plasma-taken-from-covid-19-survivors-might-help-patients-fight-it-off/

[efhmc]

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/08/998700/blood-plasma-taken-from-covid-19-survivors-might-help-patients-fight-it-off/

[shanti]

1. Question about plasma donation:

Is it more complicated than a regular blood donation? I heard it was more painful.

[efhmc]

3. Been used since the 30's

"Significant equipoise exists in the literature regarding the optimal plasma formulation. LP is a freeze-dried formulation that was originally developed in the 1930s and used by the American and British military in World War II. It was subsequently discontinued due to risk of disease transmission from pooled donors." I think it was used a great deal because there was not enough donated blood.

[efhmc]

4. I can find nothing which says that one is more painful than another.

https://www.aamds.org/sites/default/files/TransfusionsFactSheet.pdf

[defacto7]

5. I've donated for years. No difference whatsoever.

[shanti]

6. The pics I saw

had the person with tubes in both arms. Is that normal?

[defacto7]

7. In some cases they return the red cells back to you in the other arm.

Not always though. It's not a big deal. Some people do it a couple times a week. I shouldn't have said whatsoever but it just doesn't seem any different to me in the process.

[Marcuse]

2. Corporate interests try to capture him to milk his plasma for profit.

[Igel]

8. I wonder if there's been more research.

The last bit I saw published with great fanfare said that they got the same results with plasma transfusions as others did without. (They didn't say that last bit, they had no control group, but the results were the same as elsewhere for those not getting the treatment.)

I.e., same as hydroxychloroquine. That's killed as a possible treatment because of its Advocate in Chief, but the plasma thing was hailed as salvation. Same results as of end of March, but it wasn't tainted.

Even this is iffy, but it can't much hurt to test. Doing it in lots of places *before* a reasonable trial, with a control, is done is dangerous. It takes staff and equipment to do and if both are in short supply then somebody's shortchanged. In someplace not slammed with a "surge", great.

[AirmensMom]

9. And if they'd test us all,

they might have a bigger pool of plasma donors. Unless I missed it, I don't see where the donor has to have had it with symptoms. Those people will never be tested.