By: citybiz
August 20, 2025
Fewer Donors Giving Blood; Artificial Substitutes Slow In Coming
The following column appears in the September issue of The Business Monthly serving Howard and Anne Arundel counties
The Red Cross really wants my blood. They email me and phone me repeatedly until I make an appointment.
They really want my blood because it is O negative. I am a part of the 7% of the population that is a “universal donor.” In emergencies, when the bleeding patient’s blood type is unknown, you give them O negative blood. Anyone can accept my blood, from tiny preemie babies in the NICU to the crash victim at shock trauma.
“ATTENTION O- DONOR. There is an emergency need for your critical blood type,” screams the headline of the email.”
On top of that, I give “power red.” As I lie there donating, my whole blood is put through an apheresis machine that separates my red cells from my white. The machine takes double the number of red blood cells in a typical pint of whole blood and returns rest of the fluid to my body. It counts as two pints.I’m working on giving my 8th gallon of blood, most drawn in two dozen visits to Red Cross’s Columbia Donation Center across from the mall.
Giving blood is very special. Only human beings can give what we all need coursing through our veins. Researchers have been working for 80 years to develop an artificial substitute.
Artificial blood
A research center at the University of Maryland medical school in Baltimore along with a company based there that came out of that research has readied a powdered substitute. Add water and you have a liquid with some of the qualities of blood. But even the cofounder admits that ErythroMer is only for bleeding emergencies outside of hospitals, such as on the battlefield or the highway. The patient will still need human blood with all its complicated properties researchers have been unable to duplicate artificially.I can’t afford to donate a clinic or a new wing to a hospital, but I can give blood. And so can you, but most people don’t.
Says the Red Cross: “O negative Red Blood Cells are in chronic short supply and have not been at optimal levels since 2021. The supply challenges are further intensified by a declining donor base and changing donor demographics. Looking forward, this trajectory is unsustainable.” According to the Red Cross, the COVID pandemic curtailed the blood drives and many have not resumed; the younger generation has not been donating in the same numbers as their elders.
(The downside of being O- that I only discovered writing this column is that my body cannot accept any of the other blood types.)
Not only do I have a rare but much sought-after blood type, I am a rare and much sought-after donor of any kind. Only about 3% of the U.S. population donates a year to provide 13.6 million units of whole blood and red blood cells.It’s easy to qualify to give blood. You must weigh at least 110 pounds, be 17 years old, and have had no tattoos or piercings in a year, no intravenous drug use, no paid-for-sex, and none of a longlist of relatively rare medical conditions and certain prescription drugs.
You don’t like needles? Neither do I. Just don’t look when they put it in.
Enhancing the donor experience
The Red Cross, which collects 40% of the country’s blood supply, is conducting a trial to create a “new enhanced donor experience” that eliminates the finger-stick to test your hemoglobin level – percent of red blood cells – before you donate. It’s a device that passes light through your thumb, eliminating the brief prick at the tip of a finger to put a drop of blood on a slide. Patients have less pain and the Red Cross spends less money on supplies. Problem is if your hand is not warm enough, the readings are too low. As a work around, the agency is providing small warmer packs to heat up your thumb. Even that warmer didn’t work for my wife, and she was rejected for blood donation recently since the more reliable finger-stick was no longer available. I also had a slightly lower reading than needed for the Power Red donation on the first try.Kelly, the veteran intake worker, helped warm up my thumb, and then advised a quick shake of the hand. Whew, it read 13.4, 0.1 over the mark. Then came the arm-crushing robotic blood pressure cuff reading familiar from a hospital stay. 166/72, highest systolic I can ever recall.
If these two anecdotes are part of a larger trend, the Red Cross might need to go back to the finger-stick if too many donors are rejected.
Then I head off to the table and the apheresis machine. “Power Red” takes about twice as long as giving whole blood – about 45 minutes. I don’t feel much of anything except toward the end, when I feel some coolness in my head and a little light headedness as the clear yellow liquid is returned to my body.
Afterword, donors are directed to sit down for 15 minutes, drink some juice or water, and eat some snacks or cookies. And that’s it. Overall, with the screening questionnaire you can do at home, and the intake and donation process, it takes about two hours every 112 days, 56 days between donations if you’re just giving a pint of whole blood.
Unfortunately, even if ErythroMer is approved for human use, there will still be a need for blood donors. “It won’t solve that problem,” Dr. Allan Doctor, the head of the Center for Blood Oxygen Transport & Hemostasis at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore told WJZ TV last month. Doctor was recruited to Maryland six years ago to run the center and bring KaloCyte, the company he cofounded to market the product with two other doctors, to Baltimore as well.
“It’s a bridging therapy,” a way to save the 30,000 people a year who bleed out before they get to a hospital, Doctor said. “You can’t give transfusions in the field right now.”
The post Fewer Donors Giving Blood; Artificial Substitutes Slow In Coming appeared first on citybiz.
This contant was orignally distributed by citybiz. Blockchain Registration, Verification & Enhancement provided by NewsRamp™. The source URL for this press release is Fewer Donors Giving Blood; Artificial Substitutes Slow In Coming.
