physically demanding work.
Not only do plasma sellers have to be able
to take getting poked with needles, they also
have to be able to endure losing roughly a
pint of a vital bodily fluid. I myself have
seen plenty of first-time sellers on the verge
of passing out before the required amount
of plasma has been drawn. I have never experienced
any side effects from selling plasma, outside
of a few hunger pangs. Eating plenty of food
before and after selling plasma is recommended,
and I have found it especially helpful. But
you can never tell how selling plasma will
affect your body until you try it.
Everything today is big business, and the
manufacture and marketing of biological medical
products is no different. Although the kind
of crowd that sells plasma is mostly working-class,
what happens to your blood plasma is a long
way from the plasma center floor, where you
watch Adam Sandler movies while bleeding with
your fellow working stiffs. When I bleed at
Sera-Tec, my plasma gets converted into marks,
as Sera-Tec is a company based in Germany
which was recently bought out by Baxter, the
multinational giant pharmaceutical company.
Sera-Tec is still in a contract to sell its
plasma to a Baxter competitor, German pharmaceutical
Bayer. It's listed in the Yellow Pages as
a Bayer Corporation plasma center. Alpha Therapeutic,
which has two centers in Seattle, one in Ballard
and one in the Rainier Valley, is based in
Los Angeles and owned by Japanese pharmaceutical
company Welfide. NABI is a Florida-based corporation
traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Once
you have agreed to have your bodily fluid
extracted, it becomes just another product
in the machinations of large multinational
corporations. |
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