Recalling the medical facility, this plasma center, built just a year earlier, is filled with white lab coats, protective shields and medical gloves. Velcro sound and sound signals from blood pressure machines and the buzz of hematostats when they separate blood and plasma fill the air.
The appearance is all so sterile and clinically, but the workers here are not medically certified, they should only have a high school diploma, and they all learn from each other. Of the nearly 70 workers in this building, in addition to LPN nurses and one RN, certified phlebotomists (the medical staff who collect blood, plasma, and tissue from patients) make up 10% of the workforce, which is a sign of professionalism in taking blood and plasma.
As donors (people who give a voluntary gift of plasma) are processed, their vitality is taken and their appearance is evaluated according to the company's standard operating procedures (SOP). 38% of respondents came because they need money to help pay for food, rent or bills, 60% donate, because money complements their vacation or spending money, the other 2% came because they thought they were “Save of life. " Most of them are not your typical college students, but instead housewives, part-time workers or working poor.
Plasmapheresis (removal, treatment, and return of blood plasma from the blood circulation) began in the 1940s to assemble pharmaceutical companies from coagulants - there are now more than 500 donation centers in the United States and more are being built every day.
Buying and selling blood and plasma is a multi-billion dollar business a year. Plasma is more commercial than blood and cannot be synthesized. In 1988, more than 21 years ago, the industry was more than $ 2 billion a year, forcing the current figures to be staggering, but incredibly secret.
US federal regulation is more liberal than anywhere else in the world, allowing up to 60 liters (127 pints) per year. The next highest producing country is Canada, allowing only 15 liters per year, which is a recommendation of the World Health Organization. More than half of the plasma used in medicine worldwide is in the USA.
While US donors supply 60% of the world's plasma, foreign companies, such as huge mosquitoes, control the product from Japan, West Germany, Austria and Canada, flying to the US to pierce blood and plasma and then fly home to profit by them. Not only do foreign companies own most plasma collection centers, most plasma preparations are also sold abroad.
There are two different types of donations to the plasma ... the first is non-commercial. The largest will be the American Red Cross. According to FDA regulations, truly donated plasma and blood, without any means exchanging hands between the donor and the organization, is the only blood or plasma that can be transfused to people. If a person is paid any money at all, for their time or for their plasma, it cannot be used for "saving a life" as such. Since non-profit donation centers feed on the need or greed of global economic temperature, non-profit donation centers suffer. When non-profit donation centers are affected, those who need plasma: victims of burn, shock or injury turn around. Those who want to make humanitarian donations must donate blood and plasma at non-profit donation centers, such as the American Red Cross.
Donations that are “paid” for sales are sold to pharmaceutical and research companies and with the economic downturn of 2007–2009, plasma donation centers are growing with one of the largest Austrian pharmaceutical industry assistance centers, which provides a 19% increase in equity prices limits while other markets were falling.
The ethical question about plasma donations is expensive. Organ donation is not unusual, but bodily “donation”, which is supposed to help, rather than hinder human survival, is questionable when a large business is involved, and commercial donation of blood and plasma is a very big business.
Plasma, which is donated to pharmaceutical and research companies, is purified and transformed into drugs that "save lives." What is the cost of these drugs to those who die without them? From $ 50,000.00 to $ 80,000 a year, which can really change the slogan "We save lives" to "We can not live." Those who do not have insurance or state-funded support cannot afford medication or treatment, and without these “donated” treatment methods, die. Most of them are government funded funds, which means that taxpayers, donors or non-donors pay for the treatment of those who die without treatment, which is supposed to be a voluntary gift ... so say “Give while it is It doesn't hurt to be more applicable.
Commercial donation centers began targeting college students in the 1970s to improve the quality of plasma supplies. Companies assumed that college students should be healthier than the average population. In 1999, a study was conducted at Ohio University in which it was determined that donor health donors are not as healthy as they once thought. Paid donors are three times more likely than non-donors, and four times more often than donors of the Red Cross, drink alcohol five or more times a week. One-eighth of the non-donors, one-quarter of the Red Cross donors, one-third of paid donors to smoke tobacco. Consuming toxins or having an unhealthy lifestyle is not the only problem today, body piercings, tattoos and branding are other problems that also create unhealthy donation bases. Body art is not always visible and, if it is not recognized, it may not always be the subject of close attention by the donation center.
For donations, donation centers will pay $ 8.00 - $ 20.00 dollars for the first donation, and then, to encourage the donor to return, they will pay a higher price for the second donation for seven days.
