The Plasma Professor
@petermjaworski
Ethicist. Canadian. Faculty, @MSBGU. I mostly research and tweet about paid plasma. Projects: http://www.donationethics.com and http://plasmaforall.org
Paid plasma centers reduce crime A recent paper finds that the opening of a plasma center reduces crime by 12% Link in comment 👇
“Our findings indicate that the opening of a plasma center in a city leads to a 12% drop in the crime rate, an effect driven primarily by property and drug-related offenses.”
The Role of Blood Plasma Donation Centers in Crime Reduction marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolu…
Our paper with Julio Elías and Nicola Lacetera just came out in Management Science! It shows that explaining economic tradeoffs can shift public views on price surges, even reducing polarization. Al Roth blogged about it: "Perhaps economists should get involved in the discussion…
thefacultylounge.org/2025/07/organ-…
thefacultylounge.org/2025/07/organ-…
Headed to Nola! With the 4️⃣0️⃣th pick in the 2025 NBA Draft the Washington Wizards select Micah Peavy! But that pick is traded to the @PelicansNBA! #HoyaSaxa
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Donate plasma: lose microplastics, help others, get paid. You should probably look into this.
Taboo. Emotional. Ethically fraught. This is the first Taboo Trades episode in 5+ years where I cried on mic. We discuss Imminent Death Donation, organ scarcity, and the cost of missed opportunities. 📢 buzzsprout.com/1227113/episod…
The failure to pay plasma donors despite no safety issues has and will continue to have tragic consequences Bioethicists exaggerate the moral risk of paying while ignoring the moral risk of not paying
The focus on ethics for AI reminds me very much of discussions in bioethics, where far too much discussion is on sins of commission. For example, why not discuss when the bias of AI systems is less severe than that of humans, and *not using AI* should be ethically unacceptable?
What should blow your mind more is that the few countries that pay are how countries that don’t make up for their plasma collection shortfalls Like Australia and New Zealand and Belgium and Denmark and France and Italy and… (literally all of them)
it never ever fails to blow my mind that other countries get paid for plasma 😵💫
The U.S. collects enough blood without paying anyone In the U.S. people get paid for plasma. The U.S. supplies 67% of the entire world’s plasma. Every country that doesn’t pay plasma donors imports from the U.S. All of them
It’s a surprise to me that so few people know that you can be paid for plasma in Canada Lots of locations here: giveplasma.ca/donors/book-an… plus drumlinplasma.ca in Halifax
If I got paid to donate blood/plasma in Canada, you would catch me there as much as feasibly possible (without harming myself of course)