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Blood donations have fallen to catastrophic levels. Experts say young people need to step up. (www.nbcnews.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Changes to the requirements for donating blood coupled with the pandemic have led to a drop-off in the number of teens and young adults donating blood.

It was a white T-shirt bearing the likeness of Snoopy wearing shades and leaning effortlessly against the iconic American Red Cross logo that prompted a surge in blood donations in the spring of 2023.

“Be cool. Give blood,” the shirt urged. The message — on young people, anyway — was effective. More than 70,000 people under age 35 responded to the call, rolling up their sleeves and giving blood in exchange for the coveted tees.

The need for blood is urgent. Over the holidays, the Red Cross had 7,000 fewer units of blood available than were needed by hospitals, said Dr. Eric Gehrie, the executive medical director of the American Red Cross. The organization speculated it would need about 8,000 additional donations every week in January to ensure that hospitals are fully supplied, he added.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I've donated only couple of years and then decided to give up since hospitals, even with social insurance, sell my blood to other hospitals and are making a bank. I'll happily donate to whoever needs my silly AB+ type, but giving it to others to sell, I want some of the benefits.

Am not sure what TP is, but it sucks they would just throw the blood out. Can't they at least extract plasma out of it or something?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

TP is therapeutic phlebotomy, basically modern day blood letting to treat hemochromatosis.

They can't extract the plasma because the equipment that does that is designed to be connected back into the donor's system to return their red blood cells, and the red blood cells is what I need to get rid of. They dont have any legal way of just, not hooking me back up to get the red cells back.

But it is silly, because surely you could just hook the "return tubes" up to a bag that then gets thrown out? There just isn't a policy or procedure that allows it. Or maybe there's a fundamental problem with the final blood product I don't understand as a layperson.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

That's really odd indeed. Then again when I got PRP treatment for my joints they tossed everything away apart from plasma.