Blood Veins for Hire: Leveraging the Body as an Income-Generating Tool Amidst Rising Economic Inequality

• In Event: Embodied Labor and Laboring Bodies (Co-sponsored by Organizations, Occupations, and Work Section)

Abstract

As the global population ages, biotechnological innovation in the blood plasma therapeutics sector offers immense potential in treating a range of complex chronic diseases, and in providing healthcare solutions to conditions associated with longevity and aging.
Consequently, demand for medicines derived from blood plasma has skyrocketed. As the blood plasma therapeutics sector expands, what is often overlooked is that this expansion hinges on procuring millions of liters of human blood plasma. Over 70% of the world’s plasma is sourced from millions of people in the U.S. who exchange their plasma for money at for-profit plasma collection centers. This paper integrates spatial, survey and interview data to examine how and why people in the United States are increasingly engaging in paid blood plasma donation, a practice that leverages the body as an income-generating tool. Findings reveal that as the cost of living has risen, people have increasingly engaged in paid plasma donation to maintain their standard of living— often viewing this practice as a second job. This study contributes to our understanding of embodied labor and the changing nature of work, and more specifically, to the evolution of precarious work in the modern economy. Moreover, this study reveals that expanded use of blood plasma donation as an economic coping strategy is symptomatic of a deeper set of social and economic issues in the U.S.—rising economic inequality, the affordability crisis, and the decline of the middle class.

Author

• Analidis Ochoa, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor