Welcome to Grit Nation. I’m Joe Cadwell the writer, producer, and host of the show and on today’s episode I have the pleasure of speaking with author Kathleen McLaughlin, about her new book titled; Blood Money – The Story of Life, Death and Profit Inside America’s Blood Industry.
In her book Kathleen turns the lights on a healthcare crisis hidden in plain sight and reveals a stunning example of economic inequality in action.
Intertwined with her own story as a working-class American managing a chronic illness, she finds an industry that targets and exploits America’s most marginalized communities to feed the hunger for human blood plasma.
Over 20 million pay-for-extractions occur each year of American blood, which is then processed, and packaged for sale as part of a $30 billion-dollar global industry.
Blood Money reveals the controversial and unbalanced power structures behind the blood industry.
From China’s blood black market to Silicon Valley tech startups, this electrifying expose demonstrates the shadowy overlap between big medicine and big business while painting a searing portrait of the extent to which American industry is eager to feed on the country’s most vulnerable.
The Show Notes
Kathleen McLaughlin
https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Kathleen-McLaughlin/179283499
Blood Money
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Blood-Money/Kathleen-McLaughlin/9781982171964
Union Home Plus helps union members save money when they buy, sell, or finance their home.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Joe Cadwell (00:08):
Welcome to Grit Nation. I'm Joe Cadwell, the
writer, producer and host of theshow. And on today's episode, I
have the pleasure of speakingwith author Kathleen McLaughlin
about her new book titled BloodMoney,The Story of Life, Death
and Profit Inside America'sBlood Industry. In her book,
Kathleen turns the lights on ahealthcare crisis hidden in
plain sight and reveals astunning example of economic
(00:30):
inequality in action.
intertwined with her own storyas a working class American
managing a chronic illness, shefinds an industry that targets
and exploits America's mostmarginalized communities to feed
the hunger for human bloodplasma. For 20 million pay for
extractions occur each year ofAmerican blood, which is then
processed and packaged for saleas part of a $30 billion global
(00:52):
industry. Blood Money revealsthe controversial and unbalanced
power structures from behind theblood industry. From China's
blood black market to SiliconValley startups. This
electrifying expose demonstratesthe shadowy overlap between big
medicine big business whilepainting a searing portrait of
the extent to which Americanindustry is eager to feed on the
(01:15):
country's most vulnerable.
After the episode, be sure tocheck out the show notes for
more information about Kathleenand her work. And now on to the
show. Kathleen McLaughlin,welcome to Grit Nation.
Kathleen McLaughlin (01:42):
Thank you, Joe. It's great to be here.
Joe Cadwell (01:44):
Hey, thank you so much, Kathleen, for taking the
time to be on the show. Today.
I'm really excited to introduceyou and your work to my listener
audience. You I understandyou've written your first book,
The title is blood money, thestory of life, death and profit
inside America's blood industry.
That's a pretty fascinatingtitle and a really, really
(02:04):
interesting book and a verypersonal book, I began to
understand as I started to readit, what got you to write this
book outline.
Kathleen McLaughlin (02:11):
So this started in I guess it started
almost 20 years ago, when I wasdiagnosed with a rare autoimmune
disease. And the treatment forthat condition is medication
made from other people's bloodplasma. So for the past almost
20 years I've been having oftenon infusions of this drug. And
(02:35):
every time I have one, Icontemplate where this plasma
comes from. Because it Well,first of all, the infusions take
kind of a long time, five to sixhours. There's a lot of boredom
sitting in the chair, let's say,and it isn't, it's a very
strange thing to have otherpieces of other people's body
(02:56):
going into your body. And so itjust became this ongoing thing
that I would think about whereall this plasma came from. So I
was I spent most of the last 20years actually living in China.
And I ended up doing a ton ofreporting about the plasma
industry in China and a majordebacle that happened there in
(03:19):
the industry. And then when Imoved back to the US in 2016, or
so I started digging around intothe industry here and discovered
that it was just as bizarre asChina maybe even more so because
it was so hidden.
Joe Cadwell (03:35):
And I understand why you were living in China. In
order to get the do we call itmedicine at this point, or what
you need to take you
Kathleen McLaughlin (03:45):
can call it medicine Mo is I mean, it's a
biologic, right. So it isn't,it's this weird class of drugs.
It's not like taking a pill.
Right? It's something different,but I think we can call it
medicine. Okay.
Joe Cadwell (03:55):
You had to smuggle this medicine into China, in
order to make sure you had asafe supply was it was safety
concern when you were smugglingit in? Or what what originally
got you to become aninternational smuggler of blood
plasma.
Kathleen McLaughlin (04:10):
Yeah, so I'm back in the 1990s. China had
tried to create what they calleda plasma economy, which sounds
very dry and boring. But whatthey did was tried to create an
industry based on the blood ofpoor people. And so in one
(04:31):
province, in particular, HunanProvince, which is sort of the
breadbasket of China. Thegovernment started a bunch of
plasma centers where they wouldpay farmers who previously
hadn't had a lot of money inexchange for extractions of
their blood plasma. Well,unfortunately, this all took off
right around the time as theAIDS virus entered China. And
(04:54):
those two things togethercreated this viral bomb and HIV
He basically infiltrated theChinese blood supplies and
plasma supplies and remained athreat for years and years and
years. It was pretty undercontrol by the time I got to
China in the early 2000s. Butthere were still periodic
(05:15):
incidences of outbreaks. And Iknew enough, when I first got to
China, I knew enough about thissituation to know that if I had
access to plasma drugs from theUS, I should use those because
they would be safer. And Italked to a lot of medical
(05:35):
professionals in China, and alot of patients in China who
confirmed this to me and therewere plenty of news stories. At
that time, one of the majorproblems with the blood and
plasma supplies in China washepatitis C, there would be big
outbreaks of hepatitis C inplasma drugs because they
weren't treated properly. So.
And on top of that, I had prettygood insurance back in the US.
(05:57):
So it just was kind of easy forme to take the drugs and put it
in my suitcase and go back toChina where I was living, and
then I would show up at thehospital there, and they would
infuse the drugs for me whichwhen I think about it now can
you imagine a Chinese personcoming to the US with a suitcase
full of drugs, and showing up ata hospital in like Boston or
(06:19):
wherever and saying eject theselike we would, I can't imagine
what we would do to someone ifthey tried to do that. But at
that time, I would say China wasa little more wild west, you
know, you can really navigateyour way around things.
Joe Cadwell (06:37):
I understood you work with hospitals until they
got a little bit leery of it,then you just pick up and move
on to the next hospital
Kathleen McLaughlin (06:43):
exactly, then we would bet I would bounce
to the next place. And theyoften do get leery. So it would
take like a usually a couple ofyears. And then I would get a
call from the administration atthe hospital saying we can't do
this anymore. They weregenerally pretty chill about it.
Part of the reason they werepretty chill about it was
(07:06):
everyone in the medical systemin China, the doctors and nurses
and everyone else they knewabout the problems and the blood
supply. So they knew why I wasdoing this, you know, this was
not, by this point, the AIDSdebacle which I should probably
quantify that. Somewhere aroundthe best estimate is that a
(07:27):
million people were infectedwith HIV through the plasma
economy system in her Nan andthe surrounding provinces. So
we're talking about and this wasin a period, right before there
were available treatments forHIV and AIDS. And so we're
talking about a really deadlyincident that happened. So yeah,
(07:49):
the hospitals generally in thebeginning would be quite
understanding because everyoneknew about the AIDS debacle. And
I should also tell you, thereason that this was smuggling
is that in order to go in andout of China, you have to sign
like most countries, most normalcountries, you have to do a
customs declaration form and ontheir customs declaration form
(08:11):
explicitly asks you if you arecarrying human blood or blood
products, Oh, wow. Because theywere trying to limit time I had
made this decision that AIDS wasa foreign disease, and that it
was transmitted through foreignblood. And so they were
restricting the import offoreign blood as a way to try
(08:33):
and curb the AIDS outbreak.
Joe Cadwell (08:37):
Just for clarification, this was your own
product, you were going to beusing this for yourself. You
weren't strapping it to sell.
Kathleen McLaughlin (08:45):
I was not selling it to anyone. No, it was
no, I it was only for my ownuse. And I never did anything
else with it. Like it's not Ishould clarify to like when I
talked about smuggling drugs,this is not a fun drug. This is
a medication that has a lot oficky side effects. It's not
something anyone is going to dofor kicks, right. So yeah, I
(09:08):
just had my own personalmedication that I was bringing
in, but technically, you know,according to the regulations
about bringing in foreign bloodproducts, I was skirting the
law.
Joe Cadwell (09:19):
Yeah. And so I you know, before reading your book,
I was trying to wrap my headaround how giving blood would
create an epidemic if if theblood that was being given was
tainted, and but you know,evaluated and deemed clean. But
the difference is we're notgiving blood here we're not
(09:39):
talking about a one waytransaction of blood coming out
of your body. It's actuallyplasma. And so your blood is
being taken out being strippedto the white blood cells, the
red blood cells, the plasma isbeing extracted, but the rest of
its being pumped back into yourbody and that's where this cross
contamination comes from.
Kathleen McLaughlin (09:58):
That's right. So What happens when you
donate blood, like you said,it's very easy a one way
transaction, the blood comesout, it goes into a bag, it goes
away. And that's it, nothing reenters your body. When you
donate plasma, it's a differentprocess, they put a tube in your
arm that extracts your blood.
And then it goes into acentrifuge that spins the red
(10:19):
blood cells out from the plasma,and keeps your plasma and re
infuses the rest of the bloodback into your body. If that I
mean, that's an overlysimplistic kind of explanation
of how it works. But yeah, soyou have this, you have material
going back into so what happenedin China, and I should be very
(10:40):
clear about this, the way thesystem is set up in the US is
almost certainly now would neverhappen here. This isn't this is
not a risk to Americans, becauseof safety protocols and the way
things are designed now. Butwhat happened in China is that
there were so many people whowanted to sell their plasma,
that they were cutting corners.
(11:00):
So they would reuse tubing, theywould reuse needles, and there
are stories about times wherethey would share the centrifuge
among donors. And so there wereall these opportunities for
infecting fill blood that wasgoing back into people. So
(11:20):
theoretically, I mean, I guessyou could say, basically, the
clinics, in a lot of instances,were actually infecting people
with HIV in the process ofplasma donation.
Joe Cadwell (11:30):
Yeah. And China did not want that level of exposure.
They started blaming this asbeing a Western disease. And
your story against a starts inChina, there's two influential
women that you had a chance tointerview here in the US that
had had to leave China immigrateto the US because of their
involvement with exposing thisatrocities that Chinese
(11:52):
government were trying to coverup. Would you care to talk about
right either? Yeah,
Kathleen McLaughlin (11:56):
of course.
So there were two doctors GalioJ. and Wang Shu ping, who were
both physicians in HunanProvince, where where this
happened. And when this allhappened, Wang Shu ping
specifically worked in a plasmacenter, and she was in charge of
testing and ensuring the healthof plasma donors, and she was an
(12:17):
expert in hepatitis. So shebegan to notice in the donor
samples, a big presence ofhepatitis C. And that was a
major red flag to her as amedical researcher, because she
knew that hepatitis C and HIVoften went hand in hand. So she
started testing samples andfound HIV in the plasma selling
(12:39):
system. And so she knew thatthis was a tinderbox just ready
to go up in flames because sheunderstood how this virus was
spreading. And then it wasextremely deadly deadly at this
time. So she worked inconjunction with Dr. Gaya, J,
who was retired at that point,but was kind of becoming an
(13:02):
activist. And together, theystarted getting the information
out to the general public that1000s and potentially hundreds
of 1000s of people had beensickened in this plasma scheme.
About a few months after WangShu ping blew the whistle, the
government shut down the entireplasma system in the country and
(13:24):
stopped doing what they weredoing because they knew that it
was going to kill people. Butthey then started a pretty
massive cover up. So Wang Shuping the younger doctor who had
found the problem and then workto expose it. She stayed in
China for a couple more years,but she was threatened. She got
beaten up. I mean, it was reallydangerous for her. So she very
(13:49):
quietly started, she was young,she was in our 30s. At the time,
she very quietly startedapplying for research jobs in
the US. And she got hiredinitially, I believe in
Wisconsin, and then sheeventually ended up in Salt Lake
and she never really, I wouldn'tsay never, but she was very
quiet about it. She kind ofunderstood the risk. She got out
(14:11):
she had done this incrediblefeat of whistleblowing, but no
one really knew who she was. Hername was kind of out there, but
she didn't do a lot ofinterviews. Now. Galio J, on the
other hand, became extremelyhigh profile. And she was at a
pretty severe risk of beingarrested. She has said that she
(14:32):
was under house arrest couldn'tleave her apartment. And so she
fled basically in the middle ofthe night one night with the
help of Hillary Clinton andended up in New York. And she's
had she's in her 90s Now, andhas written numerous books about
the whole thing. Unfortunately,Wang Shu ping passed away. I
(14:56):
mean, these two women are ravebeyond belief for what they did.
But they were absolutely. Imean, you can imagine, just
imagine this happening in yourcity or your town or your
neighborhood, the governmentstarts this system, and this
system starts killing people.
(15:17):
And then suddenly, you're notsupposed to talk about it right?
In this, you know, being theChinese government, which is an
expert in repressive repressingthing that covering things up,
they were incredibly brave, totell the world what had
happened. But they're, I guess,the outcomes of their lives have
(15:39):
been? Oh, in a lot of ways,pretty sad.
Joe Cadwell (15:43):
Yeah. And so you, you have first hand knowledge of
what it's like to live in China,you have firsthand knowledge of
what it's like to have areliance on these drugs for your
health and well being that arederived from plasma, you said
China had created a plasmaeconomy and, and that sort of
went wrong for them for for aperiod of time and hard to say
(16:04):
where it's at now, but your bookand then continues on over to
the to the US and we talk aboutpresent day, plasma economies,
and from what I understand, youknow, since 1975, I believe
that's the year the World HealthOrganization has basically said
that the the selling of plasmais sort of a taboo to some
(16:25):
extent, and put out a guidelinesaying, hey, you know, countries
around the world, probably bestnot to encourage people to sell
their plasma. And five countriesfrom the world said, No,
absolutely not. And those arethe Czech Republic, Austria,
Germany, Poland and the UnitedStates. And so why did did these
(16:45):
countries say no to that? Do youthink? And what is the current
state of the plasma economy? Andwho's benefiting from it? And
who's, who's paying the toll forit?
Kathleen McLaughlin (16:55):
That's such an interesting question. The
why. And I have tried to get tothat. And I think the why is
obvious, but at the same time,kind of difficult to dry out. So
let me just start by sayingthere is plasma true plasma
donation where you don't getpaid. And you can do that at the
(17:17):
Red Cross, and a couple of otherplaces you can donate plasma,
without pay, most plasmacollected in the United States,
this giant pool of plasma thatwe have is collected by for
profit, biomedical companies,multinationals that pay people
for their donations, and theygamify the system so that it
(17:39):
encourages people to give theirplasma as much as possible. So
just as let me just tell you anumber that is very interesting
to me, if you decide to donateplasma in it, you don't need the
money. And so it's just for purealtruism, because you want
someone like me to have myplasma drugs, you can do so at
the Red Cross a maximum of 13times a year, so that 13 times a
(18:03):
year, that's the max that theRed Cross will allow for the
health and safety of theirdonors, right? If you sell
plasma at a for profitcollection center in the United
States, you can do it 104 timesa year, twice a week. Correct.
So what's going on there? Howdid we end up with a system
(18:25):
where the for profit companieswill tell you that it's
completely safe to sell yourplasma twice a week, whereas the
Red Cross who everyone kind oftrusts and isn't trying to make
a buck off of your plasma willonly allow you to do it once a
month. There's there's a big gapthere. Now, I think how we
(18:45):
became this is just in the sameway that the United States has
allowed the exploitation oflower income people and working
people for generations withoutmuch notice. I think that the
way that we have become theworld's biggest supplier of
(19:07):
human blood plasma, is that itcomes from people primarily who
are on the economic margins. AndI'm not saying the poorest of
the poor, because generallyspeaking, the poorest of the
poor people who are on housedare screened out of the system,
you have to have proof ofpermanent residents that
permanent residence in order tosell plasma, but I'm talking
(19:29):
about people who are maybe inthe working poor also in what we
used to think of as the middleclass. I have over the course of
this reporting met a lot ofpeople who sell plasma to pay
for vacations. I've met a lot ofpeople who sell plasma to pay
for college or pay for livingexpenses while in college. So I
(19:51):
think that what has happened isthis is one of these industries,
kind of like the dollar storethat has grown up around the
economic fault lines in theUnited States, if that makes
sense. So we who are vulnerable,and this industry comes in to
take from them.
Joe Cadwell (20:10):
And if I not sure where I got the information
from, but I think currently inthe US, there's about 900
collection centers, plasmacollection centers scattered
Yeah, us in the majority ofthose are in disadvantaged ZIP
Code areas.
Kathleen McLaughlin (20:25):
That's right. So I think we're up over
1000. Now the last time Ichecked, the numbers were over
1000. And if you look at one ofthe most interesting things to
me is I started this project inthe United States, by looking at
a map, you could get maps ofwhere these centers are located.
And you will see clusters ofthem in places that you know, to
(20:47):
be economically disadvantaged.
