Blood is a river of life, providing nutrients to every cell in our bodies while carrying away waste products.
Its composed of cells and plasma, the latter its liquid component, comprising most bodily blood volume. It contains other substances vital to life.
Other than physicians, especially hematologists and surgeons, few people think about blood unless they bleed, have blood tests, need transfusions or discover they have a blood disorder.
Otherwise, the river of life is ignored. Not to pharmaceutical companies and other blood profiteers. For them, blood is a commodity to be sold for profit.
It’s big business, netting billion dollars in profits annually. In America, facilities mostly in poor communities pay donors for their blood, a practice European countries forbid.
For impoverished Americans, it’s a source of income, along with a health risk for repeated donations, even when not in the best of health.
An earlier Forbes magazine article headlined “The Guys Who Trade Your Blood For Profit,” saying “the American Red Cross controls 44% of the blood supply and has the ability to distribute nationally, depending on the needs of particular areas.”
Private companies profit from blood sales. Tainted blood is an important issue, posing safety threats to patients, potentially risking disease from transfusions.
Viruses, parasites, bacteria and other pathogens show up in donated blood, including in red blood cells, platelets and plasma.
Blood centers involved in collecting and testing blood say they can’t afford expensive new technologies not mandated for their work.
The American Red Cross has been fined millions of dollars for violating blood safety laws, “including mismanaging certain blood products and violating best manufacturing practices,” said Forbes.
The organization was founded as a voluntary relief agency, providing aid to victims of war and national calamities. Its main business now isn’t disaster relief. It’s selling blood for profit.
Blood donations remain a vital resource for many surgery and cancer patients, trauma victims, and others needing transfusions.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Office of Blood, Organ, and Other Tissue Safety director Dr. Matthew Kuehnert earlier stated the obvious, saying “(b)lood saves lives.”
“But transfusions have risks, and they can transmit infectious disease and cause reactions. And that requires careful screening and monitoring.”
Given the number of possible risk factors, it’s cost ineffective to test for everything.
Patients with planned surgeries are safest by donating their own blood in advance, if their doctors advise it may be needed.
After failing miserably if their efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare, Republicans are set to shift their legislative agenda to focus on tax reform when they get back from their generous month-long August recess (taxpayers are such great employers). Among other things, proposed changes to the personal tax code would include eliminating nearly all tax write-offs, including those for state and local taxes, and instead doubling the standard deduction.
Of course, potentially no industry would be more impacted by such a move as the housing market which has sparked a slight panic at the National Association of Realtors (NAR). As Reuters points out this morning, roughly 30 million taxpayers taxpayers claim mortgage interest deductions totaling some $70 billion each year which provides a huge incentive to own a home.
The National Association of Realtors issued an "August Recess Talking Points" circular imploring members to remind lawmakers that "Homeowners must be treated fairly in tax reform" to avoid "another housing crash."
The group cited a report it commissioned from PwC that estimated home values could quickly dive more than 10 percent if the tax plan becomes law.
Currently, about 30 million taxpayers claim the mortgage interest deduction, with about $70 billion in total claims, according to Robert Dietz, an economist with the National Association of Homebuilders.
Estimates suggest more than half of taxpayers would stop itemizing under the proposed plan, Dietz said, warning that this would create a large ripple effect through the economy. He said people in early years of a mortgage would suffer most, along with prospective home buyers.
Meanwhile, talking points distributed by NAR, intended to give realtors around the country ammunition against their elected officials while they"re "vacationing" in their districts, warns that tampering with the mortgage deduction could cause "home values everywhere to plunge" resulting in many homeowners once again going "under water" on their primary asset.
- Proposals limiting tax incentives for homeownership would cause home values everywhere to plunge. Estimates provided by PwC show that values could fall in the short run by more than 10 percent if a Blueprint-like tax reform plan were enacted. The drop could be even larger in high-cost areas. It may take years for home values to rebound from such a significant decrease.
- With a reduction in values of this size, homeowners with relatively small amounts of equity would again see their mortgages go under water, finding they owe more than what their home is worth. For many, this will lead to defaults, foreclosures, or short sales, creating havoc for families, neighborhoods and communities.
- The home is the most valuable asset for most owners. Millions of families have built equity for years with the hope of using it to help pay for retirement or college for children. Many of these dreams would evaporate.
But it"s not just the housing market that would be impacted as the CEO of the American Red Cross warned that removing charitable deductions would be "devastating" for non-profit organizations that currently collect some $13 billion worth of tax-deductible donations annually.
Charitable organizations are not arguing against increasing the standard deduction. But they are asking members of Congress to consider creating a “universal deduction,” so taxpayers taking the standard deduction can get additional credit for donations without itemizing.
