Bulgaria's Black Market in Blood Is Flourishing

The Daily Sentinel ^ | May. 23, 2011

[nickcarraway]

Her 85-year-old husband needed immediate surgery but doctors told her to find blood for the operation herself. So Slavka Petrova swallowed her anguish and went to haggle on the black market outside the national blood clinic.

It's a grim reality for patients and families in Bulgaria, a struggling EU nation where donors are troublingly scarce, hospitals are strapped for funds and blood traders — mainly Gypsy, or Roma, men — are thriving.

[henkster]

I would have been less surprised if this were a story from neighboring Rumania, home of Vlad Dracul.

[TexasFreeper2009]

she could of waved a $20 to the addicts standing in line at any inner city blood bank in America and gotten all the blood she could carry.

[Procyon]

Unlike the United States and other civilized nations where 100% of donated blood comes from unpaid volunteers, less than 25% of donated blood in Bulgaria comes from unpaid donors. Our blood supply is far safer because there is little incentive for the unhealthy to bother with the process. It’s a cultural thing. Bulgarians probably don’t have much compassion for persons outside their family circle.

[Procyon]

In the United States all blood products (whole blood, platelets and plasma) transfused into patients is from volunteer unpaid donors.

Paid blood donors can only donate plasma, and this plasma is then used by pharmaceutical companies to make drugs.

[BenLurkin]

They should talk to the Clintoons. Maybe they will arrange to have more Arkansas inmates give blood.