I’d like a quick peer review of some low-hanging fruit in the area of effective altruism.
I see that donating blood is rarely talked about in effective altruism articles; in fact, I’ve only found one reference to it on Less Wrong.
I am also told by those organizations that want me to donate blood that each donation (one pint) will save “up to three lives”. For all I know all sites are parroting information provided by the Red Cross, and of course the Red Cross is highly motivated to exaggerate the benefit of donating blood; “up to three” is probably usually closer to “one” in practice.
But even so, if you can save one life by donating blood, and can donate essentially for free (or nearly so), and can donate up to 6.5 times per year...
To my knowledge—the line “up to three lives” is quoted because a blood sample can be separated into 3 parts? or 3 samples, to help with different problems.
What is not mentioned often is the shelf-life for blood products. 3 months on the shelf and that pint is in the medical-waste basket. AKA zero lives saved.
And further, if a surgery goes wrong and they need multiple transfusions to stabilise a person the lives saved goes into fractional numbers. (0.5, 0.33, 0.25...) But those numbers are not pretty.
Further; if someone requires multiple transfusions over their life; to save their life multiple times…
There are numbers less than 1 (0); there are numbers smaller than a whole; and (not actually a mistake made here) real representative numbers don’t often fall to a factor of 5 or 10. (5, 10, 50, 100, 1000).
Anyway if you are healthy and able to spare some blood then its probably a great thing to do.
Ike’s article linked does start to cover adverse effects of blood donation; I wonder if a study has been made into it.
The risk I see is that donating blood temporarily disables you by a small amount. I would call it akin to being a little tipsy; a little sleep deprived, or a little drowsy; or a little low in blood pressure (oh wait yea). Nothing bad happens by being a little drowsy, or a little sleep deprived. It really depends on the whole-case of your situation as to whether something bad happens. (See: swiss cheese model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model )
The important question to ask is—can you take it? If yes; then go right ahead. If you are already under pressure from the complexities of life in such a way that you might be adversely burdening yourself to donate blood; Your life is worth more (even for the simple reasoning that you can donate in the future when you are more up to it)
I’m not sure where you got the 3 month figure from; in America we store the blood for less than that, no more than 6 weeks. It is true that the value of your donation is dependent on your blood type, and you may find that your local organization asks you to change your donation type (platelets, plasma, whole blood) if you have a blood type that is less convenient. I do acknowledge that this question is much more relevant for those of us who are typo O-.
In this case it seems like the marginal value of blood donation should be roughly what the organizations like the red cross are willing to pay to get additional blood donations.
You could look at how often patients get less blood because of supply issues.
Basically that means that the FDA thinks that putting that limit on blood donations won’t reduce the amount of blood donation in critical way that results in people dying as a result.
In this case it seems like the marginal value of blood donation should be roughly what the organizations like the red cross are willing to pay to get additional blood donations.
That is briefly mentioned in the post, and in more detail in the comments.
It does depend on certain efficiency assumptions about the Red Cross, though.
It does depend on certain efficiency assumptions about the Red Cross, though.
If you don’t believe that the Red Cross is doing a good job on this then research it’s actual practice and openly criticising it could be high leverage.
There enough money in the medical system to pay a reasonable price for the blood that’s needed.
A core idea of EA is the marginal value of a donation.
The marginal value of an additional person donating blood is certainly less than a live saved.
And as a corollary, should I move my charitable giving to bribing people to donate blood whenever there is a shortage?
Certainly not. Finding funding to have enough blood donations isn’t a problem. Our medical system has enough money to pay people in times of shortage.
But it doesn’t want to pay people. The average quality of blood of people who have to be bribed is lower than the average quality of people who donate blood to help their fellow citizens.
I think you are often right about the marginal utility of blood. However, it is worth noting that the Red Cross both pesters people to give blood (a lot, even if you request them directly not to multiple times), and that they offer rewards for blood—usually a t-shirt or a hat, but recently I’ve been getting $5 gift cards. Obviously, this is not intended to directly indicate the worth of the blood, but these factors do indicate that bribery and coercion is alive and well.
EDIT: The FDA prohibits any gifts to blood donors in excess of $25 in cumulative value.
It is also worth noting that there is a thriving industry paying for blood plasma, which may indicate that certain types of blood donation are significantly more valuable than others (plasma are limited use, but can be given regardless of blood type).
I’d like a quick peer review of some low-hanging fruit in the area of effective altruism.
I see that donating blood is rarely talked about in effective altruism articles; in fact, I’ve only found one reference to it on Less Wrong.
I am also told by those organizations that want me to donate blood that each donation (one pint) will save “up to three lives”. For all I know all sites are parroting information provided by the Red Cross, and of course the Red Cross is highly motivated to exaggerate the benefit of donating blood; “up to three” is probably usually closer to “one” in practice.
