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This recent image on cracked.com claims that the Red Cross grosses USD 2.1 billion a year from selling blood. It also claims that the Red Cross is a business which sells donated blood for $400 a pint.

enter image description here

Are there any verifiable sources for this claim that the Red Cross sells such quantities of blood?

George Chalhoub
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March Ho
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    "You should still give...a real shortage is terrible and patients need to do it, but know what's going on." So...what I am supposed to do after seeing this? – Paul Draper Apr 23 '15 at 16:50
  • @PaulDraper if you don't want to donate, you can sell http://lubbockonline.com/stories/100807/loc_100807034.shtml – DavePhD Apr 23 '15 at 18:48
  • @DavePhD, sound reasonable, if hypocritical. – Paul Draper Apr 23 '15 at 18:49
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    I'm going to take a guess and say the person who made that image was because they wanted to get back at the Red Cross for constantly phoning them and asking them to donate (blood or money) – SameOldNick Apr 24 '15 at 03:50
  • [Radiolab did a segment on the blood trade](http://www.radiolab.org/story/308780-blood-banks/) that's informative. That link also contains several books on the subject of blood donations and commerce. You should absolutely give blood to the Red Cross, they're a solid organization and, like everybody else, need money to operate. – Schwern Apr 24 '15 at 14:56
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    @DavePhD blood that is sold can't be transfused to patients in the US. The FDA requires that the blood be from a volunteer donor. As explained in the answers below, blood centers are non profit organizations. They sell blood to recoup their costs, which are substantial. – Scott Bevington Apr 24 '15 at 18:12
  • @ScottBevington what if it is plasma rather than whole blood? – DavePhD Apr 24 '15 at 18:47
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    There's an [old study](http://www.cabdirect.org/abstracts/19972005696.html;jsessionid=3701E63E4CD28A46650DDEE5D0820D71;jsessionid=A7B5253739AFE52AE869AFC7A5571DBF) on paying for blood donation and it ended up not giving the result they wanted. Less people donating and people lying about their health. – the_lotus Apr 24 '15 at 19:40
  • @DavePhD still can't be transfused. The plasma is used for manufacturing and I believe some research. – Scott Bevington Apr 24 '15 at 19:50
  • @the_lotus It is a false dichotomy. There are other alternatives: a method where giving blood is mandatory for all healthy adults, for instance. – Federico Poloni Apr 25 '15 at 13:01
  • If anyone is making money selling blood it's for profit hospitals that sell it to patients. –  Apr 26 '15 at 04:01

1 Answers1

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I assume this is referring to the American Red Cross, because that is where Cracked.com is based. Note also that describing the Red Cross as "a business" is somewhat misleading. It is a foundation.

Red Cross do sell blood to hospitals.

Yes. All the centers that supply blood for transfusions—whether they're part of the American Red Cross or not—sell their products to cover operating expenses. Local hospitals work out contracts with regional suppliers or their local Red Cross facility. [...] All blood suppliers are nonprofits, and the prices they charge follow the cost of production.

This is not a secret, or if it is, it is a badly kept one! The American Red Cross finances are published. The 2014 audited financial statements gives a peek into their operations:

Snippet from books

In the 2014 financial year, they made $1.89 billion revenue from "Products and Services: Biomedical", down slightly from $2.04 billion in 2013. [Note: The figures are in thousands of US dollars, so, for example, '1,889,790' corresponds to $1.89 billion.]

It seems the $2.1 billion figure quoted is approximately correct.

Sounds like a lot of revenue, but it is expensive to collect and distribute blood. How expensive? Look at the operating expenses:

Another snippet from books

Biomedical services cost $1.98 billion in operating costs in 2014. This was not a source of profits in that year.

Summary

Like many viral infographics, this one gives one large figure that sounds scary, but nothing to compare it to. The figure is approximately right, but put into context, it is not as disturbing, and paints the American Red Cross in a better light.