Depending on the weight of the person, the donation center will accept 690 ml to 880 ml for each donation. Bottles with a capacity of 880 ml bring the price from $ 300.00 to $ 1,700.00 when selling to pharmaceutical companies. If there is something wrong in the plasma, if it is hemolyzed (filled with red blood cells), or if the plasma is lipemic (excess fat in the plasma), the plasma is sold to veterinary companies and brings a lower price to the donation center.
A payment donation in 2007 cost about $ 4.5 billion. Today, there are between 1.5 and 2 million donors in the world and are expected to increase significantly in the fight against the economies of 2009.
Due to the rapid growth in the industry, a corporation trains its workforce to accept donations, paying an average of $ 10 per hour. Usually the labor force does not have medical certification or medical training, unless they are one of the 8 LPNs or RNs that are hired. The licensed doctor covers the center with his license, but it is rarely seen on the center floor. He comes maybe once a week to sign the charts and watch the life forces take once on those who are trained, and then he turns off again, taking on only his reduction in the profit of the centers. Corporate training is not carried out by LPN or RN or even by a doctor, this is done by ordinary employees who do not have medical certification or license.
Corporate training consists of reading standard operating procedures in a conference room for several hours, sometimes days, then you are exposed to the floor with a trainer to monitor his / her movement. If you have an effective trainer, then you can work with professionalism, but if you don’t, then most medical historians (someone who takes vitality, rewrites medical information and does basic phlebotomy), and their bedside manner, and keeping records will go away wanting better, and donors do not receive the care they may need.
In this center, processing time is the task master. This center handled 570 donors in one day, an average of 390 clients per day. From the moment the donors register with the registrar until they scan, they are timed. Time is money in this industry. When fulfilling the life force, medical historians are given a maximum of 1 minute 21 seconds to complete the donor's processing and send them to the floor of phlebotomy for a donation that is not long enough to practice accuracy. There is no time to check your gloves for pollution problems such as plasma, mucus or blood, so donors are cross-contaminated every time they get to the center. Company policy states that gloves should be changed only when they are contaminated with blood, torn, cut or every two and a half hours.
That is, to save time between donors, and the crack of the whip comes from the managers, as they wait with stopwatches and pink slippings over their workforce slave linen. Medical historians are moving so fast to prevent 2 workers from getting infected in two months ... from filled but broken capillary tubes that have been tucked into the working skin through their gloves or through their lab coats and scrubs and skin. One contamination occurred when a medical historian tried to pull the hair out of his mouth and realized that she had just swallowed the previous blood of donors. Donors should ask specifically for medical historians to “change gloves” before they are allowed to do so.
Phlebotomists on the floor move just as fast. They have one minute to clean, find a vein and stick a donor. They can stick 3 times, twice on the arm, if there is no loss of red blood cells or the donor is at risk and needs saline, after which they can resort to emergency situations a third time. This leads to the likelihood of hematomas (blood that collects under the skin or in the body) for donors, large bruises by 3 inches and tender areas on the arm. Sometimes, because the donor must get stuck twice, both hands lead to hematomas. Donors must be treated for several weeks before they can return to donation, which makes the donation process an unreliable source of income for all.
When this center is working at full speed, processing 570 donors a day, most who work with the 8-hour shift are not allowed to take meals, and sometimes not allow breaks in the bathroom. The pace is fast and fierce, and as soon as donors are processed and the plasma returns to the laboratory, they disrupt the kits used and prepare for the next donor. The kits used can be dangerous, they are supposed to be tightly closed, but sometimes, if there is a hardware failure, the tube does not close completely, and when the phlebotomist pulls the tubes out of the machines, the plasma may burst and go into the face, unprotected hands and saturated clothing. The personal protective equipment required by OSHA does not always cover everything it needs to cover, especially since personal protective equipment is not equipped or not trained, so employees are in constant danger of infection, which occurred at least once within 3 months period of time in this center. For Workers, there are not only concerns, but also donors, as well as in this atmosphere. Since the center is trying to fill the beds as soon as possible, sometimes the beds are not cleared before the donor sits down, and donors may end up in the blood of the last donor.
In the US, there are 22 states that have the right to work, which means that in order to get a break for lunch and in the bathroom, they must be contractual or within the Union Guidelines, if this is not the case, the Department of Labor cannot provide breaks in the bathroom or dinners for workers. Of the 22 “Right to Work” states, plasma centers infest at least 13 of these states and create fewer plasma centers in countries that are not eligible to work.
Employees have a difficult time from 8 to 10 hours before them, not only long-term work without interruptions, but also work in an accurate and rapidly changing environment, as well as without certified medical training.
