Protecting blood safety

This chapter is about components of volunteer blood donations that are each transfused as a single unit. A single donation of a pint of whole blood is virtually always separated by centrifugation into a unit of red blood cells and a unit of plasma; a unit of platelets or a unit of cryoprecipitated plasma can also be prepared, but this is done for less than half of whole blood donations, since patients' clinical needs for platelets and cryoprecipitated plasma are much less than patients' needs for red blood cell transfusion. Each of these units is labeled, and regulated as a drug, following FDA regulations. While today virtually all of these blood components from whole blood donation are from volunteer donors, the FDA would permit paying these donors, but requires that the component's label be marked conspicuously with the words “PAID DONOR” as opposed to “VOLUNTEER DONOR.” Whole blood donation is permitted no more often than once every eight weeks. Most of the plasma separated from red blood cell units is not needed for direct transfusion to patients, and so it is provided as “Recovered Plasma” to large multinational for-profit companies that pool and fractionate it into plasma derivatives. The major source of plasma for plasma derivative manufacture, however, is “Source Plasma” collected by plasmapheresis.