Health concerns for plasma donors

The location of a majority of commercial plasma donor sites near areas of known drug and prostitution activities means the likelihood of donors being from one of the suspect groups is increased as well. Studies have found that location has a great deal to do with who is willing to come to a site to donate plasma. In the past plasma donors often were students needing a few extra dollars to purchase a textbook or see a movie. Increasingly, though, plasma donor sites became a collection point for those people looking for a few dollars to feed their drug habit.

Health concerns for plasma donors are increasing at the same time that there is a world-wide increase in the need for plasma products. Both sides of the equation have real concerns. The clean legitimate donors run the risk of contracting disease through contaminated needle or equipment. The blood products collected may be contaminated by HIV/AIDS virus.

Before testing for AID’s/HIV was readily available, commercial donations of blood plasma resulted in thousands of units of contaminated blood to be used for the clotting agent needed by hemophiliac patients. This is just one of the health concerns for plasma donors.

Alternatively, a frightening situation has developed with the furor over ‘mad cow disease’. The concern is that a tourist or worker in Britain may have eaten beef infected and then come back to the U.S. and become a plasma donor. The legislation enacted in several countries prohibited blood donations by those who had visited Britain in the same way as visiting one of the Caribbean Islands or Africa prohibits blood donation due to AID’s.

Testing for AIDS is now commonplace, and will prevent continuing dangers of plasma donors giving blood products which have been contaminated. The concern about ‘mad cow disease” is much harder to deal with. At present there is no definitive test to determine whether a person who wishes to donate has the disease. The plasma centers have had to rely instead upon eligibility to donate being based on strict travel and residency requirements. This means that those who have lived or traveled extensively in the United Kingdom, those who have traveled in other European countries and members of the military or armed services who have spent time in certain European countries are not eligible to donate blood, or to participate in a commercial plasma site.

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