It is a little-known activity on which a journalist, Kathleen McLaughlin, sheds light. In a book published in the United States, and in an article published by The Guardian, it looks at the donation and sale of plasma.
“A very rough estimate, inferred from the number of samples taken each year, suggests that up to 20 million people a year in the United States donate or sell their blood plasma, that yellowish liquid component of blood that contains proteins”, she writes.
“Americans’ blood plasma yields enormous benefits, adds the journalist. In 2021, globally, the blood plasma industry was valued at $24 billion.”
“As one of five countries where donors can be paid for their plasma – along with Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany and Hungary – and with a growing impoverished population, the United States is become a leading supplier of this bodily fluid from which lucrative drugs are derived.”
“Part time, well paid”
There would be more than 1,000 collection centers across the country, “often concentrated in poorer corners and student towns, offering donors hundreds of dollars a month if they go twice a week.” Advertisements highlight these advantageous conditions: “Part-time, well paid”, boasts an image in the toilets of a stadium at the University of Montana, to the attention of students.
The journalist had personal reasons for conducting this investigation. “I depend on plasma taken from other people, whose proteins give me a medicine that, for twenty years, has saved me from being in a situation of serious disability”, she explains. Saying that she feels a certain guilt at the idea of taking advantage of the economic difficulties of donors, she nevertheless refuses to turn a blind eye to this system.