So they're in you look, inMichigan, for example, in
Detroit and Flint, inparticular, have big
concentrations of plasmacenters. So Flint has about
75 80,000 people, now theirpopulation is less than half of
what it used to be, they havesix for profit class plasma
collection center, in the in thegreater Flint area, just for
(21:11):
comparison, Missoula, Montana,which is close to where I live,
has about the same number ofpeople, maybe a few more, they
have one Plasma center. So youcan really get an idea of where
there are a lot of economicallyvulnerable people, the biggest
concentration of for profit,plasma collection centers in the
(21:33):
United States is on the USMexico border. And that's
because there is a hugedependence on Mexican citizens
crossing over to sell theirplasma in the US. So yeah, you
can kind of map out the economicfault lines and the United
States by where plasma centerslie. It's really interesting.
And I do not, I should tell you,when I, when I entered into this
(21:55):
project, I honestly thought Iwas going to be writing a
science book, I thought it wasgonna be I thought I would come
away with this, like, Oh, here'ssome science recommendations
about blah, blah, blah, blah,blah. And it became very clear
right away that no, this is abook about the fragmentation of,
or the dissolution of the socialsafety net for Americans. I
(22:20):
mean, what has happened in thiscountry in the last, say, 30 to
40 years with the just theabsolute disintegration of the
social safety net for people andwhat has materialized in its
place is things like sellingplasma.
Joe Cadwell (22:40):
Yeah. And I understand the US accounts for
about two thirds of the world'splasma supply. And again, my
information, hopefully, is, ison par with yours, or close.
Kathleen McLaughlin (22:51):
Yeah, I mean, it's a huge that is one of
the numbers I have seen. Andthat is, it certainly accounts
for a huge amount of it. And sowhat's interesting is if you
travel, and I've had thisexperience, if you travel, for
example, in Europe, and tellpeople about the paid plasma
extraction system in the UnitedStates, they'll look at you with
(23:12):
horror, like, Oh, my God, what aterrible country allow people to
sell their plasma, I can'tbelieve you do that. But the
fact is, they rely on our plasmafor their drugs. And several of
these companies are actuallybased in Europe. These are not
strictly American companies.
These are multinationals. And sothis is a global industry that
knows that America is very badat protecting citizens with
(23:36):
economic vulnerabilities. And soit kind of I hate to use a
metaphor like this, but itreally, it really comes in it as
like a vampire. You know, yousee these, you see places that
are vulnerable and people whoare vulnerable, and it knows how
to extract from them.
Joe Cadwell (23:56):
So let's back it up just a bit. You said the average
plasma donor is someone, I'll beit in the United States, it
seems like someone who ispossibly on the lower end of the
socio economic scale, but isworking middle class is trying
to shore up some shortcomings intheir financial situation by
selling their plasma, they'reallowed to do that twice a week,
up to 104 times a year. And whatwhat do they what do they
(24:21):
actually get? You talked aboutgamification of selling plasma,
but dollars and cents? What doesan average How long does it take
for someone to give plasma andwhat is the takeaway? Sure, walk
out the door. So
Kathleen McLaughlin (24:34):
for most people, that actual process
takes about an hour. And somepeople it can take longer, it
just depends it not to get gory,but sometimes it depends how
hard it is to get your vein withthe needle. And then for some
people, it's just a little bitslower but I would say about an
average and we're not countingthe time to get to the facility,
(24:55):
the potential time waiting inline it can take for some people
have described taking Half a dayjust because they have to get
there, they have to stand inline, they have to do the health
checks, the actual process takeslike 45 minutes to an hour. So
if you're doing it twice a week,and this also depends on where
you are the city that you're in,I would say, a rough average as
(25:19):
you can earn somewhere between900 and $1,000 a month. So it's
not enough to be an income. It'senough to supplement an income
and cover the gaps. What I meanby gamification is this. So if
you are and people who donateplasma will know all about this,
you basically are incentivizedby the system to go twice a week
(25:44):
forever. So you will get paidmore for your second, third,
fourth, fifth donation in amonth, you will sometimes get a
bonus for doing eight donationsin a month, you'll earn less
money per donation if you gofewer times. And so and this is
all on people get, you know,codes and coupons and refer a
(26:07):
friend bonuses. I mean, it'svery much a system that kind of
takes advantage of the Yeah, Imean, people's addiction to
games, I guess is what it wouldbe. So, you know, the people
that I have spoken to who arefrequent longterm plasma donors
know exactly how to get the mostmoney out of it. And I would say
(26:28):
the probably the average mostright or Yeah, the average most
you can do right now is about$1,000 a month. But if you're
really paying attention to allthe bonuses and tricks, and
everything else, you can boostit beat on that,
Joe Cadwell (26:39):
right. And I understand these people have to
be their health has to bechecked at least every four
months here in the US.
Kathleen McLaughlin (26:48):
Yeah, they, they, um, the plasma centers are
pretty strict about healthchecks. I mean, every time you
go in, they're gonna check yourblood pressure, and ask you a
long series of questions. One ofthe big things and this is what
I mean, but they're prettyparticular, you have to tell
them if you've gotten a newtattoo, and if you've gotten a
new tattoo, you're disqualifiedfor a certain amount of time.
(27:13):
They are extremely cautious. Andthis is why I said earlier,
there, there does not appear tobe any risk to donors and what
happened in China. So forexample, you know, AIDS or HIV
are a virus being transmittedthrough that plasma donation
system. That's not somethingthat I would be afraid of, if I
were a donor,
Joe Cadwell (27:31):
okay, cross contamination, they're using
sterilized needles new to sewout sharing centrifuges. And the
plasma itself that is beingdistributed, I understand now,
they, they through freezing andthrough heat tempering and
through detergents, they canclean the plasma and ensure that
what they that's going out isclean. So
Kathleen McLaughlin (27:52):
understand very, the risk is almost nil, I
would say, of contracting anykind of a virus or disease. I
mean, I have had to do the mathagain, I have had dozens, maybe
hundreds of plasma medicationinfusions at this point, and I
absolutely don't worry about therisk of getting a virus. It
(28:14):
doesn't really it I don'tbelieve and this is after years
and years and years of research,I don't believe there is a risk
of contracting virus eitherthrough donating or receiving
these medications. Okay, to methat the potential risk is
different.
Joe Cadwell (28:29):
All right. We'll get to that potential risk in
just a second. But so Iunderstand the FDA also oversees
these collection centers arethese collection centers, the
local collection center, whetherit's in Flint, Michigan, or
Missoula, is that owned by amultinational? Are those
privately run,
Kathleen McLaughlin (28:49):
those are owned by the same multinational
so for example, Grifols, whichis a Spanish company that makes
my specific plasma medication.
They own hundreds of plasmacollection centers all over the
United States. And that'susually the typical thing. So
you have a company that makesbiologic medic medicine, and
like CSL, which is based inAustralia, that's another one of
(29:12):
the major companies that youcan, where you can sell your
plasma or donate your plasma. Soit tends to be the companies
making these medications. Also,the plasma collection centers,
if that makes sense, youwouldn't find and I would say
this people if you want to sellplasma, and you happen to see
like a privately owned clinicthat you've never heard the
(29:35):
name, don't sell your plasmathere because they're probably
pretty shady.
Joe Cadwell (29:41):
Hey, I forgot to ask, what is the average donor
donating as far as quantity? Iguess it would, you know, per
visit, is it you know, I guessit would depend also on your
size and weight depends on
Kathleen McLaughlin (29:53):
your weight. Yeah, it's completely
based on weight. And actually, Ihaven't have to look at the
chart again. I don't know offthe top above my head. But you
do this is an interesting quirkto the system. So you will get a
higher compensation if you weighmore, because they're taking
more fluid from you. Andactually, I tried to talk to one
person who was trying to gainweight so they can move into the
(30:16):
next category of financialcompensation. Yes, yeah. So you
it's not a lot more, but you canearn a little bit more money if
you're in the next level up.
Joe Cadwell (30:24):
All right. So you said, well, for easy math, you
said say we'll just make roundnumbers $1,000 a month, I go
eight times a month, that'sroughly 120 is $125, a visit
that I get for donatingunspecified amount of my plasma?
Not necessarily my blood, but myplasma? And I can do that twice
(30:44):
a week. So that's, that's prettygood. Now this these companies
that extract the plasma, whatare they getting? Or what is
their compensation? What arethey turn around and sell sell
it for?
Kathleen McLaughlin (30:58):
I'm laughing because the the number
might shock you a little bit. Sohere's the thing, this is not a
one to one at all, because theplasma has to be mixed, it has
to be processed it there's awhole proprietary proprietary
chemical composition of theseplasma drugs, the drug that I
(31:19):
take is made from the immunesystem particles that are
removed from other people'splasma. The drug that I take
contains particles from 1000s ofdifferent plasma donors. So I'm
not getting a jack an injectionof other people's plasma and
getting an injection of a drug.