Oddthinking
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    Is that $1.89 billion or 1.89 million? I can't count the numbers well. – George Chalhoub Apr 23 '15 at 10:26
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    Good question, @George. In the text at the top of the first image are the words "(in thousands)" which means you must multiply the figures in the charts by one thousand, making it (American) billions, not millions. (I've edited to clarify.) – Oddthinking Apr 23 '15 at 10:30
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    oh okay. Great answer. So the meme forgot to mention that Red Cross's expenses were higher than revenues, and accused the Red Cross of trading and gaining profit off people's blood, no big deal. – George Chalhoub Apr 23 '15 at 10:43
  • @SeanDuggan: I rolled back a hyper-correction, based on [your local regional dialect](http://alt-usage-english.org/groupnames.html). – Oddthinking Apr 23 '15 at 13:04
  • Huh. I didn't know that was regional. I knew that the UK correctly used "data are", but I didn't know that they treated company names as plural when discussing the actions of the company instances. – Sean Duggan Apr 23 '15 at 13:13
  • So bottom line: Yes, it is a business, but one they barely break even. – Philipp Apr 23 '15 at 13:50
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    They charge the hospitals about the right amount to cover their costs. Meanwhile they take in $US700 million in donation each year. Does that count as breaking even or losing money hand over fist? Comparing it to a business is not a useful analogy to describe their motivations and behaviour. – Oddthinking Apr 23 '15 at 15:40
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    It should be noted that, as with many other aspects of medical care in the US, the costs associated with blood supply illustrated there seem to be a lot higher than in other territories. In the UK, the NHS's figures show that they 'sell' blood products to hospitals (private & NHS) at an everage of £123/unit (2013 figure) which would equate to about $185 at prevailing exchange rates. The NHS estimates that the cost to collect a unit of blood is approximately £70, with processing and handling accounting for the difference. – Lunatik Apr 23 '15 at 15:56
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    @georgechalhoub The image did not state anywhere that Red Cross was making a profit. – March Ho Apr 23 '15 at 16:52
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    @MarchHo: It may not say so literally, but it implies that with all the subtlety of a jackhammer, and that (in light of this answer) is highly irresponsible, and possibly unethical (depending on your views about how much due diligence is in order in cases like that and whether or not whoever made the graphic knowingly withheld the facts to draw attention). – tomasz Apr 23 '15 at 21:56
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    @Oddthinking - They break even on blood. They take in lots of donations. But they also spend money on lots of things other than blood. First place you go for help in a disaster is Red Cross. – Joel Apr 23 '15 at 22:14
  • @joel: yes, I understand that. My point was suggesting they are a business, and therefore act in certain ways, as the original claim does, is misleading. – Oddthinking Apr 24 '15 at 01:00
  • @Oddthinking they have more operational cost than just collecting blood. The blood sales cover the cost of collecting, storing, and shipping the blood, supposedly nothing more than that. Other operational expenses of course are their headquarters buildings, emergency response teams, research grants, etc. etc. – jwenting Apr 24 '15 at 09:05
  • that said, there are persistent rumours that they're squandering money on luxuries, things like masquerading vacations for senior staff as "conferences" and "fact finding tours", lavish parties, things like that. Which is no surprise as there's a steady stream of 'charities' discovered to do just that so why should the Red Cross be different. But that wasn't the question asked. – jwenting Apr 24 '15 at 09:07
  • @jwenting: I agree they have other operational costs under other line items. You can see them listed there in the answer - they total a bit over $1 billion more. The "squandering" accusation of charities is a rather lazy defamation - at the very least, link to someone with evidence. – Oddthinking Apr 24 '15 at 10:35
  • E.g., the important word in *"...the Red Cross alone grosses around $2.1 billion yearly..."* is ***grosses***. The graphic cynically assumes people don't understand "gross" vs. "net" (and is sadly probably correct a lot of the time). – T.J. Crowder Apr 25 '15 at 12:15