Blood for money: Plasma donation in Athens reveals college town disparities

Amanda Kells walked into the Octapharma Plasma donation center on Gaines School Road in Athens, Georgia, on Thursday, Sept. 21, expecting to give plasma, as she aims to do twice a week. But for the second time that week, her iron levels were too low to donate, and she was turned away.

The 46-year-old mom of five smoked a cigarette while waiting outside the center for her father-in-law, who was donating inside. She’ll have to wait for the bus, too — her car is down.

Kells first started donating around 2016. She works at a HomeGoods distribution center, and says the money she receives for her time donating goes to the essentials — gas and groceries. When Kells can’t donate, she said she feels the pinch that week.

“I need the extra money and I don’t mind helping out my fellow human beings,” Kells said. “So it has two pluses, you’re helping out your fellow human beings and you’re helping out your pocket at the same time.”

In college towns like Athens, where donation centers are often concentrated, students and locals may be incentivized to donate to save lives, pay for books, put food on the table or have some extra cash to spend. While the motivations that bring each donor to the needle vary, for some, the practice is a lifeline for survival.

“The compensation that [donors] receive here can be life-changing,” Athens Octapharma center director Abbey Chacko said. “This is how they eat. For some [donors], this is how they keep their lights on, [pay] health bills … People are coming here on their last couple of drops of gas to kind of make ends meet for the next couple of days.”

Compensation for time and effort

Plasma is the liquid part of blood. It has a yellow color and contains proteins and antibodies that help the body fight off infection. These highly concentrated components can be used to treat things like burns, primary immunodeficiency disease and hemophilia, according to the Plasma Protein Therapeutics Association.

Compensating people for their time and effort donating plasma helps produce these life-changing treatments, making it easier to attract donors.

“There’s patients who have family members, they’ve come and [said] we’re actually using your product,” Chacko said. “That’s where things get a little touching. Because … you actually see firsthand your job, what you do in this world and society, actually go into good use.”

Octapharma is a pharmaceutical company that manufactures medication from plasma for these treatments and is one of a handful of plasma donation companies operating in Athens.

In order to donate plasma, a donor must meet certain requirements in a medical examination. For example, donors must be in a certain range for blood pressure and iron levels and test negative for viruses such as hepatitis and HIV.

When a donor comes in to donate plasma, their blood is drawn and centrifuged to separate the plasma. Then, the blood is returned to the donor’s body. For most donors, the process takes about an hour.

There are some risks associated with donating plasma. Some people do not react well to having blood drawn and may experience nausea, lightheadedness, pain at the needle site or even lose consciousness in rare cases. Those who experience severe reactions may be deferred from donating.

“[Negative reactions happen] usually once a day — it’s very common,” former Octapharma phlebotomist Erick Perez said.

A donor typically earns about $45-$65 for a donation, according to Perez, who is a senior biochemistry major at the University of Georgia.

This means that for about an hour of donating plasma, donors can earn around eight times Georgia’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. With promotions, this amount can double for first-time donors.

Payment depends on factors such as bonuses and promotions, the frequency of donation and how long the donation takes, according to the Octapharma website. The duration of the donation is influenced by the amount of plasma a person donates, which is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration according to a donor’s height and weight.

Plasma centers allow up to two donations per week with at least two days between donations to allow a donor’s plasma to regenerate. But whether donors come in once a month or twice a week, their choice to donate reflects a point of need – or in some cases, want – that makes the needle, time and possible reactions worth it.

Need vs. want: Why people donate

Wendy Barnett was born and raised in Athens and works at Subway. She tries to donate every other week, but is turned away sometimes if her blood pressure doesn’t meet requirements to donate.

“I might not even pass today,” Barnett said outside of the Athens Octapharma on Thursday, Sept. 21. “My family has high blood pressure. So I don’t ever know if I’m actually going to make money and be able to donate.”

But when she feels calm enough for her blood pressure to fall, Barnett said she tries to come in and donate. She said she has not experienced negative reactions apart from bruising. Barnett uses the money from her plasma donations for gas.

“[The money] makes a difference. But if not, you just learn to suffer or live frugal,” Barnett said. “I just like it because it helps people, that’s good, too. It gives me something to do that’s positive.”

Students, on the other hand, have varying motivations for donating — –, from covering school expenses to getting extra cash. As a UGA student, Perez has donated plasma intermittently since working at Octapharma.

“It just kind of became a little extra spending money,” Perez said. “I can pay for drinks with this or something.”

Perez recalls student donors taking advantage of a new donor bonus to earn around $100 per donation at Octapharma.

Abby Vital graduated from UGA in 2023 with a degree in health promotion, and also donated plasma as a student. She first decided to donate plasma in 2021 after hearing about the new donor bonus from a friend.

After donating a couple of times, she went on to work at the Biomat USA plasma donation center in downtown Athens as a phlebotomist. Working at the center gave her experience in healthcare, but donating plasma was a way to get extra cash while in college.

“In college, my parents would give me a monthly allowance,” Vital said. “But I just kind of wanted to have extra spending money. … It was a want rather than a need.”

According to Vital, weekly donors seemed to be primarily permanent Athens residents, not students.

Aside from affording basic necessities, Chacko has seen donors come in to pay for tuition, save up for a family vacation or invest. But he also sees more selfless motivations for donating.

“We want [donors] to know that the reason why they’re donating is for the life-saving medicine that’s being created to basically help hundreds of thousands of people,” Chacko said. “I would say the compensation is more of an added incentive, a little bonus for doing that.”

Ethical collection in college towns

The U.S. is one of only a handful of countries that allow plasma donors to be compensated, along with Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany and Hungary, according to the National Institute of Health. In American college towns, a unique opportunity arises for pharmaceutical companies to capitalize on people who need money quickly.

“When the company looks to where they’re going to put their next center … they’re looking at the demographics there,” Chacko said. “They always have one in college towns… there’s so many people that could be potential donors in one condensed area.”

Dr. Melanie Wooten is an assistant professor of pathology and clinical science educator with the Augusta University/University of Georgia Medical Partnership. She formerly served as a regional medical director for a blood center.

“[Plasma donation centers] are often in areas where the population may be more incentivized to donate because of their socioeconomic status,” Wooten said. “I’m not sure that we could just say they’re targeting [people], I don’t necessarily think you can just say that. But certainly, it’s a part of it.”

A study by the University of Michigan found that plasma centers are more often located in urban areas with higher rates of poverty. This shows the relationship, according to the study, between “persistent economic hardship and the raw material sustaining a major healthcare industry.”

Plasma collection is considered a safe process with minimal health risks and the compensation can help individuals make ends meet.

“[Donors] are able to have at least that as an income,” Perez said. “If it helps them out, and it helps other people out, I think it’s okay.”

Whether donors give to save lives, for the comfort of easy money or for economic survival, the donation of their biological components help pharmaceutical companies turn a profit. The vast differences between the motivations to donate reflect the social dynamics of Athens as a college town, as evidenced by who donates.

“It sort of highlights social structure and financial compensation and the split between the very rich and the very poor in the United States,” Wooten said. “Twenty to thirty years from now we might have much different viewpoints of what we did today.”