I’m A-.
Donate blood when I can. Got a letter today asking me to show up end of this week at the local police precinct to donate. The letter- addressed to me- included a large bright sticker that said " RH Negative Donor " on it.
I’m reading online. This makes little sense to me. I am A-
What is the RH Factor, and why is my A-, RH Negative blood so valuable to them? I mean, I’m as happy to donate as always, but… I don’t get it.
What’s the straight dope on my blood type?
Google Rhogam.
LOL. I’m a 52 year old infertile male.
I Googled it. That’s about as far from my situation as I can imagine.
So… if I’m not a female of child-bearing years, being RH Negative is meaningless?
Oversimplifying…negatives can donate to either negatives or positives, while positives can only donate to positives.
Wikipedia has a nice chart: Blood type - Wikipedia about halfway down the page.
Therefore, you are more valuable than an A positive person would be.
Ulf, who is B positive and highly valued, but who would be even more highly valued were he B negative…
The - after your A is the RH factor. Calling yourself “A-, RH negative” is redundant.
And everyone’s blood is important to them, but they get better results by making everyone out to be special. Even though an A- patient can receive O- blood without major concern, it’s still better for them to be getting A-, and so, given that there exist A- patients, they want your blood.
There are also AB- patients, and B+ patients, and so on, so they want all those blood types, too. But that doesn’t mean they don’t want yours.
I’m 0 negative, RH negative, and CMV negative… a true universal donor. They genuflect when I enter my local blood collection center. 
To try to make it simple:
The blood has two components, the cells and the plasma (fluid portion).
The blood “types” A, B, and Rh refer to proteins on the blood cells.
If you don’t have the proteins on the cells, you have antibodies to them in your plasma.
When you donate blood, you are usually talking about packed cells, without plasma.
If somebody has antibodies, you don’t want to give them blood that has the proteins on it.
Therefore,
Type A- donor only has A proteins and not B or Rh
They can give cells to anybody who does not have A antibodies (anybody A+, A-, AB+, or AB-)
This is not perfect; you prefer to match the blood perfectly if possible.
However, this is why O- is the “universal donor” (no A,B or Rh proteins) and AB+ is the “universal recipient” (all the proteins positive so no antibodies to anything).
Also, Rh- is overall less common than Rh positive. If you look at the frequency of blood types, here you will see that only 7% of the population is A-. Therefore there is a greater risk of a shortage and a harder time making sure that there is enough in stock.
Thank you !! That made perfect sense.
Same here. I donate willingly to fend them off from stopping by and taking it.
That is my husband too 
I am AB neg, CMV neg and I resist being given blood - I self donate if I have the lead time. Unfortunately I am now on medications that prevent me from donating, but if I go off them for anything other than surgery I can die and that isn’t in my future plans…[though I still make money on the side being a guinea pig for science :D]
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I’m also A- and spent a year or so selling my blood to a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary that made Rhogam.
They matched up my antigen profile with that of a donor of whole A+ blood, and after engaging in some safety protocols, injected me with that blood. A few weeks later, I’d start doing plasmapheresis 2-3 times per week for about a 6 week period, then go back and get another blood injection, etc. They’d skim off the antibodies that I made to the Rh + blood that was injected into me and use that to make the Rhogam. They paid pretty well – I want to say about $50 per plasma donation.
The downside is, after only doing it for a year or so more than 20 years ago, there are still Rh + antibodies in my blood today. I went to donate at a recent blood drive, and a few days later, the blood bank told me they couldn’t use my blood anymore because of it.
I’d worry more about HIPAA if the bright sticker with your PHI on it was on the envelope.
Me too !!
Baby blood! 
That is what the folks at my blood center call it. I assume because it is so “pure”.
My son has it. I am O+. As had been stated, the centers want all the blood they can get and by making each person sound special they get more donors.
BTW, and not to discourage anyone from donating, but the blood business is one of very high markups. Centers with excess collections do very well shipping blood to deficit regions who pay through the nose.
Though such regions are getting scarce. Improved surgery and reduced hospital stays have significantly reduced the demand for blood in the US.
The problem of course is that we need a constant supply just in case. So donations are still very important.
As others mentioned, there are cross compatibilities but the preference is to match blood types. As a result, the blood drives like to collect especially from rarer blood types, which is usually anything but O+ or A+. A- is about 6% of the population.
OTOH, maybe it’s just targeted paper spam everyone gets, and they try to make you feel special.
At the risk of making it a bit more complex, but also more accurate, the A and B antigens are not proteins, but rather sugar molecules attached to blood cell surface proteins. This Wiki diagram is a good summary of it. The proteins have short chains of sugar molecules attached, but A-blood has an extra molecule of a certain type, B-blood has a different molecule in that spot, AB-blood has some of each, and O-blood has neither.
Note that having sugar molecules attached is not unique to blood cell proteins. AIUI, pretty much all proteins in the body have them.
HIPAA doesn’t apply to blood donation centers or their employees.
-shrug- I could care less who knows my blood type. The HIPAA laws are a pain in the arse AND a farce.
Given five minutes, any good hacker can find my entire medical history.
Well, that makes me feel a little better. I used to donate regularly, until I had a minor malignant melanoma removed about ten years ago, which permanently disqualifies me from ever donating again. I’m A+, though, so it helps to know that my type is one of the lowest in demand.
Amen!