And my drug is the most commondrug made from blood plasma, I
should, I should tell you thatas well. So this is the primary
(31:40):
one of the primary uses of otherpeople's plasma. But I get an
infusion every couple of monthsof this drug. And I have to
think of the volume of it, it'sabout a liter and a half of
medication. That cost is$13,000. Wow. Yeah. So the user
end cost of these drugs isinsanely expensive.
Joe Cadwell (32:08):
So $125, out of the donor and $13,000 in into the
recipient, somewhere in themiddle there as a business. On,
on on, I think, if I remembercorrectly, about a $30 billion a
year enterprise in the plasmaindustry. It's a very valuable
business. Yeah, the US being oneof the largest contributors,
(32:32):
again, along with Germany,Austria, Poland and Czech
Republic. And so there's somemoney, serious money being made.
You talked about your ownpersonal risk, and and it's not
getting a cross contamination.
Virus. But what is what do yousee the risk being?
Kathleen McLaughlin (32:49):
My personal risk can be that this has been
this has been the thing that hasweighed on me for 20 years is
that I am dependent on a drugthat depends on the exploitation
of other people? I think it is.
And I'm not saying that everyonewho donates ourselves plasma is,
you know, a tool or withoutagency, I think it's the
(33:11):
opposite of that. I think thatpeople who do this are
incredibly altruistic, becauseyou're giving a part of
themselves, when maybe theydon't have any money to give,
right? But the system depends onexploiting them financially. So
I honestly think people shouldget paid more. That's my whole
(33:32):
argument, I guess, in all ofthis is that, rather than
depending on people to donatetwice a week, every week,
forever, until their health kindof gives out and they're tired
of doing it, or they don't needthe money anymore, we should
have a kinder system that looksat ways that might encourage
people to engage in thispractice. Beyond just needing
(33:54):
the money, or I mean, I thinkthere should be fair
compensation. There's I have achapter in the book about
something that happened in NewYork about 100 years ago, back
when blood donation was a one toone process. So back when, if
you needed a blood donation inthe beginning, you had to have a
blood donor on hand in thehospital, right? So they
(34:15):
basically basically strap you upto another living human This is
before they figured out how tostore blood. And so there was a
class of people in New York whowere professional blood donors.
And they were there were someincidents in New York that made
blood donors fear that they wereabout to be exploited for their
(34:36):
kindness. So they formed a unionand and made it a chapter of the
AFL which to me was great. And Imean, I, I would love to see
people who sell plasma think interms of labor in organized
labor to protect themselves frompotential financial and health
exploitation and doing this
Joe Cadwell (34:58):
right I can see that And again, the dependency
on drug which is derived fromdonors, especially, I understand
that the plasma, big plasma, ifyou will, kind of took a bit of
a hit during the COVID era,especially here in the US with
the Mexico US border being kindof locked down. The ease of
(35:21):
supply coming across to theplasma centers was cut short.
And I understand that there's,there's been a real decline in
the the the amount of plasmathat was available to be sent
over to it to create messagesand medicines. Is that a concern
to
Kathleen McLaughlin (35:37):
us? Um, yeah, you know, it's
interesting, again, because wehave allowed this system to
flourish that depends on I don'twant to say desperation, but
kind of that depends on peopleneeding to do this financially.
Right. So the US Mexico borderwas shut down during COVID. And
(35:58):
then there was a massive legalbattle over whether or not
Mexican citizens could resumecrossing over to sell plasma.
Now my understanding is rightnow, the border has reopened for
that. So if people want to comein now and sell plasma, they
can. But there was a shortage incollections when the border shut
down. And in addition to that, alot of people who lived in the
(36:21):
US stopped selling plasma ordonating plasma, because during
the height of COVID, and I wouldsay before vaccines who wanted
to be sitting in a medicalsetting for an hour with other
people, if you didn't need to beright, I mean, I wouldn't have
been
Joe Cadwell (36:37):
the set of checks that the government was putting
out to kind of hey, exactly,
Kathleen McLaughlin (36:41):
exactly. So my understanding is it wasn't
just the border thing had a hugeimpact. But it was also just
COVID generally made peopleaverse to going into plasma
centers. And I don't blame themone bit for that. So we have, I
mean, I think what COVID Did itexpose how precarious this whole
system is? And I don't thinkthat's great, either. I mean,
(37:03):
this is something that, again,people like me depend on, but it
can be shut down that easilysupply
Joe Cadwell (37:10):
chain issues, as we all become used to. So do you
think there's any any talk ofderegulation on a world wide
scale, the sort of the WorldHealth Organization's
recommendation to not so plasma?
reversed,
Kathleen McLaughlin (37:27):
I know that Canada has been having an
ongoing conversation about Imean, there is a there are a
branch of people in Canada whowant to allow the practice of
people selling plasma. So I knowwhat's happening in Canada,
elsewhere in the world? No, Idon't think there is a big push
for this because America's doingthe job for everyone else. So I
(37:48):
think that people don't, I thinkthat other countries aren't
necessarily concerned with this,because they don't have this
problem within their ownborders. So yeah, I know that
it's happening in Canada, I havenot heard of the conversation
happening in other places tokind of loosen up the
recommendation or start a paidplasma system elsewhere. But
it's, it's primarily, I think,because the US is doing the job
(38:13):
for everyone else right now.
Joe Cadwell (38:17):
My guest today is Kathleen McLaughlin, author of
blood money, story of life,death and profit inside
America's blood industry. Isthere anything else you would
you think we should add to this?
Kathleen McLaughlin (38:32):
For me, really, the main thing and all
of this was I had, I was reallyshocked to learn how embedded in
in the fabric of our country,this has become so from college
students to, you know, just kindof ordinary working class and
(38:54):
middle class people doing thekinds of jobs that I have done.
I mean, I talked to local newsreporters who are selling plasma
to make ends meet to Mexicancitizens Academy and cross the
border. I mean, this issomething that has been, I
think, deliberately hidden frompublic view and deliberately
stigmatized. There's a lot ofstigma around people selling
(39:18):
plasma. A lot of people don'ttell their families they're
doing it because it's viewed askind of weird. And I think that
because it is hidden, and it hasbeen stigmatized in a lot of
ways most of us don't understandhow common is and how it has
become a part of our society. Sothis was the thing that really i
(39:40):
think i My eyes were open to inthis process of reporting on it
in the US I have I've had thisreally weird experience now
where I almost anyone who I toldwhat it what this book is about,
they will say Oh, yeah, I usedto do that. Or Oh yeah, my
daughter cells plasma or youknow, my car wasn't does it or,
(40:01):
you know, recently I was talkingto someone, I was just setting
up a book event somewhere. Andthe person I was talking to
said, oh, yeah, when I firstmoved to town, I did that for a
year because I didn't haveenough money, you know, to make
ends meet. So it is somethingthat when you start talking to
people about it, it's but Ithink that, because we're not
(40:23):
very good at listening toworking people, we're not very
good about talking to people whoaren't wealthy, right? We like
to idolize wealthy people. It'sso it's been hidden. But it's
also just become embedded in thefabric of our society. And I
didn't expect to find that. Ithought it would be a couple of
100,000 people in the US. Idon't know the exact number of
(40:47):
people who donate or sellplasma. But I'm very confident
in saying that millions ofAmericans, millions of Americans
have done this in hard economictimes. I just think that it's a
it's something we need to talkabout more so that people
understand how broken oureconomic safety nets are.
Joe Cadwell (41:07):
Yeah, definitely shines a bright light on the
economic disparities here in ourcountry. Kathleen, this has been
a fantastic conversation, wherecan people go to find out more
about you and your work?
Kathleen McLaughlin (41:21):
I have on Twitter, my handle is ke MC A. I
also have a newsletter atsubstack with that same handle.
And I'm kind of the internet, Iguess.
Joe Cadwell (41:36):
All right. Well, again, thank you so much. I
really look forward to hopefullytalking to you in the future.
This is your first book like wetalked about. So congratulations
on that anyone who's interestedin learning more about the
plasma industry. Definitely getthe blood money in your hands.
It's available for sale. Nowwherever you buy your favorite
books. Thank you again,Kathleen. It's been a real
(41:58):
pleasure.
Kathleen McLaughlin (41:59):
Thank you, Joe. This was great. I really
appreciate it.
Joe Cadwell (42:03):
I guess today it was Kathleen McLaughlin, author
of blood money. To dive deeperinto the subject, be sure to
check out the show notes. Asalways, thank you for listening.
Thank you for wanting to knowmore today than you did
yesterday.
Kathleen McLaughlin (42:14):
Well, I mean, that's kind of it. To me,
it's more of an ethical moraldilemma. Do we really want to be
a country where this is just athing that people have to do?
