No. The FDA and the Red Cross have obviously taken time to word their criteria as specific as they would like them (have you seen the list?)
Before anyone jumps on me, I’d like to clarify that I am NOT condoning anyone lying to donate blood. All I’m saying is that I can’t automatically vilify anyone who does.
You can reduce it to “bad. thing.” if you like. And, yes, they’re casting a very wide net. But the responsibility to decide on the questions is theirs. My only responsibility is to answer the questions truthfully. I won’t even fudge the asipirin or the dentist questions. If they’re overdoing one or more questions in order to boost the public’s trust in donated blood, that’s their call. I’m not going to pretend I could come up with a better set of questions. And I’m not going to subvert their questions.
No, I’ve never been treated with dura mater. No, I’ve never been to England*.
*there’s a date in that question, but I can’t remember it.
Am I the only one who was given extra-creit as a college student in poli-sci to show my voter’s card?
Since I never said that was actually happening, and never said that anyone said that was happening, it most definitely is not. Try learning what the fallacies are before you accuse other people of using them.
Nope. In fact I’d probably be doing the volunteer work instead just because the drive wouldn’t line up with my donation schedule. So I’d be doing both.
I expect that a new volunteer takes more time than the job is worth for only one hour, so I don’t imagine the Red Cross would sign anyone up for a single hour shift. Since I’m already qualified as a driver for our local blood bank, I’d call in and get a couple of runs at night, on a night of my choosing. They even pay mileage to reimburse for gas.
My only concern would be whether the extra credit itself was fair. Is that too many points? Is community support part of psychology?
I must just react differently. Squeezing the little ball every 5-10 seconds, laying on those odd couches, while trying not to move my arm because the flow will stop if I shift and if they don’t get the minimum number of mLs, they have to throw it out - that doesn’t seem like just sitting there. The OJ/cookie lady spends time sitting. It’s probably more boring, but definitely less stressful.
And if we’re comparing what I’d do, personally, as a volunteer, I’d be checking out an audiobook from the library and signing up for a couple of blood runs to Modesto. Two hours on the road with no homework or housework = vacation.
We’ll have to agree to disagree then. (FWIW, from the OP it doesn’t strike me though as the blood drive is necessarily the volunteer option. Your volunteering there, while a wonderful thing, may have given you a different impression.)
I dunno, I don’t think this is a terrific extra-credit project. If I was a student in that class, I would know without filling out papers I can’t donate. I too lived in England for more than 2 years, I’m iron poor, and don’t weigh enough to donate.
I think I’d ask the prof if I could write a quick paper on the psychology of psyche professors who are too competitive with other university departments. 
Giving blood is great, it really is… but so very few people actually qualify, it’s not a fair project, even with the alternative volunteer work. It’s not a balanced alternative.
So I went. I got there at 3:00, waited my turn. I wasn’t called in until 4:00, and was disqualified from donating. I’m not on antibiotics, but I’m getting a prescription filled for some tonight. Apparently that means I’ve got the AIDS or something. Oh well.
But yeah, an hour to get called in for screening, then presumably another 30 minutes before I was donated and out of there. A large number of students came in to “volunteer”, as in they signed the sheet for credit, stuck around for about twenty minutes and bolted. Bastards.
Considering that’s me, let’s hope so. I’m not worried, though; gaining credit was simply signing a sheet that acknowledges “I came.” Pretty much anyone who is literate enough to write their own name gets five points.
Don’t forget about all the time spent after donation where you’re not completely up to task.
Hey, I resemble that remark.
Financial aid and future job opportunities depend upon grades. Combined with pressure from parents, some students may feel they have no choice.
I thought about that, but the people at the Red Cross seemed OK with the idea, so where is it my place to contradict them?
Double red cell donation FTW! Booya!
What about those who are ineligable due to medical conditions?
Sounds like it ended up being a show up and get credit kind of thing - not really thought through. Of course if everyone showed up to volunteer at this one event, there wouldn’t be enough work for them. Hearing the assignment, I thought people would have to arrange their own shifts at different collection centers or other places.
Let us know if anyone protests folks getting points for twenty minutes of hanging around, ForumBot.
:rolleyes:
For the love of OG please tell me this is an attempt at a whoosh, and you are not serious.
So do the volunteer bit. Or study harder so that you don’t need extra credit.
Look I have no problem with you if you have a medical condition or sexual orientation that precludes you from donating. In this case you could have done the volunteer work, or gone to the prof and asked for an exemption.
What chaps my hide is people that are medically able to donate and choose not to. Yet if they or a member of their family needs blood they want some, and they want it now. IMHO if you look up the word hypocrite in the dictionary it has their picture.
Right after 9/11 blood supplies swelled in this country. By the end of December 01 they were back to, what has become normal, very dismal levels. This tells me there are a ton of people out there that are eligible to donate and choose not to because they might get a bruise (so what?), or it hurts(no it doesn’t), or their cat has a fur ball or whatever shitty excuse they choose to use. To those people I say suck it up, be an adult and go give a unit. It won’t kill you and you will save a life.
I was most certainly there for an hour and turned away because I would be filling a prescription for antibiotics that night. But rest assured, I’m very well aware that I’m not HIV positive 
I figured it would be cool, since I’m only taking antibiotics for folliculitis, which isn’t exactly the black plague.
Methinks this cranky old man needs to re-evaluate his bias against us darned kids with our rap music and our hippin and hoppin and walkin on lawns.
No I have nothing against hip hop or you walking on my lawn. There are four things I find boggling about your statement:
First I would expect anyone with three functioning brain cells to understand that doctors don’t prescribe antibiotics to healthy people. If you had a script for antibiotics, you are not in perfect health.
Secondly I just find it almost impossible to believe that someone could graduate high school, and attend college not knowing that antibiotics are prescribed to fight bacterial, fungal, or infections from protozoa. IOW doctors don’t give antibiotics to healthy people. Were you absent the day they covered the Germ Theory?
Thirdly, donated blood is a lot like antibiotics. Doctors don’t give it to healthy people. People who receive blood are very sick often with compromised or suppressed immune systems.
Finally I find it impossible to believe that you did not connect the dots in points one, two and three and realize that giving blood that has a bacterial, fungal or protozoa infections in it to a sick person is a really bad idea. Bad on toast.
It really is taking longer than we thought.
Are you whooshing? Because that’s an extraordinary statement.
I’m not wooshing. What’s going on here is that a teacher is offering class credit in an effort to persuade his students to do something that has nothing to do with the class, but which he thinks would be a good thing for them to do anyway. Giving class credit to students who paint your house, wash your car, or sleep with you are further examples of that sort of activity, differing only in the degree that other people would approve of the action happening if it weren’t for credit (which is not, it seems to me, overly relevant to the subject, as I’m not an ‘ends justifies the means’ type of guy).
You’re being a bit of a jerk, Rick. You do not have four problems with my post, you have one problem that you’ve explained in four convenient paragraphs.
But you want to know what? No, it didn’t occur to me until I got to the screening room that I should bring it up. My folliculitis is at worst a slightly annoying skin irritation that I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about. Acne bothers me more. So when someone asks “are you healthy?”, my 9%-bodyfat-exercising-one-hour-per-day-and-working-an-active-job self says “yeah, I’m healthy as an ox.”
So yes, it did take me a few extra minutes to figure out that I might be a risk–and when the little hamster upstairs started running on the treadmill, I brought it up to the charge nurse.
I guess I’m an ignorant moron (oh god, I’ve given you gold. go on, quote it! say “now that’s the smartest thing I’ve heard from you.” You know it’ll make you feel good.)
For the record, I agree with his statement 100%.
I don’t see sleeping with a student and giving students two extra credit options that benefit their community as the same thing at all. I don’t see the difference as being one of degree, but then, I don’t see the blood donation/community service option as unethical.