• ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    It’s so much worse than you realize. All blood and plasma must be obtained by “donation” for obvious ethical reasons, but American prisoners get incentives for participation/punishment for non-participation. Private American medical companies make billions of dollars in profit every year selling blood on the international market, but the prisoners don’t see a dime of it. The sellers are so unscrupulous that they have been caught knowingly selling tainted prisoner blood, and continuing to do so after being caught.

    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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      2 days ago

      The events you’re talking about occurred from the 1970’s to 1983. They haven’t done prison blood drives or accepted plasma from prisoners in over 40 years.

      If you’ve spent more than 72 hours incarcerated, you are ineligible to donate blood products for 12 months.

      • Machinist@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Not OP, but I was unaware of that. That must have caused most all the AIDS that was caught through transfusions.