Joe Cadwell (42:25):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's like we're the blood dairy
of the world. You know, therejust
Kathleen McLaughlin (42:33):
is so many people. Just milking It's so
gross. I can't I'm glad. I'dlike I don't want to say this
and recording but it is honestlyjust so gross. The number of
people who sell plasma who, whocompared it to me to being a
dairy cow.
Joe Cadwell (42:52):
Yeah, that's crazy.
Yeah,
Kathleen McLaughlin (42:54):
it's just like, I mean, that's what it I
don't think there is a directthreat to people's lives. I
truly don't. I just think it'sthis moral question of like, Is
this who we want to be? Like,can we be better
Welcome to Grit Nation. I'm Joe Cadwell, the
writer, producer and host of theshow. And on today's episode, I
have the pleasure of speakingwith author Kathleen McLaughlin
about her new book titled BloodMoney,The Story of Life, Death
and Profit Inside America'sBlood Industry. In her book,
Kathleen turns the lights on ahealthcare crisis hidden in
plain sight and reveals astunning example of economic
(00:30):
inequality in action.
intertwined with her own storyas a working class American
managing a chronic illness, shefinds an industry that targets
and exploits America's mostmarginalized communities to feed
the hunger for human bloodplasma. For 20 million pay for
extractions occur each year ofAmerican blood, which is then
processed and packaged for saleas part of a $30 billion global
(00:52):
industry. Blood Money revealsthe controversial and unbalanced
power structures from behind theblood industry. From China's
blood black market to SiliconValley startups. This
electrifying expose demonstratesthe shadowy overlap between big
medicine big business whilepainting a searing portrait of
the extent to which Americanindustry is eager to feed on the
(01:15):
country's most vulnerable.
After the episode, be sure tocheck out the show notes for
more information about Kathleenand her work. And now on to the
show. Kathleen McLaughlin,welcome to Grit Nation.
Kathleen McLaughlin (01:42):
Thank you, Joe. It's great to be here.
Joe Cadwell (01:44):
Hey, thank you so much, Kathleen, for taking the
time to be on the show. Today.
I'm really excited to introduceyou and your work to my listener
audience. You I understandyou've written your first book,
The title is blood money, thestory of life, death and profit
inside America's blood industry.
That's a pretty fascinatingtitle and a really, really
(02:04):
interesting book and a verypersonal book, I began to
understand as I started to readit, what got you to write this
book outline.
Kathleen McLaughlin (02:11):
So this started in I guess it started
almost 20 years ago, when I wasdiagnosed with a rare autoimmune
disease. And the treatment forthat condition is medication
made from other people's bloodplasma. So for the past almost
20 years I've been having oftenon infusions of this drug. And
(02:35):
every time I have one, Icontemplate where this plasma
comes from. Because it Well,first of all, the infusions take
kind of a long time, five to sixhours. There's a lot of boredom
sitting in the chair, let's say,and it isn't, it's a very
strange thing to have otherpieces of other people's body
(02:56):
going into your body. And so itjust became this ongoing thing
that I would think about whereall this plasma came from. So I
was I spent most of the last 20years actually living in China.
And I ended up doing a ton ofreporting about the plasma
industry in China and a majordebacle that happened there in
(03:19):
the industry. And then when Imoved back to the US in 2016, or
so I started digging around intothe industry here and discovered
that it was just as bizarre asChina maybe even more so because
it was so hidden.
Joe Cadwell (03:35):
And I understand why you were living in China. In
order to get the do we call itmedicine at this point, or what
you need to take you
Kathleen McLaughlin (03:45):
can call it medicine Mo is I mean, it's a
biologic, right. So it isn't,it's this weird class of drugs.
It's not like taking a pill.
Right? It's something different,but I think we can call it
medicine. Okay.
Joe Cadwell (03:55):
You had to smuggle this medicine into China, in
order to make sure you had asafe supply was it was safety
concern when you were smugglingit in? Or what what originally
got you to become aninternational smuggler of blood
plasma.
Kathleen McLaughlin (04:10):
Yeah, so I'm back in the 1990s. China had
tried to create what they calleda plasma economy, which sounds
very dry and boring. But whatthey did was tried to create an
industry based on the blood ofpoor people. And so in one
(04:31):
province, in particular, HunanProvince, which is sort of the
breadbasket of China. Thegovernment started a bunch of
plasma centers where they wouldpay farmers who previously
hadn't had a lot of money inexchange for extractions of
their blood plasma. Well,unfortunately, this all took off
right around the time as theAIDS virus entered China. And
(04:54):
those two things togethercreated this viral bomb and HIV
He basically infiltrated theChinese blood supplies and
plasma supplies and remained athreat for years and years and
years. It was pretty undercontrol by the time I got to
China in the early 2000s. Butthere were still periodic
(05:15):
incidences of outbreaks. And Iknew enough, when I first got to
China, I knew enough about thissituation to know that if I had
access to plasma drugs from theUS, I should use those because
they would be safer. And Italked to a lot of medical
(05:35):
professionals in China, and alot of patients in China who
confirmed this to me and therewere plenty of news stories. At
that time, one of the majorproblems with the blood and
plasma supplies in China washepatitis C, there would be big
outbreaks of hepatitis C inplasma drugs because they
weren't treated properly. So.
And on top of that, I had prettygood insurance back in the US.
(05:57):
So it just was kind of easy forme to take the drugs and put it
in my suitcase and go back toChina where I was living, and
then I would show up at thehospital there, and they would
infuse the drugs for me whichwhen I think about it now can
you imagine a Chinese personcoming to the US with a suitcase
full of drugs, and showing up ata hospital in like Boston or
(06:19):
wherever and saying eject theselike we would, I can't imagine
what we would do to someone ifthey tried to do that. But at
that time, I would say China wasa little more wild west, you
know, you can really navigateyour way around things.
Joe Cadwell (06:37):
I understood you work with hospitals until they
got a little bit leery of it,then you just pick up and move
on to the next hospital
Kathleen McLaughlin (06:43):
exactly, then we would bet I would bounce
to the next place. And theyoften do get leery. So it would
take like a usually a couple ofyears. And then I would get a
call from the administration atthe hospital saying we can't do
this anymore. They weregenerally pretty chill about it.
Part of the reason they werepretty chill about it was
(07:06):
everyone in the medical systemin China, the doctors and nurses
and everyone else they knewabout the problems and the blood
supply. So they knew why I wasdoing this, you know, this was
not, by this point, the AIDSdebacle which I should probably
quantify that. Somewhere aroundthe best estimate is that a
(07:27):
million people were infectedwith HIV through the plasma
economy system in her Nan andthe surrounding provinces. So
we're talking about and this wasin a period, right before there
were available treatments forHIV and AIDS. And so we're
talking about a really deadlyincident that happened. So yeah,
(07:49):
the hospitals generally in thebeginning would be quite
understanding because everyoneknew about the AIDS debacle. And
I should also tell you, thereason that this was smuggling
is that in order to go in andout of China, you have to sign
like most countries, most normalcountries, you have to do a
customs declaration form and ontheir customs declaration form
(08:11):
explicitly asks you if you arecarrying human blood or blood
products, Oh, wow. Because theywere trying to limit time I had
made this decision that AIDS wasa foreign disease, and that it
was transmitted through foreignblood. And so they were
restricting the import offoreign blood as a way to try
(08:33):
and curb the AIDS outbreak.
Joe Cadwell (08:37):
Just for clarification, this was your own
product, you were going to beusing this for yourself. You
weren't strapping it to sell.
Kathleen McLaughlin (08:45):
I was not selling it to anyone. No, it was
no, I it was only for my ownuse. And I never did anything
else with it. Like it's not Ishould clarify to like when I
talked about smuggling drugs,this is not a fun drug. This is
a medication that has a lot oficky side effects. It's not
something anyone is going to dofor kicks, right. So yeah, I
(09:08):
just had my own personalmedication that I was bringing
in, but technically, you know,according to the regulations
about bringing in foreign bloodproducts, I was skirting the
law.
Joe Cadwell (09:19):
Yeah. And so I you know, before reading your book,
I was trying to wrap my headaround how giving blood would
create an epidemic if if theblood that was being given was
tainted, and but you know,evaluated and deemed clean. But
the difference is we're notgiving blood here we're not
(09:39):
talking about a one waytransaction of blood coming out
of your body. It's actuallyplasma. And so your blood is
being taken out being strippedto the white blood cells, the
red blood cells, the plasma isbeing extracted, but the rest of
its being pumped back into yourbody and that's where this cross
contamination comes from.
Kathleen McLaughlin (09:58):
That's right. So What happens when you
donate blood, like you said,it's very easy a one way
transaction, the blood comesout, it goes into a bag, it goes
away. And that's it, nothing reenters your body. When you
donate plasma, it's a differentprocess, they put a tube in your
arm that extracts your blood.
