When I lived in Texas I had a friend who worked for a large hospital, that wasn’t affiliated with a hospital chain, and he said that the requests for blood donation weren’t due to low supply but hospitals having to compete with Big Pharma or government research labs for blood and blood products like plasma.
When one goes to the Red Cross web site they lump most of their ‘revenue’ into Biomedical Services, which in their dictum encompasses hospitals and medical research labs.
So ‘Who can you trust?’ is a good question in today’s environment, especially relating to charities.