Crémieux Profile picture
Aug 21, 2024 14 tweets 5 min read Read on X
In the U.S., you are legally permitted to sell your blood plasma for money, but it's called "donation".

In recent years, the numbers of places set up for donations has skyrocketed, and the amount they're compensating donors has followed suit.

Let's dig in. Image
Most of the visitors to these donation centers are highly local (A)

People are also more likely to visit donation centers in census block groups (CBGs) that are marked by poverty (B)

Why? Image
In surveys, donating plasma is predicted by being poor, Black, male, married, having kids, being a student, etc.

In short, people who could really use an extra $150 twice a week for a minimal inconvenience are more likely to donate. Image
We know this is true because we also have survey data indicating people's stated reasons for donating. Few people are donating altruistically. The top categories by far are about money!

Take a look: Image
Now, before getting to the juicy result, I want to show one more thing: the impact of COVID stimulus checks on plasma donations.

When the checks went out, the number of visits to plasma donation centers cratered. Donations plummeted because people had the cash they needed. Image
Now here's the kicker: When plasma donation centers open up, local inquiries into predatory payday and installment loans falls off.

People are seeking credit and donating blood might be how they get it. Image
If we stratify these trends by age, we see that those with ages less than or equal to 35 - the less well-established - are the ones deciding to use blood plasma donations to offset the need for quick, dangerously high-interest cash, not those greater than 35 years old. Image
When you look at payday transactions rather than inquiries alone, you get the same picture, albeit with more noise.

Young people really do seem to be defraying the need for credit by selling (sorry, donating!) their blood plasma.Image
The reasons people sell their are also, evidently, not just to cover essentials.

One of the clearest-cut impacts is that entertainment establishments see an increase in visits after blood plasma donation centers open up. Image
That last part clarifies something: people would prefer not to get risky, high-interest loans, and they really want a little bit of extra cash. So while they will seek out those loans if push comes to shove, they're more likely to frivolously pursue blood donation.
And that's good! We need blood plasma donations, so if paying people a bit of money makes that possible, so be it.

If we take away that possibility, we can also see that it would make people's lives worse.

How far can we take this? Maybe we can learn from Iran.
In the U.S., about 0.5-1% of the federal budget goes to dialysis:

In Iran, there is a legal, regulated market in selling kidneys and it's such a good deal that the government even pays for the operations. It beats paying for dialysis!
Image
People are more than willing to sell their bodies in different ways that help their fellow citizens, from selling their blood plasma to pawning off a kidney.

Given so many people want to do that, and so many people would benefit from it, the question is, why not?
Frankly, I think we should just do it. The blood plasma donation model has been such a success and it's more than evident that organ payments could be too.

Worried about corruption? Then regulate it well!

Sources:



academic.oup.com/rfs/article-ab…
pbs.org/newshour/show/…

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More from @cremieuxrecueil

Jul 2
I've seen people mentioning that Europe's heat-related death issue is larger than American gun violence—true!

But people neglect saying how many heat-related deaths America has.

Approximately 1% of what Europe does even though America is hotter and Americans are less healthy! Image
Those factors mean Americans are more at-risk for heat-related deaths, even after accounting for Europe being a little older than America.

So let's be clear:

Europeans die from heat at relatively high rates; Americans survive it with technology. Image
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What technology?

It's the terraforming technology of air conditioning.

Install A/C and the heat-related deaths will mostly disappear, if Europe can keep their grid operational. Image
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Jul 2
What happens when scholars get canceled?

They end up publishing fewer papers and they receive fewer citations.

In other words, scientific productivity falls🧵 Image
Tons of scholars have been cancelled in recent years.

That is, they've received professional backlash for expressing views that people deem "controversial, unpopular, or misaligned with prevailing norms." Image
Cancellations happen outside of academia, but it's very bad in it.

Large portions of the academy dislike the freedom of speech. Many of those free speech opponents have high agency and the clout to cause material harm to people they dislike = particularly bad cancel culture. Image
Read 13 tweets
Jun 28
You must pick one:

Double the productivity of the bottom 20% or double the productivity of the top 1%:
Double the productivity of the bottom 40% or double the productivity of the top 1%:
Double the productivity of the bottom 60% or double the productivity of the top 1%:
Read 7 tweets
Jun 27
Phenotyping is the vast, minimally-explored frontier in genome-wide association studies.

Important thread🧵

Briefly, phenotyping is how you measure people's traits. Measure poorly, get bad results; measure well, get good results.

Example? Janky knees. Image
The janky knee example refers to osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis, which occurs when the cartilage between bones is worn down, so bones start rubbing against each other.

This ends up being very painful. Image
Everyone with this condition isn't necessarily diagnosed with it.

This is especially true for men, who tend to just ignore this (and many other conditions) more often than women do.

This is, in a word, annoying, because it means that if you study it, sampling is likely biased. Image
Read 35 tweets
Jun 25
ADHD is a condition that's suffered from diagnostic drift: it's been defined more leniently over time, so more people are getting diagnosed.

One way to see this is to look at the benefits of taking ADHD medication. As prescription rates increased, the benefits have declined. Image
Another way to understand diagnostic drift is to look at the factors that promote it.

For example, school accountability laws lead to more diagnoses and, as a result, more psychoactive drug prescriptions.

Schools are pressured by law into making this happen. Image
An even more direct way to understand ADHD's diagnostic drift is to look at what types of diagnoses happen over time.

The increase has been more about non-severe ADHD than clinical ADHD. In other words, people with less and lesser symptoms are getting diagnosed. Image
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Jun 24
I have a story to break.

Columbia is still practicing racially discriminatory admissions in defiance of the Supreme Court's ruling in SFFA v. Harvard.

Newly-leaked data shows they still prefer less-qualified Blacks and Hispanics over more-qualified Asians🧵Image
Columbia has made a big show of "complying" with SFFA v. Harvard by noting that their 2024 batch of admits involved slightly less discrimination:

Fewer Black and Hispanic students, more Asian students.

That's what should happen, because Asian students tend to perform better.Image
But, with this leaked admissions data, we can see that race still predicts admissions.

With fair admissions, race should not have a significant effect, and it should not be directionally consistent.

And yet, in this data, it's clear Columbia still discriminates against Asians. Image
Read 14 tweets

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