And then it goes into acentrifuge that spins the red
(10:19):
blood cells out from the plasma,and keeps your plasma and re
infuses the rest of the bloodback into your body. If that I
mean, that's an overlysimplistic kind of explanation
of how it works. But yeah, soyou have this, you have material
going back into so what happenedin China, and I should be very
(10:40):
clear about this, the way thesystem is set up in the US is
almost certainly now would neverhappen here. This isn't this is
not a risk to Americans, becauseof safety protocols and the way
things are designed now. Butwhat happened in China is that
there were so many people whowanted to sell their plasma,
that they were cutting corners.
(11:00):
So they would reuse tubing, theywould reuse needles, and there
are stories about times wherethey would share the centrifuge
among donors. And so there wereall these opportunities for
infecting fill blood that wasgoing back into people. So
(11:20):
theoretically, I mean, I guessyou could say, basically, the
clinics, in a lot of instances,were actually infecting people
with HIV in the process ofplasma donation.
Joe Cadwell (11:30):
Yeah. And China did not want that level of exposure.
They started blaming this asbeing a Western disease. And
your story against a starts inChina, there's two influential
women that you had a chance tointerview here in the US that
had had to leave China immigrateto the US because of their
involvement with exposing thisatrocities that Chinese
(11:52):
government were trying to coverup. Would you care to talk about
right either? Yeah,
Kathleen McLaughlin (11:56):
of course.
So there were two doctors GalioJ. and Wang Shu ping, who were
both physicians in HunanProvince, where where this
happened. And when this allhappened, Wang Shu ping
specifically worked in a plasmacenter, and she was in charge of
testing and ensuring the healthof plasma donors, and she was an
(12:17):
expert in hepatitis. So shebegan to notice in the donor
samples, a big presence ofhepatitis C. And that was a
major red flag to her as amedical researcher, because she
knew that hepatitis C and HIVoften went hand in hand. So she
started testing samples andfound HIV in the plasma selling
(12:39):
system. And so she knew thatthis was a tinderbox just ready
to go up in flames because sheunderstood how this virus was
spreading. And then it wasextremely deadly deadly at this
time. So she worked inconjunction with Dr. Gaya, J,
who was retired at that point,but was kind of becoming an
(13:02):
activist. And together, theystarted getting the information
out to the general public that1000s and potentially hundreds
of 1000s of people had beensickened in this plasma scheme.
About a few months after WangShu ping blew the whistle, the
government shut down the entireplasma system in the country and
(13:24):
stopped doing what they weredoing because they knew that it
was going to kill people. Butthey then started a pretty
massive cover up. So Wang Shuping the younger doctor who had
found the problem and then workto expose it. She stayed in
China for a couple more years,but she was threatened. She got
beaten up. I mean, it was reallydangerous for her. So she very
(13:49):
quietly started, she was young,she was in our 30s. At the time,
she very quietly startedapplying for research jobs in
the US. And she got hiredinitially, I believe in
Wisconsin, and then sheeventually ended up in Salt Lake
and she never really, I wouldn'tsay never, but she was very
quiet about it. She kind ofunderstood the risk. She got out
(14:11):
she had done this incrediblefeat of whistleblowing, but no
one really knew who she was. Hername was kind of out there, but
she didn't do a lot ofinterviews. Now. Galio J, on the
other hand, became extremelyhigh profile. And she was at a
pretty severe risk of beingarrested. She has said that she
(14:32):
was under house arrest couldn'tleave her apartment. And so she
fled basically in the middle ofthe night one night with the
help of Hillary Clinton andended up in New York. And she's
had she's in her 90s Now, andhas written numerous books about
the whole thing. Unfortunately,Wang Shu ping passed away. I
(14:56):
mean, these two women are ravebeyond belief for what they did.
But they were absolutely. Imean, you can imagine, just
imagine this happening in yourcity or your town or your
neighborhood, the governmentstarts this system, and this
system starts killing people.
(15:17):
And then suddenly, you're notsupposed to talk about it right?
In this, you know, being theChinese government, which is an
expert in repressive repressingthing that covering things up,
they were incredibly brave, totell the world what had
happened. But they're, I guess,the outcomes of their lives have
(15:39):
been? Oh, in a lot of ways,pretty sad.
Joe Cadwell (15:43):
Yeah. And so you, you have first hand knowledge of
what it's like to live in China,you have firsthand knowledge of
what it's like to have areliance on these drugs for your
health and well being that arederived from plasma, you said
China had created a plasmaeconomy and, and that sort of
went wrong for them for for aperiod of time and hard to say
(16:04):
where it's at now, but your bookand then continues on over to
the to the US and we talk aboutpresent day, plasma economies,
and from what I understand, youknow, since 1975, I believe
that's the year the World HealthOrganization has basically said
that the the selling of plasmais sort of a taboo to some
(16:25):
extent, and put out a guidelinesaying, hey, you know, countries
around the world, probably bestnot to encourage people to sell
their plasma. And five countriesfrom the world said, No,
absolutely not. And those arethe Czech Republic, Austria,
Germany, Poland and the UnitedStates. And so why did did these
(16:45):
countries say no to that? Do youthink? And what is the current
state of the plasma economy? Andwho's benefiting from it? And
who's, who's paying the toll forit?
Kathleen McLaughlin (16:55):
That's such an interesting question. The
why. And I have tried to get tothat. And I think the why is
obvious, but at the same time,kind of difficult to dry out. So
let me just start by sayingthere is plasma true plasma
donation where you don't getpaid. And you can do that at the
(17:17):
Red Cross, and a couple of otherplaces you can donate plasma,
without pay, most plasmacollected in the United States,
this giant pool of plasma thatwe have is collected by for
profit, biomedical companies,multinationals that pay people
for their donations, and theygamify the system so that it
(17:39):
encourages people to give theirplasma as much as possible. So
just as let me just tell you anumber that is very interesting
to me, if you decide to donateplasma in it, you don't need the
money. And so it's just for purealtruism, because you want
someone like me to have myplasma drugs, you can do so at
the Red Cross a maximum of 13times a year, so that 13 times a
(18:03):
year, that's the max that theRed Cross will allow for the
health and safety of theirdonors, right? If you sell
plasma at a for profitcollection center in the United
States, you can do it 104 timesa year, twice a week. Correct.
So what's going on there? Howdid we end up with a system
(18:25):
where the for profit companieswill tell you that it's
completely safe to sell yourplasma twice a week, whereas the
Red Cross who everyone kind oftrusts and isn't trying to make
a buck off of your plasma willonly allow you to do it once a
month. There's there's a big gapthere. Now, I think how we
(18:45):
became this is just in the sameway that the United States has
allowed the exploitation oflower income people and working
people for generations withoutmuch notice. I think that the
way that we have become theworld's biggest supplier of
(19:07):
human blood plasma, is that itcomes from people primarily who
are on the economic margins. AndI'm not saying the poorest of
the poor, because generallyspeaking, the poorest of the
poor people who are on housedare screened out of the system,
you have to have proof ofpermanent residents that
permanent residence in order tosell plasma, but I'm talking
(19:29):
about people who are maybe inthe working poor also in what we
used to think of as the middleclass. I have over the course of
this reporting met a lot ofpeople who sell plasma to pay
for vacations. I've met a lot ofpeople who sell plasma to pay
for college or pay for livingexpenses while in college. So I
(19:51):
think that what has happened isthis is one of these industries,
kind of like the dollar storethat has grown up around the
economic fault lines in theUnited States, if that makes
sense. So we who are vulnerable,and this industry comes in to
take from them.
Joe Cadwell (20:10):
And if I not sure where I got the information
from, but I think currently inthe US, there's about 900
collection centers, plasmacollection centers scattered
Yeah, us in the majority ofthose are in disadvantaged ZIP
Code areas.
Kathleen McLaughlin (20:25):
That's right. So I think we're up over
1000. Now the last time Ichecked, the numbers were over
1000. And if you look at one ofthe most interesting things to
me is I started this project inthe United States, by looking at
a map, you could get maps ofwhere these centers are located.
And you will see clusters ofthem in places that you know, to
(20:47):
be economically disadvantaged.
So they're in you look, inMichigan, for example, in
Detroit and Flint, inparticular, have big
concentrations of plasmacenters. So Flint has about
75 80,000 people, now theirpopulation is less than half of
what it used to be, they havesix for profit class plasma
collection center, in the in thegreater Flint area, just for
(21:11):
comparison, Missoula, Montana,which is close to where I live,
has about the same number ofpeople, maybe a few more, they
have one Plasma center. So youcan really get an idea of where
there are a lot of economicallyvulnerable people, the biggest
concentration of for profit,plasma collection centers in the
(21:33):
United States is on the USMexico border. And that's
because there is a hugedependence on Mexican citizens
crossing over to sell theirplasma in the US. So yeah, you
can kind of map out the economicfault lines and the United
States by where plasma centerslie. It's really interesting.
