[Governor Dinwiddie]

Traditionally selling blood products was considered unethical. It also attracts the bottom of society who are often drug addicts or alcoholics who might have contaminated blood. Many hospitals will only use blood products sourced from the Red Cross or their own hospital based collection.

[fwdude]

I used to consider the ethics question as well. But then I read an article from Thomas Sowell and it made me rethink that line. Sowell posited that the supply of much needed blood products would be larger if there were an incentive to donate. I would love to see a study that determined how the blood supply would react if donation for pay were suddenly banned nationwide. I happen to believe that it would decimate the supply of blood to historic low levels.

[AZJeep]

I have always donated blood. You can do it about 4 times a year only and they do not give you anything. Sometimes t-shirt or some useless gift card. They told me that they do not pay because they are afraid that people will lie on the screening to get the money.
Plasma donation actually takes the red cells out of the blood and returns it to your body, so you can donate many more times. Plasma is more-less water, your body can replenish it a lot easier then the cells.
I think they use the plasma to make stuff out of it, and it gets sterilized. So they do not care about bad donors and
they pay for it. Noting unethical.
Seems like the students are always in need of money so most plasma centers are around universities!