But even so, if you can save one life by donating blood, and can donate essentially for free (or nearly so), and can donate up to 6.5 times per year...
...and if the expected ROI for monetary donation is in the thousands of dollars for each life, then giving blood is a great deal.
Am I missing anything?
And as a corollary, should I move my charitable giving to bribing people to donate blood whenever there is a shortage?
To my knowledge—the line “up to three lives” is quoted because a blood sample can be separated into 3 parts? or 3 samples, to help with different problems.
What is not mentioned often is the shelf-life for blood products. 3 months on the shelf and that pint is in the medical-waste basket. AKA zero lives saved.
And further, if a surgery goes wrong and they need multiple transfusions to stabilise a person the lives saved goes into fractional numbers. (0.5, 0.33, 0.25...) But those numbers are not pretty.
Further; if someone requires multiple transfusions over their life; to save their life multiple times…
There are numbers less than 1 (0); there are numbers smaller than a whole; and (not actually a mistake made here) real representative numbers don’t often fall to a factor of 5 or 10. (5, 10, 50, 100, 1000).
Anyway if you are healthy and able to spare some blood then its probably a great thing to do.
Ike’s article linked does start to cover adverse effects of blood donation; I wonder if a study has been made into it.
(http://www.ihn-org.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Side-effects-of-blood-donation-by-apheresis-by-Hans-Vrielink.pdf comes as a source from wikipedia on prevelance of adverse effects) (oh shite thats a lot more common than I expected.
The risk I see is that donating blood temporarily disables you by a small amount. I would call it akin to being a little tipsy; a little sleep deprived, or a little drowsy; or a little low in blood pressure (oh wait yea). Nothing bad happens by being a little drowsy, or a little sleep deprived. It really depends on the whole-case of your situation as to whether something bad happens. (See: swiss cheese model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model )
The important question to ask is—can you take it? If yes; then go right ahead. If you are already under pressure from the complexities of life in such a way that you might be adversely burdening yourself to donate blood; Your life is worth more (even for the simple reasoning that you can donate in the future when you are more up to it)
I’m not sure where you got the 3 month figure from; in America we store the blood for less than that, no more than 6 weeks. It is true that the value of your donation is dependent on your blood type, and you may find that your local organization asks you to change your donation type (platelets, plasma, whole blood) if you have a blood type that is less convenient. I do acknowledge that this question is much more relevant for those of us who are typo O-.
I don’t know. The number was in my head that a processed blood sample can last 3 months. entirely possible that it doesn’t.
″ After processing, red cells can be stored for up to 42 days; plasma is frozen and can be stored for up to 12 months;” http://www.donateblood.com.au/faq/about-blood/how-long-until-my-blood-used
http://acesounderglass.com/2015/04/07/is-blood-donation-effective-yes/
Right...
How would you usually go about calculating marginal effectiveness?
In this case it seems like the marginal value of blood donation should be roughly what the organizations like the red cross are willing to pay to get additional blood donations.
You could look at how often patients get less blood because of supply issues.
From the Freakonomics blog: “FDA prohibits any gifts to blood donors in excess of $25 in cumulative value”.
Various articles give different amounts for the price per pint that hospitals pay, but it looks like it’s in the range of $125 in most cases.
Basically that means that the FDA thinks that putting that limit on blood donations won’t reduce the amount of blood donation in critical way that results in people dying as a result.
That is briefly mentioned in the post, and in more detail in the comments.
It does depend on certain efficiency assumptions about the Red Cross, though.
If you don’t believe that the Red Cross is doing a good job on this then research it’s actual practice and openly criticising it could be high leverage. There enough money in the medical system to pay a reasonable price for the blood that’s needed.
I assume the effectiveness of blood donation is affected by whether someone has a rare blood type.
A core idea of EA is the marginal value of a donation. The marginal value of an additional person donating blood is certainly less than a live saved.
Certainly not. Finding funding to have enough blood donations isn’t a problem. Our medical system has enough money to pay people in times of shortage.
But it doesn’t want to pay people. The average quality of blood of people who have to be bribed is lower than the average quality of people who donate blood to help their fellow citizens.
I think you are often right about the marginal utility of blood. However, it is worth noting that the Red Cross both pesters people to give blood (a lot, even if you request them directly not to multiple times), and that they offer rewards for blood—usually a t-shirt or a hat, but recently I’ve been getting $5 gift cards. Obviously, this is not intended to directly indicate the worth of the blood, but these factors do indicate that bribery and coercion is alive and well.
EDIT: The FDA prohibits any gifts to blood donors in excess of $25 in cumulative value.
It is also worth noting that there is a thriving industry paying for blood plasma, which may indicate that certain types of blood donation are significantly more valuable than others (plasma are limited use, but can be given regardless of blood type).