Companies offer high payments and bring-a-friend bonuses to Mexicans who cross the border on temporary visas to donate blood plasma. The U.S. offers weaker health protections for donors than most countries.
Every week, thousands of Mexicans cross the border into the U.S. on temporary visas to sell their blood plasma to profit-making pharmaceutical companies that lure them with Facebook ads and colorful flyers promising hefty cash rewards.
The donors, including some who say the payments are their only income, may take home up to $400 a month if they donate twice a week and earn various incentives, including “buddy bonuses” for recruiting friends or family. Unlike other nations that limit or forbid paid plasma donations at a high frequency out of concern for donor health and quality control, the U.S. allows companies to pay donors and has comparatively loose standards for monitoring their health.
Donating plasma too frequently can hurt a donor’s immune system. A donor’s level of the antibody immunoglobulin G should be screened every four months under guidelines from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. But in the U.S., donors are still allowed to give plasma up to 104 times a year, far more than in most other countries. Selling plasma has been banned in Mexico since 1987.
Genesis, a 21-year-old Mexican studying to be a paramedic, who asked that her last name not be used for her protection, said she gives plasma twice a week in El Paso, Texas. She said she often faints, gets migraines and has numbness in her limbs. The more she donates plasma, the weaker she feels. “I have trouble lifting stuff, problems with my muscles.”
Like many Mexicans donors, Genesis comes into the U.S. on temporary visas, which allow non-immigrants to visit family, shop or "engage in commercial transactions which do not involve gainful employment in the United States."
The plasma companies contend their payments are not wages as defined under the law. They classify them as “compensation” for donor time, since the process often requires long waits and an hour or more hooked up to plasma extraction equipment.
“Plasma donors are compensated because of the time and commitment involved in being a regular plasma donor,” said the pharmaceutical company Grifols, which is based in Barcelona, Spain, and runs 17 plasma donation centers along the U.S.-Mexico border, more than any other company.
The companies also say they carefully monitor donors and follow all safety procedures. These flyers show that U.S.-based plasma centers accept Border Crossing Cards issued with temporary visas. The practice falls into a gray area of federal immigration law.
As the Trump administration clamps down on most traffic at the southern border, U.S. immigration agencies have done little to stop the stream of Mexicans using their B-1/B-2 visas to visit plasma centers. In interviews with ARD German TV, some former plasma center employees said they routinely recommended that clients lie to U.S. Customs and Border patrol about the purpose of their U.S. visits.
“If people are using a B-1/B-2 visa to cross the border to sell plasma, they could be putting that document at risk,” said Roger Maier, a spokesman for CBP, the agency that examines visas at the border. “We strongly encourage people to not use their documents for that capacity.”
Maier said agents “have a lot of discretion in our ability to allow people to enter the United States based on the documents they present.” Asked if the use of visitor visas to donate plasma violates the law, he said, “I’m sorry, it’s a gray area, but I can’t give you a yes or no.”
The U.S. State Department said later that the visa rules do not address “the legality of this specific purpose of travel.” The Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas, which includes El Paso, did not respond to requests for comment.
The U.S. is the largest supplier of blood plasma in a $21 billion global market. FDA data shows that of the 805 plasma donation centers in the U.S., 43 are located along the southern border, up to 62 miles from Mexico.
Every week, thousands of Mexicans cross the border into the U.S. on temporary visas to sell their blood plasma to profit-making pharmaceutical companies that lure them with Facebook ads and colorful flyers promising hefty cash rewards.
The donors, including some who say the payments are their only income, may take home up to $400 a month if they donate twice a week and earn various incentives, including “buddy bonuses” for recruiting friends or family. Unlike other nations that limit or forbid paid plasma donations at a high frequency out of concern for donor health and quality control, the U.S. allows companies to pay donors and has comparatively loose standards for monitoring their health.
Donating plasma too frequently can hurt a donor’s immune system. A donor’s level of the antibody immunoglobulin G should be screened every four months under guidelines from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. But in the U.S., donors are still allowed to give plasma up to 104 times a year, far more than in most other countries. Selling plasma has been banned in Mexico since 1987.
Genesis, a 21-year-old Mexican studying to be a paramedic, who asked that her last name not be used for her protection, said she gives plasma twice a week in El Paso, Texas. She said she often faints, gets migraines and has numbness in her limbs. The more she donates plasma, the weaker she feels. “I have trouble lifting stuff, problems with my muscles.”Like many Mexicans donors, Genesis comes into the U.S. on temporary visas, which allow non-immigrants to visit family, shop or "engage in commercial transactions which do not involve gainful employment in the United States."
