Zombifying America's poor
Respondents all agreed that they were indeed being exploited, but in more ways than one. Desperate Americans are allowed to donate twice per week (104 times per year). But losing that much plasma could have serious health consequences, most of which have not been studied Professor Schaefer warns, stressing that more research is necessary. Around 70 percent of donors experience health complications. Donors have a lower protein count in their blood, putting them at greater risk of infections and liver and kidney disorders. Many regulars suffer from near-permanent fatigue and are borderline anemic. All this for an average of $30 per visit. Rachel described the terrible Catch-22 many of the working poor find themselves in:
I got turned away twice - once for being too dehydrated and once for being anemic. Being poor created a shitty paradox where I couldn't eat, and because I couldn't eat my iron levels weren't high enough to allow me to donate. That was a week of a pay cut, money I desperately needed for rent and bills and meds."
A common method of cheating in endurance sports is to inject extra blood into your system before a race, giving you a huge performance boost. But extracting it has the opposite effect, making you sluggish and tired for days. Thus, this debilitating practice is zombifying America's poor.
The process of giving blood is not a pleasurable one. Currier noted that after constantly donating, "the bruising gets terrible"Sometimes they can't find the vain 'n' sh*t or they insert it wrong and they have to adjust the needle underneath your skin" she said, claiming that just thinking about it freaks her out, and revealed that her husband had to temporarily stop donating as his bosses thought he was on heroin due to the track marks on his arms.
Watkins agreed. "You could always tell how long someone had been doing the job by that needle," he recalls. "Once they'd been there a year or so, they'd have stabbed literally thousands of people and could just tap your elbow once and slide the needle into the vein with no problems. New guys would miss the vein, punch through the vein, or try to hunt for it with the needle tip, which would leave terrible bruises."
There is also little thought for the comfort of the patients. As Watkins explained, the thermostats are always turned down to around 50-60Â ºF for the plasma's sake. Once the amber-colored plasma has been extracted, your cooled blood is re-injected in a painful process that feels as if ice is being inserted into the body. "Combined with the already cold air temperatures, this was maddening," he notes.
Thus, America's zombie poor are left almost permanently mentally drained like heroin addicts, and with similarly bruised and punctured arms, except they are being paid for the inconvenience. But perhaps the worst thing about the experience, according to those interviewed, is the dehumanization of the process.
Donors are publicly weighed to make sure they are heavy enough. Obese people are worth more to the bloodthirsty companies as they can safely extract more plasma from them each session (while paying out the same compensation). "They definitely turn you into a product in a very literal sense," Watkins says; "It's deeply exploitative and a symptom of just how far gone capitalism is."
Many centers are enormous, with multiple rows of dozens of machines working in an attempt to appease the insatiable appetite of the vampiric corporation. And there is, according to Watkins, no lack of human "victims" willing to be treated like animals in battery farms, in exchange for a few dollars: "It was an assembly line to extract liquid gold from human mines," he notes.
Currier also highlighted the treatment of the staff and the cost-cutting measures of clinics in Maryland she visited would enact:
Exploitation reaches new levelsUsually the places are hugely understaffed which means they frequently don't change gloves, the people are overworked, and at the minimum you're staying there for 2-3 hours which means you have to plan a whole day around this sh*t only to get 20 bucks in your pocket to make it through the next few days. It's depressing, disheartening and frankly embarrassing to have to hustle like this. I feel like sh*t after I donate."
But the exploitation of humans has reached new levels in clinics on the U.S.-Mexico border. Every week, thousands of Mexicans enter the U.S. on temporary visas to sell their blood to for-profit pharmaceutical corporations. The practice is banned on health grounds in Mexico but is completely legal north of the border. According to ProPublica, there are at least 43 blood donation centers along the border that prey primarily on Mexican nationals in a legally ambiguous practice.
According to a Swiss documentary on the subject, there are precious few checks on the cleanliness of the blood these companies accept, with some donors interviewed admitting they were drug addicts. But all is sacrificed in the pursuit of dazzling profits, something donors were well aware of. Rachel from Wisconsin admitted,
I did it for the money, I think we all do it for the money, but it's not really something you out and out say because there's a veneer of "helping the sick" slathered over it. But I caught glimpses of what kind of industry it was on occasion through innocuous questioning. The amount of plasma drawn from one person per donation was worth upwards of $600, I never really got a clear answer on that.
Andrew from Pennsylvania agreed, noting wryly,
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