|
|
|
|
chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
 Posted - 05/08/2008 : 09:53:23
|
|
Have you ever noticed the Red Cross never has sufficient blood supply? I never hear that some dude died on the operating table because there wasn't any A- blood, but the supply of all types of blood is always short to some degree.
|
-Chaloobi
|
|
|
BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 05/08/2008 : 09:59:46 [Permalink]
|
| It's the same reason that charities never say, no thanks we have plenty of money. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
 |
|
|
H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 05/08/2008 : 10:31:58 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by chaloobi
Have you ever noticed the Red Cross never has sufficient blood supply? I never hear that some dude died on the operating table because there wasn't any A- blood, but the supply of all types of blood is always short to some degree.
|
They can only store the blood so long before it goes bad and they have to throw it out. (You can't freeze untreated whole blood because the ice crystals that form would burst the cells). So they are dealing with a product that constantly spoils and needs to be replenished. According to Wikipedia:
In the US, Standards are set for each product and "Whole Blood" is the proper name for a defined product, specifically unseparated venous blood with an approved preservative added. Most blood for transfusion is collected as Whole Blood. Autologous donations are sometimes transfused without further modification. This product is kept refrigerated at 1-6 C and has a 35 day shelf life.
More frequently, the Whole Blood is spun in a centrifuge to separate it into components. The densest part, the Red Blood Cells, are modified with an additive solution to extend their shelf life, typically to 42 days. These are also refrigerated. Red Blood Cells can also be frozen when buffered with glycerol, but this is an expensive and time consuming process and is rarely done. Frozen red cells are given an arbitrary expiration date of ten years and are stored at -80C. |
|
"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
|
|
|
Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 05/08/2008 : 10:41:04 [Permalink]
|
Plus, getting the donors to show up at a donation centre might help them advertising other type of organs donation. For example, of bone marrow.
|
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
|
|
|
filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 05/08/2008 : 12:47:29 [Permalink]
|
I think they're furtively using the excess to make boudin noir and they're being damned stingy about sharing. Somebody oughta do something....
Welcome to SFN, Simon.
|
"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
|
|
|
|
chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 05/08/2008 : 19:49:25 [Permalink]
|
| They're keeping the vampires from hunting us. |
-Chaloobi
|
|
|
|
Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 05/08/2008 : 21:14:48 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by filthy
I think they're furtively using the excess to make boudin noir and they're being damned stingy about sharing. Somebody oughta do something.... |
Ugh. Had that in Scotland some years back before I quite knew what it was I was having. Next time, I'll just have toast. |
|
|
|
filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 05/09/2008 : 03:41:33 [Permalink]
|
Boudin noir (black pudding or blood sausage, to the chronically un-hip) is one of the things I sorely miss from living in northern Vermont. Most of the local abattoirs made it and the very best was to be had in Quebec. I even learned how to make it, although mine never came out as good as the others. There are as many recipes as there are people to concoct them, most delicious, some pretty awful. If you ever get the chance, sample some made by a Quebecois butcher. You might be pleasently surprised.
|
"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Red Cross