The plasma companies contend their payments are not wages as defined under the law. They classify them as “compensation” for donor time, since the process often requires long waits and an hour or more hooked up to plasma extraction equipment.
“Plasma donors are compensated because of the time and commitment involved in being a regular plasma donor,” said the pharmaceutical company Grifols, which is based in Barcelona, Spain, and runs 17 plasma donation centers along the U.S.-Mexico border, more than any other company.
The companies also say they carefully monitor donors and follow all safety procedures. These flyers show that U.S.-based plasma centers accept Border Crossing Cards issued with temporary visas. The practice falls into a gray area of federal immigration law.
As the Trump administration clamps down on most traffic at the southern border, U.S. immigration agencies have done little to stop the stream of Mexicans using their B-1/B-2 visas to visit plasma centers. In interviews with ARD German TV, some former plasma center employees said they routinely recommended that clients lie to U.S. Customs and Border patrol about the purpose of their U.S. visits.
“If people are using a B-1/B-2 visa to cross the border to sell plasma, they could be putting that document at risk,” said Roger Maier, a spokesman for CBP, the agency that examines visas at the border. “We strongly encourage people to not use their documents for that capacity.”
Maier said agents “have a lot of discretion in our ability to allow people to enter the United States based on the documents they present.” Asked if the use of visitor visas to donate plasma violates the law, he said, “I’m sorry, it’s a gray area, but I can’t give you a yes or no.”The U.S. State Department said later that the visa rules do not address “the legality of this specific purpose of travel.” The Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas, which includes El Paso, did not respond to requests for comment.
The U.S. is the largest supplier of blood plasma in a $21 billion global market. FDA data shows that of the 805 plasma donation centers in the U.S., 43 are located along the southern border, up to 62 miles from Mexico.
The border clinics are the most productive, according to internal Grifols documents obtained by ARD. While most U.S. centers receive around 1,000 paid donations a week, centers at the border count more than 2,300. The documents show that border centers also rank highest in donor frequency; they top of list of centers with customers who donate 75 times or more per year.
To read rest of report, click on link: https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/pharmaceutical-companies-are-luring-mexicans-across-the-us-border-to-donate-blood-plasma/
12 comments:
You do what you gotta do to earn a buck. Any port in a storm. As Hillary Clinton said after Benghazi, "What difference does it make anyway!".
You want to believe that theses people are being screened. But are they? That is the huge unknown and something this blogger should go after since he sort of stays with the topic but never answers the important questions.
It fits right in with LNG and spaceX leaches all if they aint sucking one way they're sucking another guey Y LOS POLITICOS QUE$?$?$?
They get free schooling and a good blood wage from just a few feet away from their failed state. What would you do?
OUR POLITICIANS SUCK
EDDIE LUCIO AND EDDIE LUCIO LOL
Nombre Juanito. You criticize Trump when he acts on immigration and then you're offended when immigration laws do not affect these blood suckers. Quien te entiende?
LAZY EDDIE LUCIO JR. EDDIE LUCIO III.
EDDIE LUCIO JR GET OUT AND WALK ON SATURDAY. OBESITY WALK. LEAVE THE LIQUOR AT HOME.
EVERYBODY ELSE ENJOY YOUR WALK.
much to do about nada
Its the policies that are offensive
For this corruption we must give our thanks to our so called public leaders. Filemon Vela, Vicente Gonzalez, Chuy Hinojosa, Eddie Lucio, for allowing and manipulating the laws to allow such corruption. This shit is not even allowed in their territory of Mexico. Check the opioid gravy train lawsuit it's Filemone Vela's wife Rose Vela and Mikal Watts along with Chuy Hinojosa who are suing, They will be the ones who get the Big Bucks for and the victims will get the crumbs. Mikal Watts has a history of getting his hand on huge class action lawsuits and he seems to have Filemon Vela for advice as how much opioid is in the south Texas area. Mikal Watts was a good friend and lawyer for convicted Carlos Uresti. Read on the Carlos Uresti, Dennis Cantu, involvement with corruption. The thing speaks for itself. Maybe some day they will get lucky and get some of this blood running through their veins. This is my opinion
this plasma thing is great! its immigration control atvits best
yall got it all wrong
this extra money allows mexicans to suplementbtheir income and remain in their country! if it werent for the extra 300 or 400 dollars a month they would probably be requesting asylumn and living off tax dollars or coming illegally to work
let this continue it affects no Americans
hell put plasma centers in central america and pay the donors in dollars
hows that for immigration reform!
Hey its their blood leave them alone..
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