It's a blood drive, not a competitive sport!

The BBQ Pit
1

From this story.

It seems that a certain sorority put a LOT of pressure on its memberships to donate blood so that their university would keep its record. To that end, the blood-drive coordinator sent an e-mail to the membership urging them to lie about their health status so they could donate. Tattoos or piercings? No new ones. Cold? Naw, it’s just allergies. Recent travel to Europe? Nope. And so forth.

It’s not bad enough that blood-donation policies discriminate against gays, eliminating a huge population of donors right there. It’s also not bad enough that blood-services agencies have a difficult enough time finding responsible donors.

Finally, and this is what’s got my blood boiling (Pun intended): Donated blood is intended for use in sick and injured people! Do any of these people stop to think about this? Great, fine, wonderful! The University of Missouri-Columbia looks wonderful when over 3,000 people give blood! How many of these units will be unusable because the donors lied? How many people will be denied blood because some twit thinks it’s okay to force people to donate? How much time and expense will the blood-services agency waste, collecting the blood of people who know their blood isn’t safe?

If there is any justice in the world, the sorority sisters should hold a fundraiser to make restitution to the Red Cross for their selfish, wasteful actions, along with community service to the RC.

Oh, and if I were the university, I’d definitely re-assess the literacy level of the blood-donation coordinator, Christie Key:

Robin

2

Wow, that is pretty outrageous! I don’t give blood because I’m on the banned list (Mad cow, anyone?) and I would never DREAM of donating just to look good! If you can’t donate blood, donate MONEY. They need that too, to pay for the needles, and blood bags and such that idiots who LIE in order to look cool WASTED for the Red Cross.

I hope there’s some sort of punishment doled out to this idiot sorority blood drive coordinator - tampering with the blood supply or something. Is that a crime? It should be, if it isn’t. And several hours of community service. The great thing is, they did this to make their school look good, and now they look like selfish morons. If it wasn’t for the fact that legitimately donating blood is a necessity and the RC should take whatever safe blood they can get, I’d almost wish they never returned to that campus, and made sure everyone knew why!

3

The real crime here is that this nitwit is a sophomore in college and can’t spell or punctuate.

4

Is there any chance that there will be a punishment to fit the crime?

If anyone connected to this fiasco has got a shred of intelligence and/or decency, then that record should be struck from the books.

5

That discrete “do not use” sticker is a great idea. My mom got it in her head that we should all go give blood. My brother can’t because he’s had sex with a man since 1970 (or whatever). He could still give and my mom was none the wiser.

As for the article… well… I guess they should all burn. yeah. burn.

6

That record is from 1999.

7

Waaaaaaaaay back in the day, I went to elementary school for a while with a girl named Christie Key. She moved to another state (not MO), but I’m wondering if it’s the same girl. She would probably be in college right about now.

8

In Canada, from the time you walk in the door to donate until the time your tested blood reaches the hospital for patient use, it costs about $470C. For your ONE donation.

If you lie and donate anyway, and allow your blood to be used (ie, not using the little sticker saying to trash the unit), and a red flag is raised in testing because of a virus, or what have you, the cost jumps 20 fold. So instead of it being ~$500, it is now ~$9K-$10K. Why?

Well when blood is tested, it is done by blood type in batches of 20 or so. (might be different in the Us, though the principal is the same). this is a much more cost effective way of testing over the long term since the majority of donations are clean.

As you have noticed when you donated, 4 test tubes are also filled with the bag. One tube is used for original testing. When there is a red flag in that batch of 20, ALL 20 units that were tested need to be individually screened at a cost of about $400 a piece to see which unit is the one that is contaminated / setting off the testing markers.

So now, instead of you looking cool in front of your friends, or you pressuring your friends to donate, not only have you taken a bed away from a legit donor, you have just taken the time and resources away from tests that could have been done on 400 more units of blood (20 tests of 20 instead of 20 tests of 1 to find the offending unit(s).) This means that if there is a shortage of the particular blood type you have donated, it takes that much longer for more to get to the hospital to reach people in need, as well as cost John Q Taxpayer $10,000 that is no longer being used to save lives, but instead to cover the costs of your lie.

