Risky Bodies in the Plasma Bioeconomy

Abstract

In 2003 the UK National Blood Service introduced a policy of ‘male donor preference’ which involved women’s plasma being discarded following blood collection. The policy was based on the view that data relating to the incidence of Transfusion-Related Acute Lung Injury (TRALI) was linked to transfusion with women’s plasma. While appearing to treat female donors as equal to male donors, exclusion criteria operate after donation at the stage of processing blood, thus perpetuating myths of universality even though only certain ‘extractions’ from women are retained for use in transfusion. Many women in the UK receive a plasma-derived product called Anti-D immunoglobulin which is manufactured from pooled male plasma. This article examines ways in which gender has significance for understanding blood relations, and how the blood economy is gendered. In our study of relations between blood donors and recipients, we explore how gendered bodies are produced through the discursive and material practices within blood services. We examine both how donation policies and the manufacturing and use of blood products produces gendered blood relations.

Gender dynamics in the donation field: human tissue donation for research, therapy and feeding

“…Despite commonly held beliefs that voluntary, unremunerated national blood services were founded on a social contract that binds communities together through appeals to universality and social citizenship, blood donation is a highly politicised issue. Within transfusion science we found that ‘gendered bodies are both naturalised and made invisible in a discourse which relies heavily on universalising myths that seek to value blood and plasma donation as a social and public good, and ties donation to citizenship and solidarity’ purporting that all donations are valued equally (Kent and Farrell ). Rather, through the practices of categorising, sorting, screening, testing and matching, transfusion science (like transplantation science) produces difference.…”

“…Women are given anti‐D when they do not need it because there are institutional priorities saying it is too difficult to distinguish between women who need it and women who do not. Women are put at risk because it is more ‘efficient’ to give this blood product to all women, regardless of whether they need it (which could be determined by foetal genotyping) (Kent and Farrell , Kent et al . ).…”

“…We argue that this distinction made between men and women's plasma, the presumptions that women's donations carry more risk because of their potential to be or to have been pregnant, and exposure of pregnant women to greater risk, means that ‘plasma technologies and products are inscribed with gender’ (Kent and Farrell ). These examples highlight how men and women are regarded as different kinds of donors, and indeed recipients, of biological materials.…”

“…These gender differences, in which bodies are presumed to be more, or less risky, are produced through practices within transfusion science and the plasma products industry. Indeed ‘gendered bodies are produced through the discursive and material practices within national blood services’ (Kent and Farrell ). What these examples also highlight is that crucially ‘transfusion science draws on a set of rationalities about the immune system which have emerged within a specifically gendered historical context’ (Kent and Farrell ).…”

“…Indeed ‘gendered bodies are produced through the discursive and material practices within national blood services’ (Kent and Farrell ). What these examples also highlight is that crucially ‘transfusion science draws on a set of rationalities about the immune system which have emerged within a specifically gendered historical context’ (Kent and Farrell ). Theories about the ‘connections’ between the maternal and foetal body and the consequence of these underpin understandings of both blood and plasma donation and transfusion.…”