How to Respond to People who Question Plasma Donation Ethics

While some think it is unethical to pay donors for the time they spend donating plasma, they cannot deny the irreplaceable value of plasma, nor the fact that volunteer blood donations do not meet the need.

Plasma saves lives. Voluntary blood donations are down 60%. Other countries that ban paid plasma donation import plasma from the US to supplement the plasma they get from whole-blood donations. The truth is, live-saving drugs depend on the generosity of paid plasma donors.

We think it is right to compensate donors for their time, effort and generous, life-saving gift.

1. Maybe it’s less ethical to NOT pay donors

The plasma industry pays donors for the time they spend getting to and from the plasma center, along with the time spent making their donation. We think this is proper, and making people volunteer, as the whole-blood donation industry does, actually takes advantage of people who want to help others.

Our donors help other with the irreplaceable gift life-saving plasma, and we recognize their effort and generosity.

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Plasma-derived therapies are used in everyday medicine and emergency and critical care situations, such as burns, shock, trauma, major surgery, RH incompatability, cardiopulmonary issuses, organ transplants, pediatric HIV, hepatitis, liver conditions, animal bites and auto-immune diseases.

2. For now, there is no other way to get the plasma needed for life-saving drugs

Plasma-based products are used for:

  • Preventing hemolytic disease of the newborn (for Rh-negative mothers)
  • Immunizations against hepatitis A, measles and polio
  • Treating people with shock due to blood loss
  • Treating some primary immune deficiency disorders
  • Preventing blood clots during surgery or childbirth
  • Treating patients with hemophilia B
  • Treating people with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP)

Therapies created using the proteins in plasma restore healthy proteins and treat people with bleeding, clotting, lung, autoimmune, genetic, and other conditions, such as:

Source plasma is also used for:

  • Tetanus, rabies and whooping cough treatments
  • Burn treatments
  • Organ transplants

Over 125,000 patients benefit from plasma donations each year in the United States alone. Suffice it to say, a plasma donor has helped someone close to you.

While synthetic plasma is being developed, none is on the market yet.

Donors literally give the gift of live.

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The supply of blood products in some countries, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean, remains below the minimum levels recommended by World Health Organization. Other countries rely on plasma donations from the US to meet their needs.

3. The truth about whole blood and plasma donations

It takes 20 whole blood donations to make the antithrombin concentrate needed to prevent blood clots in one person during surgery or childbirth. It only takes 13.9 plasma donations.

With both voluntary and paid blood product donations down after COVID, medicine needs every unit of plasma our centers can provide.

Countries which we will not name here do not allow their citizens to be paid for their time donating plasma, yet use US-donated plasma to make medications. They claim their plasma products come solely from whole blood donations, which is not always the case.

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THOSE WHO CRITICIZE THE PLASMA INDUSTRY ARE OFTEN NOT AWARE OF THE ROLE PLASMA PLAYS IN TREATING DISEASE AND HELPING BURN AND TRAUMA VICTIMS. THEY MAY ALSO NOT REALIZE THE CHALLENGES FACING AGENCIES THAT DEPEND ON VOLUNTEER WHOLE BLOOD CENTERS. PLASMA DONORS ARE HEROES!

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To streamline delivery and control costs, we take a prototype approach when possible, engage local civil engineering consultants for each project, and establish a working relationship with the local governing authority.