Zionist vortex of money and body parts to bake their matzah

[RandBlade]

That did make me laugh

[GGT]

No I don't have Aids thanks. Just my blood is really slow at coming out. Urgh, that sounds just as bad ...

Rand, your blood isn't 'slow at coming out'. But if you have a funky vein network, it can be hard for a phlebotomist to find the best one to pierce. That's all that means.

[GGT]

Good luck with that. The thing about these public-pressure campaigns to increase blood donation (etc), is that they're only effective at all while they're going on. Once the pressure's off, people return to their old habits and the path of least resistance. To overcome that, you need to somehow integrate the desired behavior with a new or existing habit, or incintivize the behavior.

And for what it's worth, people looking for charitable donations usually do everything they can to make donation easier and remove barriers to donation, the absence of which in donating blood is probably a big factor in why only 3% of people donate on even an occasional basis in this country. Convincing people to get grilled on their sex life and then stabbed for no compensation is a hard enough sell without adding in the need to drive somewhere and work around the Red Cross' schedule for the privilege.

An additional thought occurs along the "charity" lines, and it is that typically people are allowed to choose where their charitable donation goes, and not obligated to offer it up to any random asshole, or worse, a pool of random assholes who do harm to the donor.

Hell, just think, your blood may well have saved the life of a white-power banger or other anti-Semitic asshole.

If I could impose restrictions on who may have my blood to control for that factor, I'd probably be more charitable about the idea... but I can't, so it's staying inside me. If that makes me a "selfish dick," well, I've been called a lot worse, so I don't think I'll lose any sleep over it.

Given your personal adversity to blood donation, but having been in the military and knowing blood and plasma products are crucial....you should be a supporter of gummint R & D into synthetic blood products. Oh, wait, you're a Freee Marketeer, and believe private pharmaceutical companies will spend billions upon billions, just to make blood/plasma donation obsolete.

[Aimless]

why wouldn't they, the us government's shenanigans will keep such products in very high demand for the rest of our existence

[Dreadnaught]

Given your personal adversity to blood donation, but having been in the military and knowing blood and plasma products are crucial....you should be a supporter of gummint R & D into synthetic blood products. Oh, wait, you're a Freee Marketeer, and believe private pharmaceutical companies will spend billions upon billions, just to make blood/plasma donation obsolete.

Who said they are against that? Synthetic blood is basically a holy grail of medicine, only an idiot would be against finding that. It would likely save tons of money too. I think you're projecting things onto them that aren't true.

Sadly I've been told my blood is acceptable, but basically useless (I'm AB-).

[wiggin]

Sadly I've been told my blood is acceptable, but basically useless (I'm AB-).

If you have the time/tolerance, you're a great candidate for apheresis (platelet/plasma donation). You have very few anti-blood protein antibodies in your plasma which makes it ideal for certain patients (e.g. leukemia) - you are a universal donor to all Rh negative blood types. Donation is more complex (a needle in each arm) and much longer (1-2 hours, depending on a number of factors), but it's also desperately needed - these blood products only last for days, and they're nearly always in danger of running out. The big plus is that you generally don't feel as woozy afterwards compared to a whole blood donation - you lose relatively little RBCs in the process, so while you're a little hypovolemic, you're not missing much oxygen carrying capacity. The big downside is the time commitment, not being able to do much while you donate (normally they have movies to choose from, but you can't really read or anything, since both of your arms are occupied with needles), and the fact that you can donate every 14 days (so you get a LOT of calls). You do get a lot more personal attention, though, and if you go often you get to know the nurses (some of whom are cute ).

But if you're interested in donating blood products and are frustrated at not being able to do so, this may be worth a look.