Is Having Blood Taken a Poor choice
for your Health?
Bonedog - No. 19

"I can say with 100% confidence that having blood taken is not, in anyway, advantageous to your health" - Dr. Mason Andrews, Delivered America's first in vitro baby

"The buying and selling of blood has become big business in America - a multibillion-dollar industry that is largely unregulated by the government." - Dr. Robert Jarvik, Inventor of Jarvik-7 artificial heart

Read this article or skip right to the reasons.

Learn about what real people are doing to fight this corruption.

It came to my attention recently that many individuals are living under the false assumption that having blood taken is heathy. People professing this train of thought usually spew factoids about how the process forces your body to create fresh new blood, which apparently is better than your old blood. Well let's think about this...If giving blood was healthy wouldn't people be lining up to do it? Would not hospitals offer to just cut your arm and let you bled a bit at yearly checkups?

There is a reason that you are only allowed to give blood once every three months. It's because giving blood is terrible for you. When blood is taken from you intravenously your immune system takes a hit, exposing you to a great degree of blood born pathogens with fewer vital white blood cells to fend them off with. Let's not be selfish though, even if donating blood isn't good for you it's okay because you're helping people. You are helping people that really need blood or at least that what the mosquitos tell us.

The CEO of the Red Cross enjoying the fruits of its labor.

I hate mosquitos. The sneakily bastards bite me when I'm sleeping, stealing my blood and energy. In the morning I awake to find a small bump, a token of the mosquitos appreciation. Not all mosquitos have wings and fly around, some mosquitos masquerade cityscapes, colleges and even highschools in an attempt to leech human life-force. This mosquitos swarm is known collectively as the Central Blood Bank.

Many people erroneously think that collected blood is donated to local hospitals. This is incorrect. The Central Blood Bank is a company and like all non-profit companies they are in business to yield a profit. The Central Blood Bank sells blood to hospitals. SELLS them blood. They make money from your blood. Although some blood trade is regulated by the American Red Cross there is a massive spot market, similar to the oil market, where thousands of sales occur each year. The CEO of Central Blood Bank, is making $357,000 a year trying to come up with new ways to suck your blood. What a great idea for a company, your main commodity is virtually free, except for a snack-sized bag of pretzels or a complementary water bottle for every pint of fresh blood. A pint of blood is calculated to be worth roughly 120 USD on the free market.

"What began as a generous "gift of life" from people in Appleton, Wisconsin to their neighbors ended up as part of a chain of blood brokered to hospitals in Manhattan, where patients were charged $120 a pint. Along that 2,777-mile route, human blood became just another commodity."

"Each year, unknown to the people who give the blood, blood banks buy and sell more than a million pints from one another, shifting blood all over the country and generating an estimated $50 million in revenues."

"'He's [the CEO of a major blood bank] getting rich off our blood ,', says an employee who left the blood bank sometime back after working his term as a recruiter of donors"

If the corporate vampirism doesn't bother you consider this. People that give blood are three times more likely to become ill up to one month after giving a pint or more. Three out of every 100,000 people that give blood will get a blood-born illness from infected blood-bags or needles. Finally people that give blood regularly (four times a year) are 13 times at greater risk for diabetes II and stroke. It's your choice if to give blood. I suggest you save time and just cut your wrist at home and bleed a pint or two into the toilet. I guarantee it will be faster and you won't be contributing to corporate vampirism.

A few reasons giving blood is a terrible decision:

• Productivity Costs (On average the process takes longer than an hour.)

• Added venerability to blood-bourne illness (HIV, hepatitis hepatitis C) as well as viral haemorrhagic fevers due to equiment that has not been properly sterilized

• Decreased white blood cell count which leads to a compromised immune system.

• Possible infection at needle entrance wound.

• Some red blood cells are returned after giving blood. Done manually the is a chance the donor will receive the blood from a different person resulting in a serious transfusion reaction to take place.

• Hypovolemic reactions can occur because of a rapid change in blood pressure.

• Every time one gives blood they lose some of the iron it contains. Low blood-iron concentration has been directly linked with koilonychia and anemia; two diseases that cause chronic fatigue, muscular weakness and low blood pressure.

• Decreased hematocrit and hemoglobin levels

• There is a signifigant chance the blood you are "donating" is being sold for a profit to hospitals across the nation

• Net loss in well-being (nervousness, aniexty and fainting)

• Possible nerve injury, tendon injury, and thrombophlebitis

• A small portion of the population is allergic to sodium citrate which is used during blood donations to prevent clotting. There is no way to know head of time if one is allergic. If one is allergic they will experience violent convulsions and possible cardiac arrest.