Because they have no workout and because the bottom line pushes ethics, sometimes labels are used. When the plasma is delivered to the lab, the lab has only 30 minutes to process all of these bottles. If a bottle leaks out, this bottle must be thrown away because it is polluted with air, if the bottles take longer than 30 minutes to process, before they are put into the freezer, they are thrown away, losing a lot of money. What happened in the past is that the lab technology will push the bottles to a longer process or the lab technology will process the air-contaminated bottle and simply wipe it, or instead of taking samples from each of the plasma bottles as requested by the FDA, they will open one bottle and take all the samples from one bottle ... because it saves time. These violations can close the center, but only if it is caught and reported to the FDA, which calls into question the cleanliness and usability of the plasma in the system and raises the question of contamination with drugs.
Workers who remain in this business suffer from leg problems, back problems, hip problems, headaches, varicose veins and neck problems that are not covered by Compman Workman, and conditions are not covered by OSHA after 3 months. This does not include the possibility of infection, which can lead to HIV, hepatitis or other infectious diseases. These are long-lasting illnesses and conditions with long lasting effects. Although there are only a few that remain in this area for more than 6 months, control positions are no better.
Supervisors also need jobs. They control operations to maintain not only the FDA standards, but also the company's SOP (standard operating procedures). Managers not only manage the course of medical historians, but also phlebotomists on the floor and incoming data. The supervisor must be trained and tested in all aspects of phlebotomy and medical history, as well as incoming data. If medical historians and phlebotomy work from 8 to 10 hours without lunch or a break in the bathroom, then the head works with 12 hours with the same conditions and with additional responsibility for catching all irrelevant events that can give the center a report on the incident with the quality that depending on the severity, the FDA may be informed if this affects public health.
When new donors get through the door, they should read the booklet “New Donor”, which has all the side effects, what to expect and some kind of documentation that they will have to sign. From the time of their registration, until they finished reading the book, even donors were timed, up to 10 minutes to read their legal package. After they have finished reading, they will be asked to enter two forms of identification, usually a current driver's license and a social security card will usually suffice. If the driver's license is not current or the address is not current, then a piece of mail that is valid for less than 60 days can be used to verify the address. Social Security must be verified with a Social Security Card, current tax information or a fee.
Plasma donors are usually unaware of the side effects and most likely say that plasma donation is safe in the long run ... the reality is that 7% of the human population has an anaphylactic reaction to sodium citrate or saline, from which they will need intravenous administration medication immediately. If they do not receive treatment within a few minutes, the reaction will be fatal.
In this center we have at least 5-6 smaller reactions per day, sometimes more. The immediate side effects can be fainting, bleeding, swelling at the venipuncture site, nausea, vomiting, lowering blood pressure, weakness, dizziness, blurred vision, coldness, sweating, or cramps in the abdomen.
If allowed to progress, side effects can tingle around the mouth or in the extremities, muscle cramps, metallic taste in the mouth, and further reactions can lead to irregular heartbeat or convulsions.
После длительных пожертвований 12% доноров будут иметь пониженный уровень антител, вызывая недостаточную реакцию иммунной системы и вероятность увеличения инфицирования или заболевания на всю оставшуюся жизнь.
Плазменные пожертвования могут спасать жизни, особенно когда они даются свободно и как гуманитарный жест ... фармацевтические и исследовательские компании хотели бы, чтобы публика верила, что они хорошие ребята, чтобы увеличить прибыль в этом многомиллиардном бизнесе, используя о щедрости некоторых и отчаянии и жадности других, рассматривая таких доноров, как Cash Cows, пасущихся в нижней строке.
Пожертвования для некоммерческих организаций кормят огненным штормом этических вопросов, таких как: «Если продажи человеческих органов аморальны, неэтичны и незаконны, то что делает продажу плазмы чем-то другим?» «Если вы собираете человеческий орган и держите его выкуп за тех, кто может заплатить цену за жизнь, если продавать его по высокой цене является неправильным, то не собирать плазму и продавать ее тем, кто умрет без нее то же самое? " Какова стоимость человеческой жизни? С 15 миллионами пожертвований в год индустрия плазмы каждый день смотрит на подарочную лошадь донора в рот и смеется до самого банка. У коммерческих компаний с плавающей прибылью есть беспроигрышная ситуация ... доноры дают свою плазму или практически дают свою плазму в отрасли, а кровь сосать, корпорации, занимающиеся сбором плазмы, могут развернуться и заплатить от 50 000,00 долларов США до 80 000 долларов США в год, чтобы позволить человеку жить , долгосрочные прогнозы затрат составляют от 3,7 млн. долл. США до 5,9 млн. долл. США на лекарства, которые позволяют одному человеку жить нормальной жизнью ... и теперь мы можем поставить цену на то, что человеческая жизнь стоит для плазменной промышленности.