So, before you complain about not being allowed to do your god given right to donate blood because of certain restrictions that are placed on donating, please don’t lie to go ahead anyway, or claim to be a martyr cause you can’t be the big man of the day. If you would be deferred from donating, please understand that there are excellent reasons for doing so. We need to make sure that there are the resources, the time available, and the highest possible safety factors in place so that when that blood reaches the hospital, it does so on time, on budget, and most of all safely for those that need it. I understand that you may feel unfairly singled out for wahtever reason, and there are always experts looking into new testing procedures, as well as donation restrictions to ensure we build the most effective blood supply possible.

9

This kind of thing has been going on for years. Unfortunately, breaking that record probably hadn’t entered that young lady’s mind at all. It’s all about winning Greek Week (the annual competition between Greek houses - like Homecoming, but smaller). There are a series of competitions and activities, each worth so many points. A lot of points go to the houses with the most blood donated - including blood donated on behalf of the house.

Naturally, competition is fierce, so a lot of the houses (particularly sororities) not only require every member to donate, but also require every member to find two or three other people to donate as well. The Greek Week committee only checks to make sure you checked in, gave blood and checked out, so it doesn’t matter if your blood is viable or not. Hence, the emphasis in that e-mail on just showing up to give.

It’s great to see so much blood being donated, but too many people lose sight of the big picture.

10

Naturally, competition is fierce, so a lot of the houses (particularly sororities) not only require every member to donate, but also require every member to find two or three other people to donate as well.

And they’ll slap a fine on the members who don’t do it, too.

11

No matter how many times we tell you that you’ve joined a family of loyal sisters/brothers and gone through the whole ‘all for one and one for all’ bit, the second you become an embarrassment we will cover our asses by dumping you like last week’s garbage and pretending we’ve never even heard your name.

I guess its true. Greek life really does prepare you for the corporate world.

12

The thing about that, universally noticed the first time I gave blood at a school blood drive, is that there’s the same “use” sticker and the same “do not use” sticker on every sheet which they hand you and then walk away to allow you privacy. They’re different enough that you can tell at a glance after giving both of them a 10-second glance while you read the sheet.
Which, of course, lead to many people lying about it in the afternoon once the word had gotten out, and a few closted homosexuals trading their appointments with people who would sleep with an animal given the chance who were after the “free blood test” they were offering.
This is when the importance of keeping one’s clever mouth shut really hit me.

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Yes. But that was kind of my point. By erasing the records, the whole (nationwide) sorority might appereciate that there are boundaries which they cannot go beyond. If you wanted to limit the punishment to the college sorority, then they (if I am reading this correctly) should be banned from this silly competition for the next two or three years. The erm, “highly intelligent” student, who organised the stunt would be required to explain the exclusion to new pledges while she remains a student.

14

I left Britain in 1988 and I’m still on the “persona non grata” list. i have a fairly rare blood type. Well the universal type. My dad is rung often for emergency donations.

It pisses me off that I left Britain soooooooooo long ago but my blood is “unclean”. It pisses me off more that people waste time and money donating when they know it is useless.

15

I can’t donate on 2 or 3 grounds (BSE, Underweight, regular use of painkillers) but I would if I could. I’m not stupid enough to try and lie though.

Those rules are there for a reason, stupid bints.

16

Girls just wanna have fun

17

I’ve read your post three times, and I have no idea what you’re talking about.

As for the OP, ask the people in Canada who got Hepatitis C from blood transfusions and have received a $63 million settlement against the Red Cross about skirting the rules of blood donation. If they’re still alive, that is.

18

I think he’s saying that the barcode sticker is really just “do not use” and “use” in barcode-ese. All of the “do not use” stickers are identical to each other and distinct from the “use” stickers, if you look closely enough. After telling other people this in school, people got very nervous that their choice would become public knowledge. Thus, the importance of shutting one’s mouth.

19

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy?

20

Yeah, I believe one of the recent new restrictions, at least for the American Red Cross, is that if you’ve travelled somewhere that’s on the Dept. of Agri’s “mad cow watch” list, your blood is too risky to accept.