Give Blood or go to Jail

[s_stabeler]

The issue, ultimately, is more fundamental, it seems.

How far should it be possible to go in verifying donated blood is safe to use? A questionnaire? requiring people donating blood to undergo medical tests to verify they are able to donate? Allow access to their medical records?- this is not just an issue with donated blood where an incentive has been provided. ( as demonstrated by the fact that in the UK, a while ago it was revealed that blood donations were a vector for transmission of vCJD- as a result, nobody who has received donated blood in the UK since 1980 can donate blood in the UK. ( I don't know about the restrictions abroad))

because I think we can all agree that if it can be verified that someone who donated blood for a scheme like in the OP knew that their blood would be unusable, they should not be entitled to credit towards their fine. The issue is where do you draw the line on checking for people who are trying to beat the system. ( and, for that matter, how do you account for people who'se blood can't be used, but didn't know.) Since donated blood, ultimately, can spread various blood-borne diseases, then I personally favour being strict about letting people donate blood for incentives- if you want to, you need to prove, for 100% certain that your blood is usable. (it's also why, in the event it can be proved someone deliberately lied to be able to donate blood when they knew they had a blood-borne disease, I personally favor that being either a civil, or even criminal, offence. ( under the justification that you are deliberately trying to spread a disease. Similar to how people have been sued- or even prosecuted, I believe- for concealing their HIV positive status from people they were having unprotected, as it happens) sex from ( unprotected matters in this case, since it means they weren't taking even basic precautions to avoid spreading the disease. Even if you use protection, you should really tell someone before you have sex with them.)

[Shangri-laschild]

How far should it be possible to go in verifying donated blood is safe to use? A questionnaire? requiring people donating blood to undergo medical tests to verify they are able to donate? Allow access to their medical records?- this is not just an issue with donated blood where an incentive has been provided. ( as demonstrated by the fact that in the UK, a while ago it was revealed that blood donations were a vector for transmission of vCJD- as a result, nobody who has received donated blood in the UK since 1980 can donate blood in the UK. ( I don't know about the restrictions abroad))

I'm in the US and my mom can't donate blood because she spent a year and a half in the UK during a certain span of years with the CJD stuff. My dad can't donate blood because his uncle had CJD. My sister and I can't either because of that unless a $1000 test is done to see if we have that gene or whatever that is connected to it. Most people at blood drives where I work don't even know I can't donate and will try to flag me down. Even after explaining to them, half the time they don't believe me and say they can check with their supervisor because they've never heard of that restriction. I usually tell them to go ahead and it always comes back with the same answer of no like I was expecting. That's another potential problem really. You have all these workers who don't know all the things that could disqualify you which means probably there are plenty of people who don't realize they can't donate for various reasons. If they don't even know about it then I have to wonder if it's even mentioned on the questionnaire. Hell, I don't know that my dad even ever met my great uncle, it's just a family story because of how weird of a thing it was. If I didn't know about him, I would have no clue that I couldn't donate.