Man donated blood every week for 60 years, saved 2.4M babies | Hacker News Reader

Man donated blood every week for 60 years, saved 2.4M babies

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22 pointskimsk11215 comments

I am AB+ and CMV- which makes my plasma particularly valuable. I have donated at the maximal rate for decades. However I am in a quandary because they do not test for Lyme or other tick borne diseases and I do thousands of hours of field work and live in the country so despite precautions (I recommend powdered sulfur over DEET) I get a non trivial number of tick bites. I am a biologist and my medical friends and I agree that both volunteered and paid blood donation in the US is mostly safe but riddled with illogical choices, managed by the wrong kind of organizations and generally ripe for disruption.

How do you take care of not getting Lyme disease, are you always in the look out for symptoms?

Can you tell me more about powdered sulfur to avoid tick bites? I'm very prone to ticks and can't handle deet and essential oils don't seem to cut it. What type of sulfur do you use and can it be used directly on skin or just clothing?

On the plus side I hear they are testing now in the North East for various tick borne diseases and Zika in the South on donations. Progress is just slow and the current tests are not perfect.

I and my fellow field biologists have never had a negative reaction to sulfur - but you might be sensitive, and this is not medical advice, etc. It works by slowly reacting to moisture and creating a toxic cloud of hydrogen sulfide near the skin which drives all arthropods away (even makes "seed ticks" - ie groups of freshly hatched ticks - jump off your skin if you already have them on you). In the past I could get "sublimed sulfur" or "flowers of sulfur" at pharmacies, but as it got hard to find I bought a large almost lifetime supply. Now I would look at one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dh...

(perhaps the Humco in particular). I create a powder puff from some powder in a sock which I keep in zip lock bag. Then I can knock the puff against socks, pants and skin.

The downside is that if you do this often and you wash your socks with your shirts, I have found that there are dance partners that can pick up a whiff of brimstone (not terrible but a little off putting).

> I am a biologist and my medical friends and I agree that both volunteered and paid blood donation in the US is mostly safe

For the non-biologists, can you elaborate on this? My understanding was that paid "donations" aren't generally considered to be as safe. For example, the GOA report (referenced at [1]) seems to say that California's plasma supply (which is not required to report whether the donors are financially compensated) had an HIV rate of around 5 times that of the red blood supply.

[1]: https://www.statnews.com/2016/01/22/paid-plasma-not-blood/

I agree that the deferments are often illogical, but from what I've read, I think non-payment makes sense. Blood banks are technically allowed to pay for whole blood, too, yet apparently no hospital would accept it, which leads me to believe it's not just a PR issue.

Thank you for the link, but there are a few details in the article that conflict with my understanding. Sadly I don't have time at the moment to do the research and write a well documented essay on this subject. I note that that the cited report was from 1997.

For now I'll limit my thoughts to just this:

It would be nice for donors and the general public if there was more transparency in:

the breakdown of end uses of the donated products the safety record of the products the risk calculations behind the deferment questions the accuracy of the blood testing

It's a nice contribution for the humanity, but I still don't believe that the 2.4M babies calculation is correct. Did his blood save the 2.4M babies or the blood of all the similar donors saved the 2.4M babies?

Also, how can he make so many donations? IIRC you can only donate blood every two month or something like that. Did they remove the plasma and return the red cells or they just made an exception because the rare condition and the good health?

He donates plasma. He's one of only approximately 50 people in Australia who have the necessary antibodies.

The 2.4M is possible if every donation produces hundreds of doses of anti-D.

However, if his blood didn't exist women just wouldn't have the additional kids as it would be known their body would attack the fetuses blood.

Odd the article doesn't mention CMV. He would have to also be CMV-negative (somewhat rare) to donate for children. I am CMV-negative and was aggresively courted for my blood (they never said anything about antibodies). I guess the difference is plasma vs full blood?

I used to donate at the maximum rate, but my veins got so scarred they they collapse when I do over head presses and my arms turn gray at the elbow. I have stopped donating blood. If they could be repaired and I could guarantee it wouldn't happen again, I'd restart.

I also used to donate blood, frequently (once a month) but not at the max rate. I stopped when the Red Cross started harassing me at all hours when I was traveling and unable to give blood. This was ~5yrs ago, and the harrassment continues. I've developed quite a database of numbers they call from. I wish there was another organization to donate blood to in the US.

You can try to find an NIH facility near you, thats what I do. They only let you donate every 45 days though.

thanks, I'll look into it!

There's also lots of regional blood banks. The one here is mostly a single person doing both outreach and the blood collection. She calls when I'm eligible to donate, but is also asking about my contact preferences on an ongoing basis (do you want to set an appointment now or call later or ...).

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