Posted on 03/03/2002 3:12:56 PM PST by adanaC
> Yet, in two states, Arkansas and Louisiana, prison plasma programs persisted throughout the 1980s.
There were HMA collections at other prisons or, brokered, from the disreputable paid donations in slums and border towns. We have reason to believe that HMA operations spread rapidly through the dozen or so states where such plasma draws were legal.
All this was possible for one reason only: the plasma was in heavy demand. Prices stayed high. Panic over AIDS dried up old sources of blood in Haiti and Africa. New ones had to be found. Cummins Prison Farm alone produced a truckful of plasma every week -- up to a reputed 8,000 units. Angola Prison later did the same or a bit more. Inmates were bribed and bullied into donating plasma to the point of literally being bled white -- sometimes four units a week! (They were also cross-contaminated by dirty needles until they had a 100% hepatitis C rate and something near that for AIDS. Few of them are still alive.)
Who bought all this plasma at high prices? There's the $64 million question :-) It is known that some of it went to Connaught in Canada. But Connaught, the only Canadian processing facility, was old, creaky, inefficient and not very big. The U.S. had four processors, all of them newer and larger. They were prohibited by law from using prison blood. But SOMEBODY was buying all that plasma. Hmmm!
Jim Guy is a mean bleeper and a convicted criminal, but let's give him a break on this one. When Bubba left for Washington, D.C. (taking most of the Dixie Mafia with him), his crooked pals sold the Cummins blood concession to an out-of-state company. It ran two more years but we have no particular reason to think the new company did anything wrong. The market for prison plasma was almost dry by then anyway.
"In order to stabilize world population, it is necessary to eliminate 350,000 people a day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it's just as bad not to say it."
- Oceanographer Jaques Cousteau
Published in the Courier, a publication of
the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
great book! as good as anything by john grisham. would love to see the movie.
Me too, and I know the author is! It would make a terrific movie, so maybe the day will come.
Got the book, thanks to t'wit
change locale to, say, mittittippi or oklahoma?
call the former gov/pres "big guy" instead of bubba?
me too. mine's autographed! (by the author...not T'wit).
Those of us who have read it know it used fictional people instead of actual names. Some of us know the hell the author has gone through besides what is public knowledge.
Can you imagine what his life would have been like had he not used fictional names?
A movie would be top-notch!
He might now be in a place where he wouldn't have to worry about it.
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