Well, it happened again. I went to give blood at the Red Cross — as promised in a previous post — and they wouldn’t take it.
I walked in, signed the register, and the lady at the desk gave me a cool hat. Then she said they’d been waiting for me, and handed me the binder full of stuff you have to read before you give.
And there, on the first page, I saw that if you’re taking antibiotics, you can’t give.
I said well, I’m taking an antibiotic, but it’s no big deal. I’ve just had this sinus headache for years, and it got worse in recent months, and they took a CT scan a couple of weeks ago, and decided it was a sinus infection. So they told me to take these expensive (my co-pay was $148) pills for a month.
I haven’t had fever; I haven’t been sick. I don’t think I’m contagious. But I couldn’t give anyway.
They let me keep the hat, though. They said it didn’t matter, because "your editorials" caused hundreds of extra people to give blood over the last couple of days. Well, I’m pretty sure that it would have been the news story
that ran the same day, because that was much more prominent. But in any case, the effect seems to have been dramatic. In a period in which 40 people would normally give at the Columbia Red Cross facility on Bull Street, they had had 200.
I hesitated to mention that, because I don’t want people thinking, "Well, then, I don’t have to give then." No, they need people to keep giving at that rate. This rate was just enough that in another day or so, they expected to no longer have to ration certain types. And blood only lasts 40 days or so; they have to keep getting more.
To schedule your appointment, call 1-800-GIVELIFE, or do it online.
Anyway, they said I could give as soon as I quit taking the antibiotic. I will.
Related Posts
Brad, giving blood really is important. You’ve convinced me I will do in the very near future.
About that $148 antibotic. It really is getting tough to afford quality health care. Even for middle class folks with health insurance the costs can get out of hand very quickly. Someone is making a pile of money. And to some extent that’s a good thing. But at some point we really should use the economic leverage of the federal government to help keep prescription costs down for medicaid and medicare patients, and allow the rest of us to buy medicine from abroad where it’s cheaper. Perhaps that would at least moderate the costs a bit.
There are no easy answers to skyrocketing medical costs we face but congress should at least be discussing it rather than flag-burning and gay marriage.
I agree.
What burns me is that we just committed ourselves to a huge new entitlement in the form of Medicare prescription benefits, with the specific injunction that we NOT use the size of the population affected to negotiate lower prices.
That is insane.
It’s tough to afford health care because the system is overrun with freeloaders. The rest of us are picking up their bills.
21,000,000 illegal aliens are mooching every social service they can. Millions who can afford health insurance don’t buy it, then show up at the emergency room for minor treatments, because they are to cheap and dishonest to go to a Doc-in-the-Box.
Brad: I’m just glad to find out that members of the Fourth Estate actually have blood–instead of ink–running through their veins.
I talked to a pharmacist recently who told me that the drugs given under the new fed program are at lower prices than to others. So, the insurance companies are raising prices to non-govt. programs to make up for the revenue losses.
Brad, have you seen this article yet? Visit Yankee Clause Dashed!
The war will never end in SC!!!!!!!!
Dave, you say that insurance companies are raising prices to non-govt. programs to make up for the revenue loses. I think another explaination is more plausible, the pharmacuitical companies are gouging consumers. They can do so because the government is controlled by conservatives who will stop and nothing to help enrich a handful of super rich business people.
I really think prescription TV drug ads should
be banned.Many of the new drugs they’re pushing are completely useless and often dangerous,especially the sedatives.When it comes to psychoactive meds,we were actually better off thirty years ago than we are today.
But when you see those beautiful people rising out of bed,raring to take on the day,you’ve just got to go beg your doc to give you some,and the drug reps will make sure he does.
Good news. The senate just passed a resolution allowing the import of drugs into the US from Canada. Of course much of the republican leadership opposed this measure. Figures.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-07-11-senate-drug_x.htm
I got excited a little too quickly. Apparently this promising piece of legislation is doomed to fail in the house/senate conference committee. The far-right is really becoming a one-trick pony continuously playing the terrorist scare card in order to thwart any positive changes in this country. The potential problem is that terrorists might put anthrax in containers marked as prescription meds coming from Canada.
Why go to all that trouble? Just put the anthrax in meds already in the US? Or in tylenol or baby powder or powdered milk or laundry detergent. Or mail the stuff in letters. Oh that’s right they already did that but were never caught.
The risk from terrorists is far outweighed by the benefit in keeping drug prices down. The high prices alone are probably killing people who have to choose between food and medicine.
I would really like to see some honest debate in this country that includes the total costs involved in fighting the terrorists. I bet the cost in following the conservative approach would outweigh any benefits by 10 to 1.
Bud, you need to assess the costs of NOT fighting the terrorists. In basically one event on 9-11, the American stockholders and businesses lost over a trillion dollars. Thanks to George Bush and his leadership, we now have gotten that back and then some. Those are the costs you need to recognize.
You’re right Dave. Bush’s incompetence in failing to prevent the 9-11 attacks has cost us plenty. His incompetent handling of foreign affairs has cost us plenty more. And the stock market is still below the high it set during the very competent Clinton administration.