And I do not, I should tell you,when I, when I entered into this
(21:55):
project, I honestly thought Iwas going to be writing a
science book, I thought it wasgonna be I thought I would come
away with this, like, Oh, here'ssome science recommendations
about blah, blah, blah, blah,blah. And it became very clear
right away that no, this is abook about the fragmentation of,
or the dissolution of the socialsafety net for Americans. I
(22:20):
mean, what has happened in thiscountry in the last, say, 30 to
40 years with the just theabsolute disintegration of the
social safety net for people andwhat has materialized in its
place is things like sellingplasma.
Joe Cadwell (22:40):
Yeah. And I understand the US accounts for
about two thirds of the world'splasma supply. And again, my
information, hopefully, is, ison par with yours, or close.
Kathleen McLaughlin (22:51):
Yeah, I mean, it's a huge that is one of
the numbers I have seen. Andthat is, it certainly accounts
for a huge amount of it. And sowhat's interesting is if you
travel, and I've had thisexperience, if you travel, for
example, in Europe, and tellpeople about the paid plasma
extraction system in the UnitedStates, they'll look at you with
(23:12):
horror, like, Oh, my God, what aterrible country allow people to
sell their plasma, I can'tbelieve you do that. But the
fact is, they rely on our plasmafor their drugs. And several of
these companies are actuallybased in Europe. These are not
strictly American companies.
These are multinationals. And sothis is a global industry that
knows that America is very badat protecting citizens with
(23:36):
economic vulnerabilities. And soit kind of I hate to use a
metaphor like this, but itreally, it really comes in it as
like a vampire. You know, yousee these, you see places that
are vulnerable and people whoare vulnerable, and it knows how
to extract from them.
Joe Cadwell (23:56):
So let's back it up just a bit. You said the average
plasma donor is someone, I'll beit in the United States, it
seems like someone who ispossibly on the lower end of the
socio economic scale, but isworking middle class is trying
to shore up some shortcomings intheir financial situation by
selling their plasma, they'reallowed to do that twice a week,
up to 104 times a year. And whatwhat do they what do they
(24:21):
actually get? You talked aboutgamification of selling plasma,
but dollars and cents? What doesan average How long does it take
for someone to give plasma andwhat is the takeaway? Sure, walk
out the door. So
Kathleen McLaughlin (24:34):
for most people, that actual process
takes about an hour. And somepeople it can take longer, it
just depends it not to get gory,but sometimes it depends how
hard it is to get your vein withthe needle. And then for some
people, it's just a little bitslower but I would say about an
average and we're not countingthe time to get to the facility,
(24:55):
the potential time waiting inline it can take for some people
have described taking Half a dayjust because they have to get
there, they have to stand inline, they have to do the health
checks, the actual process takeslike 45 minutes to an hour. So
if you're doing it twice a week,and this also depends on where
you are the city that you're in,I would say, a rough average as
(25:19):
you can earn somewhere between900 and $1,000 a month. So it's
not enough to be an income. It'senough to supplement an income
and cover the gaps. What I meanby gamification is this. So if
you are and people who donateplasma will know all about this,
you basically are incentivizedby the system to go twice a week
(25:44):
forever. So you will get paidmore for your second, third,
fourth, fifth donation in amonth, you will sometimes get a
bonus for doing eight donationsin a month, you'll earn less
money per donation if you gofewer times. And so and this is
all on people get, you know,codes and coupons and refer a
(26:07):
friend bonuses. I mean, it'svery much a system that kind of
takes advantage of the Yeah, Imean, people's addiction to
games, I guess is what it wouldbe. So, you know, the people
that I have spoken to who arefrequent longterm plasma donors
know exactly how to get the mostmoney out of it. And I would say
(26:28):
the probably the average mostright or Yeah, the average most
you can do right now is about$1,000 a month. But if you're
really paying attention to allthe bonuses and tricks, and
everything else, you can boostit beat on that,
Joe Cadwell (26:39):
right. And I understand these people have to
be their health has to bechecked at least every four
months here in the US.
Kathleen McLaughlin (26:48):
Yeah, they, they, um, the plasma centers are
pretty strict about healthchecks. I mean, every time you
go in, they're gonna check yourblood pressure, and ask you a
long series of questions. One ofthe big things and this is what
I mean, but they're prettyparticular, you have to tell
them if you've gotten a newtattoo, and if you've gotten a
new tattoo, you're disqualifiedfor a certain amount of time.
(27:13):
They are extremely cautious. Andthis is why I said earlier,
there, there does not appear tobe any risk to donors and what
happened in China. So forexample, you know, AIDS or HIV
are a virus being transmittedthrough that plasma donation
system. That's not somethingthat I would be afraid of, if I
were a donor,
Joe Cadwell (27:31):
okay, cross contamination, they're using
sterilized needles new to sewout sharing centrifuges. And the
plasma itself that is beingdistributed, I understand now,
they, they through freezing andthrough heat tempering and
through detergents, they canclean the plasma and ensure that
what they that's going out isclean. So
Kathleen McLaughlin (27:52):
understand very, the risk is almost nil, I
would say, of contracting anykind of a virus or disease. I
mean, I have had to do the mathagain, I have had dozens, maybe
hundreds of plasma medicationinfusions at this point, and I
absolutely don't worry about therisk of getting a virus. It
(28:14):
doesn't really it I don'tbelieve and this is after years
and years and years of research,I don't believe there is a risk
of contracting virus eitherthrough donating or receiving
these medications. Okay, to methat the potential risk is
different.
Joe Cadwell (28:29):
All right. We'll get to that potential risk in
just a second. But so Iunderstand the FDA also oversees
these collection centers arethese collection centers, the
local collection center, whetherit's in Flint, Michigan, or
Missoula, is that owned by amultinational? Are those
privately run,
Kathleen McLaughlin (28:49):
those are owned by the same multinational
so for example, Grifols, whichis a Spanish company that makes
my specific plasma medication.
They own hundreds of plasmacollection centers all over the
United States. And that'susually the typical thing. So
you have a company that makesbiologic medic medicine, and
like CSL, which is based inAustralia, that's another one of
(29:12):
the major companies that youcan, where you can sell your
plasma or donate your plasma. Soit tends to be the companies
making these medications. Also,the plasma collection centers,
if that makes sense, youwouldn't find and I would say
this people if you want to sellplasma, and you happen to see
like a privately owned clinicthat you've never heard the
(29:35):
name, don't sell your plasmathere because they're probably
pretty shady.
Joe Cadwell (29:41):
Hey, I forgot to ask, what is the average donor
donating as far as quantity? Iguess it would, you know, per
visit, is it you know, I guessit would depend also on your
size and weight depends on
Kathleen McLaughlin (29:53):
your weight. Yeah, it's completely
based on weight. And actually, Ihaven't have to look at the
chart again. I don't know offthe top above my head. But you
do this is an interesting quirkto the system. So you will get a
higher compensation if you weighmore, because they're taking
more fluid from you. Andactually, I tried to talk to one
person who was trying to gainweight so they can move into the
(30:16):
next category of financialcompensation. Yes, yeah. So you
it's not a lot more, but you canearn a little bit more money if
you're in the next level up.
Joe Cadwell (30:24):
All right. So you said, well, for easy math, you
said say we'll just make roundnumbers $1,000 a month, I go
eight times a month, that'sroughly 120 is $125, a visit
that I get for donatingunspecified amount of my plasma?
Not necessarily my blood, but myplasma? And I can do that twice
(30:44):
a week. So that's, that's prettygood. Now this these companies
that extract the plasma, whatare they getting? Or what is
their compensation? What arethey turn around and sell sell
it for?
Kathleen McLaughlin (30:58):
I'm laughing because the the number
might shock you a little bit. Sohere's the thing, this is not a
one to one at all, because theplasma has to be mixed, it has
to be processed it there's awhole proprietary proprietary
chemical composition of theseplasma drugs, the drug that I
(31:19):
take is made from the immunesystem particles that are
removed from other people'splasma. The drug that I take
contains particles from 1000s ofdifferent plasma donors. So I'm
not getting a jack an injectionof other people's plasma and
getting an injection of a drug.
And my drug is the most commondrug made from blood plasma, I
should, I should tell you thatas well. So this is the primary
(31:40):
one of the primary uses of otherpeople's plasma. But I get an
infusion every couple of monthsof this drug. And I have to
think of the volume of it, it'sabout a liter and a half of
medication. That cost is$13,000. Wow. Yeah. So the user
end cost of these drugs isinsanely expensive.