Taxpayers claim an estimated $13 billion each year in charitable deductions. Charities fear giving would plummet if the standard deduction were doubled without creating a universal deduction.
Gail McGovern, president and CEO of the American Red Cross, said reducing charitable deductions would be “devastating.”
But it"s probably no "yuge" deal...the U.S. housing stock is only worth about $30 trillion so we"re sure the homebuilders and lenders can absorb a small $3 trillion valuation loss, right?
It sounds like a bad joke, but it’s the sad truth: Coca-Cola and Pepsi, the nation’s 2 top soda makers, recently gave money to several prominent public health groups – including some run by the government. [1]
Source: Medical Daily
The sadder truth: Those groups were more than happy to accept the funds.
As reported by a new study published October 10 in the American Journal of Preventative Measures, researchers at Boston University School of Medicine reveal that a whopping total of 96 public health groups accepted money from Coca-Cola and PepsiCo (or both companies) between 2011 and 2015.
Some of the organizations might look familiar: American Diabetes Association, the National Institutes of Health, the American Red Cross, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, just to name a few.
Study author Daniel Aaron, a medical student at Boston University, said of the groups:
“To see all these organizations [accepting money] is shocking and surprising. I don’t think companies have a legal duty to protect people’s health, but I think these groups do.”
Take a minute to let that sink in. The American Diabetes Association takes money from soda makers.The very products the organization advises people not to consume. The study’s authors called this link “surprising, given the established link between diabetes and soda consumption.” [2]
Let’s take a deeper look at this bizarre report.
Sweet, Sweet Data
Aaron and his coauthor, Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor of community health sciences at the university, decided to take a closer look at the love fest between soda companies and public health groups last year, when The New York Times ran a piece about Coca-Cola’s financial support of a group called the Global Energy Balance Network. [1]
This now-defunct “network” was composed of university researchers, and to put it in the simplest terms possible, Coca-Cola paid these so-called scientists to shift the blame away from junk food and sugary drinks for causing the global obesity epidemic, and a host of other health problems.
Aaron says:
“We were bothered by that, and a little bit confused, and we wanted to know if this was common.”
So Aaron and Siegel began investigating the links between Coca-Cola and Pepsi and 96 organizations:
63 public health groups
19 medical organizations
7 health foundations,
5 government groups
2 food supply groups
Pepsi sponsored 14% of these groups, while Coca-Cola sponsored 99%. The men think that’s probably an underestimate, however; Coca-Cola recently disclosed its sponsorships, while PepsiCo is “known for making its sponsorship data extremely difficult to track.”
Additionally, the study also only looked at national organizations, and most sponsored organizations are state or city-wide, the researchers report.
Here’s a shocker (note the sarcasm): When the team looked at lobbying efforts by both companies, they found that the soda companies actively oppose legislation that targets soda and is aimed at preventing obesity.
Between 2011 and 2015, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo publicly opposed 28 bills and supported 1. Of the bills the companies opposed:
12 were soda taxes
4 were Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) regulations
1 involved the controversial limit on soda sizes in New York.
However, both companies supported a bill designed to limit the marketing of soda in schools, though beverages like Diet Coke could still be marketed.
All that lobbying had a definite impact. One group, Save the Children, gave up pushing for soda taxes after Coca-Cola and Pepsi gave them a cool $5 million in 2009.
And The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics issued a statement saying that it would not back New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed limit on soda portions, arguing that the emphasis should be placed on nutrition education.
Marion Nestle, a New York University professor of public health and nutrition, says:
“First, they attack the science. Then, they fund community groups, promote exercise as a solution, and say they’re self-regulated and don’t need to be regulated by an outside source.” [3]
Aaron and Siegel write in the study:
“It is probable that corporate philanthropy is increasing consumption of soda throughout the country.
Rather than supporting public health, organizations may become unwitting partners that contribute to corporate marketing strategy.” [1]
The duo argues that soda companies’ sponsorship of health groups ends up creating positive cultural associations with their brands. It should be noted that sponsorship is considered marketing by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
And never underestimate an industry’s ability to shape the public view.
As I wrote last month, the sugar industry paid Harvard scientists to frame sugar as a mostly-harmless substance, while painting fat as the cause of obesity, heart disease, and all of the health problems we now know are actually caused by sugar.
The sugar industry was so successful, in fact, that – to quote one professor – it was able “to derail the discussion about sugar for decades.”
Julie Fidler is a freelance writer, legal blogger, and the author of Adventures in Holy Matrimony: For Better or the Absolute Worst. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two ridiculously spoiled cats. She occasionally pontificates on her blog.
