Selling body parts for cash

By Karen Aho

Isn't it time your body earned its keep?

By law, you can't sell your body even after you're dead. But you can get it to slip you a few 20s -- or thousands -- while you're still alive, by "donating" some of the extra pieces. Not too much is marketable, but what is can be offloaded for a price if it's in good condition.

What can you sell?

Plasma can be yellow gold

The 1984 National Organ Transplantation Act makes it illegal to sell human organs, a rule generally applied to tissues. So companies "compensate" donors for their time.

The big market: plasma, the protein-packed liquid component of blood used to manufacture lifesaving clotting factors and immune boosters, among others. These therapeutics comprise a $7.8 billion annual global market, according to the Marketing Research Bureau, with more than 70% of the source plasma originating from inside Americans.

This strong, steady demand simply can't be met by unpaid volunteers. Ten million of the 12 million liters we pump out annually is from paid donors, many of them regulars pocketing $200-plus a month.

"It's easy," said Ryan Elkins, a 26-year-old disabled Iraq war veteran who makes $55 a week for three hours of "sitting still." It's boring, he said, and he'd rather be back on explosives duty. But it helps buy the groceries for his family as he begins taxidermy school in Spokane, Wash.

Donors profiled on the BioLife Plasma Services Web site have sold plasma for decades, accumulating decent sums toward school, kids, home repairs, even missionary work. One woman uses the money to send her husband away on trips. Here's how it works:

• If you can give blood, you can sell plasma -- probably. The eligibility requirements are similar. You must be 18, weigh at least 110 pounds, be free of communicable disease and in basic good health with strong iron levels.
• There is no cross-contamination. Blood is drawn into an apheresis machine -- essentially a centrifuge. As it spins, plasma, the lightest component in blood, separates out and drips into a bag, which you can watch fill and turn yellow as you read the giant informed-consent brochure you just signed. At various intervals the machine thrums to a halt and reverses direction, returning the remaining blood down the same tube along with some saline solution. Your blood comes into contact only with disposable plastic parts.
• Seriously, though, read the brochure. There can be side effects: allergic reactions, dizziness, nausea. (For more, see this FDA letter.) The U.S. Food and Drug Administration limits each donation to between 625 milliliters (1.3 pints) and 880 milliliters (1.9 pints), depending on body weight, at no more than twice a week. In the United States you can give up to 91.5 liters, or 193 pints, a year, far more than other countries allow.
• With a little patience . . . Companies pay extra to bring you back. The first visit in a week might pay $25, the second $35. Plasma is 90% water and regenerates in 48 hours. At each visit, someone checks your vitals, then you recline in the chair for an hour. You cannot sleep, because attendants must know that you've not passed out.
• It's a large-bore needle. Need more be said here?
• Not every state has a paid donation center. Several companies recently pulled out of the business. To see if there's one near you, check the FDA search engine and select "Establishment Type: Plasmapheresis Center." Or visit the Plasma Protein Therapeutics Association.

For men only

It's far easier to get a date than a sperm-donor card. About 95% of men who apply don't make the cut.

For those who do, though, hoo ha! It can mean up to $1,000 a month for 1½ to two years, enough to pay the rent through graduate school.

For every 1,000 men who seek information about the California Cryobank, a leading service with locations near top-tier colleges, only nine become donors.

Applicants complete a 40-page medical history covering three generations, then get culled for buyer preference.

• Video: Sell your body to science

"We make sure he's not too short, too fat, too tall or too ugly," said Dr. Cappy Rothman, a clinic co-founder.

The ideal donor: 6 feet, medium build, medium complexion, blond or brown hair, green or blue eyes, a college background, dimples. This is what women want.

Then there's the sample. Donors must have sperm counts of 400 million to 500 million, twice the norm. And most of these sperm must be faster than an ordinary sperm, more powerful than an ordinary sperm, able to leap tall petri dishes in a single bound! Unfortunately it's supersperm for only one in four men.

 1 | 2 | next >