Joe Cadwell (32:08):
So $125, out of the donor and $13,000 in into the
recipient, somewhere in themiddle there as a business. On,
on on, I think, if I remembercorrectly, about a $30 billion a
year enterprise in the plasmaindustry. It's a very valuable
business. Yeah, the US being oneof the largest contributors,
(32:32):
again, along with Germany,Austria, Poland and Czech
Republic. And so there's somemoney, serious money being made.
You talked about your ownpersonal risk, and and it's not
getting a cross contamination.
Virus. But what is what do yousee the risk being?
Kathleen McLaughlin (32:49):
My personal risk can be that this has been
this has been the thing that hasweighed on me for 20 years is
that I am dependent on a drugthat depends on the exploitation
of other people? I think it is.
And I'm not saying that everyonewho donates ourselves plasma is,
you know, a tool or withoutagency, I think it's the
(33:11):
opposite of that. I think thatpeople who do this are
incredibly altruistic, becauseyou're giving a part of
themselves, when maybe theydon't have any money to give,
right? But the system depends onexploiting them financially. So
I honestly think people shouldget paid more. That's my whole
(33:32):
argument, I guess, in all ofthis is that, rather than
depending on people to donatetwice a week, every week,
forever, until their health kindof gives out and they're tired
of doing it, or they don't needthe money anymore, we should
have a kinder system that looksat ways that might encourage
people to engage in thispractice. Beyond just needing
(33:54):
the money, or I mean, I thinkthere should be fair
compensation. There's I have achapter in the book about
something that happened in NewYork about 100 years ago, back
when blood donation was a one toone process. So back when, if
you needed a blood donation inthe beginning, you had to have a
blood donor on hand in thehospital, right? So they
(34:15):
basically basically strap you upto another living human This is
before they figured out how tostore blood. And so there was a
class of people in New York whowere professional blood donors.
And they were there were someincidents in New York that made
blood donors fear that they wereabout to be exploited for their
(34:36):
kindness. So they formed a unionand and made it a chapter of the
AFL which to me was great. And Imean, I, I would love to see
people who sell plasma think interms of labor in organized
labor to protect themselves frompotential financial and health
exploitation and doing this
Joe Cadwell (34:58):
right I can see that And again, the dependency
on drug which is derived fromdonors, especially, I understand
that the plasma, big plasma, ifyou will, kind of took a bit of
a hit during the COVID era,especially here in the US with
the Mexico US border being kindof locked down. The ease of
(35:21):
supply coming across to theplasma centers was cut short.
And I understand that there's,there's been a real decline in
the the the amount of plasmathat was available to be sent
over to it to create messagesand medicines. Is that a concern
to
Kathleen McLaughlin (35:37):
us? Um, yeah, you know, it's
interesting, again, because wehave allowed this system to
flourish that depends on I don'twant to say desperation, but
kind of that depends on peopleneeding to do this financially.
Right. So the US Mexico borderwas shut down during COVID. And
(35:58):
then there was a massive legalbattle over whether or not
Mexican citizens could resumecrossing over to sell plasma.
Now my understanding is rightnow, the border has reopened for
that. So if people want to comein now and sell plasma, they
can. But there was a shortage incollections when the border shut
down. And in addition to that, alot of people who lived in the
(36:21):
US stopped selling plasma ordonating plasma, because during
the height of COVID, and I wouldsay before vaccines who wanted
to be sitting in a medicalsetting for an hour with other
people, if you didn't need to beright, I mean, I wouldn't have
been
Joe Cadwell (36:37):
the set of checks that the government was putting
out to kind of hey, exactly,
Kathleen McLaughlin (36:41):
exactly. So my understanding is it wasn't
just the border thing had a hugeimpact. But it was also just
COVID generally made peopleaverse to going into plasma
centers. And I don't blame themone bit for that. So we have, I
mean, I think what COVID Did itexpose how precarious this whole
system is? And I don't thinkthat's great, either. I mean,
(37:03):
this is something that, again,people like me depend on, but it
can be shut down that easilysupply
Joe Cadwell (37:10):
chain issues, as we all become used to. So do you
think there's any any talk ofderegulation on a world wide
scale, the sort of the WorldHealth Organization's
recommendation to not so plasma?
reversed,
Kathleen McLaughlin (37:27):
I know that Canada has been having an
ongoing conversation about Imean, there is a there are a
branch of people in Canada whowant to allow the practice of
people selling plasma. So I knowwhat's happening in Canada,
elsewhere in the world? No, Idon't think there is a big push
for this because America's doingthe job for everyone else. So I
(37:48):
think that people don't, I thinkthat other countries aren't
necessarily concerned with this,because they don't have this
problem within their ownborders. So yeah, I know that
it's happening in Canada, I havenot heard of the conversation
happening in other places tokind of loosen up the
recommendation or start a paidplasma system elsewhere. But
it's, it's primarily, I think,because the US is doing the job
(38:13):
for everyone else right now.
Joe Cadwell (38:17):
My guest today is Kathleen McLaughlin, author of
blood money, story of life,death and profit inside
America's blood industry. Isthere anything else you would
you think we should add to this?
Kathleen McLaughlin (38:32):
For me, really, the main thing and all
of this was I had, I was reallyshocked to learn how embedded in
in the fabric of our country,this has become so from college
students to, you know, just kindof ordinary working class and
(38:54):
middle class people doing thekinds of jobs that I have done.
I mean, I talked to local newsreporters who are selling plasma
to make ends meet to Mexicancitizens Academy and cross the
border. I mean, this issomething that has been, I
think, deliberately hidden frompublic view and deliberately
stigmatized. There's a lot ofstigma around people selling
(39:18):
plasma. A lot of people don'ttell their families they're
doing it because it's viewed askind of weird. And I think that
because it is hidden, and it hasbeen stigmatized in a lot of
ways most of us don't understandhow common is and how it has
become a part of our society. Sothis was the thing that really i
(39:40):
think i My eyes were open to inthis process of reporting on it
in the US I have I've had thisreally weird experience now
where I almost anyone who I toldwhat it what this book is about,
they will say Oh, yeah, I usedto do that. Or Oh yeah, my
daughter cells plasma or youknow, my car wasn't does it or,
(40:01):
you know, recently I was talkingto someone, I was just setting
up a book event somewhere. Andthe person I was talking to
said, oh, yeah, when I firstmoved to town, I did that for a
year because I didn't haveenough money, you know, to make
ends meet. So it is somethingthat when you start talking to
people about it, it's but Ithink that, because we're not
(40:23):
very good at listening toworking people, we're not very
good about talking to people whoaren't wealthy, right? We like
to idolize wealthy people. It'sso it's been hidden. But it's
also just become embedded in thefabric of our society. And I
didn't expect to find that. Ithought it would be a couple of
100,000 people in the US. Idon't know the exact number of
(40:47):
people who donate or sellplasma. But I'm very confident
in saying that millions ofAmericans, millions of Americans
have done this in hard economictimes. I just think that it's a
it's something we need to talkabout more so that people
understand how broken oureconomic safety nets are.
Joe Cadwell (41:07):
Yeah, definitely shines a bright light on the
economic disparities here in ourcountry. Kathleen, this has been
a fantastic conversation, wherecan people go to find out more
about you and your work?
Kathleen McLaughlin (41:21):
I have on Twitter, my handle is ke MC A. I
also have a newsletter atsubstack with that same handle.
And I'm kind of the internet, Iguess.
Joe Cadwell (41:36):
All right. Well, again, thank you so much. I
really look forward to hopefullytalking to you in the future.
This is your first book like wetalked about. So congratulations
on that anyone who's interestedin learning more about the
plasma industry. Definitely getthe blood money in your hands.
It's available for sale. Nowwherever you buy your favorite
books. Thank you again,Kathleen. It's been a real
(41:58):
pleasure.
Kathleen McLaughlin (41:59):
Thank you, Joe. This was great. I really
appreciate it.
Joe Cadwell (42:03):
I guess today it was Kathleen McLaughlin, author
of blood money. To dive deeperinto the subject, be sure to
check out the show notes. Asalways, thank you for listening.
Thank you for wanting to knowmore today than you did
yesterday.
Kathleen McLaughlin (42:14):
Well, I mean, that's kind of it. To me,
it's more of an ethical moraldilemma. Do we really want to be
a country where this is just athing that people have to do?
Joe Cadwell (42:25):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's like we're the blood dairy
of the world. You know, therejust
Kathleen McLaughlin (42:33):
is so many people. Just milking It's so
gross. I can't I'm glad. I'dlike I don't want to say this
and recording but it is honestlyjust so gross. The number of
people who sell plasma who, whocompared it to me to being a
dairy cow.
Joe Cadwell (42:52):
Yeah, that's crazy.
Yeah,
Kathleen McLaughlin (42:54):
it's just like, I mean, that's what it I
don't think there is a directthreat to people's lives. I
truly don't. I just think it'sthis moral question of like, Is
this who we want to be? Like,can we be better
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