Legacy

Tiny, raised, slightly pink scars run down the forearms of Ashley Scott and Samuel Fick.

The two are used to getting strange looks when people notice these suspicious marks. “Whenever you tell anyone, they . . .” Scott paused and glanced at Fick, grinning.

“Give us dirty looks,” her friend finished.

Fick, a sophomore majoring in English and French, and Scott, a sociology sophomore, are frequent plasma donors. They donate twice a week at Talecris Plasma (one of at least three donation centers in Baton Rouge) and use the money they receive as a main source of income. I spoke with them one day at a coffee shop about the ups and downs of their unconventional money-earning method.

Donating plasma is a relatively easy and often lucrative practice in Baton Rouge. Plasma is the liquid portion of blood (as opposed to the cellular portion, which is made up of white blood cells) and is used to treat immunological disorders, hemophilia, severe burns and some respiratory disorders. Due to high demand and low supply, donation centers offer considerable financial compensation to anyone willing to be pricked with a needle.

Fick started visiting plasma centers as a freshman in 2007. He soon recruited Scott to donate as well. “I was a little nervous about the needles,” Scott said. “[They’re] bigger than the needles used when you give blood, but it’s not bad.”

Fick was also initially skeptical after hearing rumors about some centers’ questionable reputations. But as he found out, “It’s not dirty or anything. Everything is clean. They’re pretty professional.”

Some centers are particular about who can give plasma. “The one we go to, depending on the zip code you’re in, you can’t donate,” Scott said. Residents of the State Street area, for example, aren’t allowed to sell plasma. “They said it’s for health reasons.”

Most donation centers offer more money for the first couple of donations, then the amount decreases by five or 10 dollars for additional sessions. Many centers offer higher compensation for the second donation in a week. “They want to get you hooked,” Scott said. “But you can only give twice a week.”

Fick and Scott earn $75 per week donating plasma. In the fall of 2008, they each earned over $1,000. “[I’ve made] probably $1,200 this semester,” Fick said. “Five or six hundred last year. But in [fall 2008] we went every week.”

“It’s more than I make with the real job I have on campus!” Scott said.

Fick is proud to say that the cash he earns from giving plasma covers almost all of his expenses. “I feel like I’m not mooching on my parents,” he told me.

Potential donors may worry about the pain or discomfort involved, but Fick and Scott usually experience few difficulties. “Some people ask me if it hurts,” Scott said. “I am semi-freaked out by needles, but it doesn’t really bother me. I just don’t look.”

Scott said the process takes about 45 minutes to an hour, though it varies depending on weight. During one part of the procedure, blood is pumped back into the body after the plasma has been separated. Some people claim it causes a disturbingly hot or cold sensation, but Scott and Fick said they have never experienced such a feeling. However, donating plasma is not always pain-free.

“I’ve had some bad experiences just because I have small veins and they’ve missed and had to re-stick me,” Scott said. “A couple other times I should have eaten more and just got weak.”

“Sometimes I’ll walk up stairs right after and I can tell a little bit,” Fick said. “But by the next day it’s fine. One of my friends did pass out once because he hadn’t eaten. He made it up to the counter and fell over like in a movie.”

Other potential side effects from frequent donating include track marks or scars, which can draw mixed reactions.

“My dad did plasma in college and he still has his little [scar],” Fick said. “It’s really tiny but you can still see it.”

“My dad did too,” Scott said. “I’m pretty sure I’ll have a scar from it. It doesn’t hurt but it’s not attractive.”

For Fick and Scott, the benefits of quick and easy cash outweigh the few minor inconveniences. “The nurses know us by name,” Scott said. “And when I go alone they ask where Sam is. They have regular people who are there every time we’re there. It’s always pretty interesting.”

I asked her if she would recommend it to others. “I would,” Scott replied. “We have a couple friends who’ve started doing it.”

Bringing a friend can often boost the cash amount. “If you recommend a friend, you get extra dollars,” Fick said. “It’s like a pyramid scheme.”

Plasma centers offer double compensation if the money goes to a charity or fundraiser. Fick, a member of LSU’s ultimate frisbee club, took advantage of the deal. “We needed to raise money,” Fick explained. “So instead of paying dues, we’re going to get 20 people to go eight times and get $12,000. And that’s enough for our whole season.”

Jada Delahoussaye, a reception technician at ZLB Plasma Services, talked with me about the prevalence of student donation in the plasma business. “Students come into the center every day,” Delahoussaye said. “And 90 percent of the students come in twice a week.”

Despite the popularity among students of donating plasma, Delahoussaye claimed the spectrum of donors is wide. “The diversity is widespread between cultures,” she said.

Another moneymaking opportunity among college students is more radical. Infertile parents across the country often seek out young, healthy women to donate their eggs, a long and sometimes painful process that can yield up to $25,000 over the course of six months. Advertisements in college newspapers call for young females who are attractive, intelligent and athletic. According to USA Today, a 2006 ad in Berkeley’s The Daily Californian offered $10,000 for a woman with an SAT score over 1300.

Women between the ages of 18 and 30 are the most fertile and have the healthiest eggs. But donors have to undergo painful hormone therapy injections and an egg-extraction procedure under anesthesia before earning the hefty compensation.

In an interview with ABC News, NYU student Carrie Specht explained her decision to sell her eggs. “I’m not going to kid anybody,” Specht said. “The dollar signs were there first and foremost.”

But there was also the gratification of helping a couple have a baby. “Knowing that I’ve helped people, knowing that I’ve enriched somebody’s life, that I’ve made some people’s dreams come true — that’s a really wonderful feeling,” Specht said. She went on to donate her eggs four more times.

Not everyone has had such a positive experience. Shannon Clark donated her eggs to her aunt when she was 19. “I don’t think that I thought about what this would mean for me personally, emotionally, physically, in the future,” Clark told ABC News reporter Laura Marquez. “I really thought of this egg as DNA, and I didn’t really put a huge connection between me and this child.”

Clark said she thought girls were often lured into donating their eggs solely for the money, instead of the desire to help a couple have a baby. She also thinks women should be counseled on the emotional repercussions of donating before they commit to the procedure.

ABC News released another article earlier this month that examined the pros and cons of egg donating. One Maryland woman made almost $1 million by donating her eggs over 100 times. “It’s addicting,” Lisa Mullins said. “It’s the gratification you get from it.”

Julia Derek, another frequent donor, felt so strongly about the risks of donating eggs that she wrote a book — “Confessions of a Serial Egg Donor” — chronicling her experiences.

“It’s dangerous,” Derek told ABC News, “because it’s too much money involved, so it’s easy to get carried away and do it more times than is recommended.” Derek also believes that donor agents, who receive a commission for each donation, pushed her into more procedures than she wanted.

On Facebook, several groups are devoted to the participants and proponents of egg donation. Some groups encourage members to compare stories and experiences, while others serve as a forum of debate on the issue. The subject of most contention is payment. In Australia, financial compensation is prohibited; eggs must only be donated out of goodwill. Many support implementing similar rules in America. (Arizona and California are currently considering such legislation.)

Some Facebook groups are used as ad space for those seeking donors. “Golden Egg Donation, Inc.” serves as a help-wanted ad for prospective egg donors, providing contact information and incentives to participate. Alexis August, a member of the Golden Egg group, recently posted a request for an “extremely beautiful Caucasian donor” who “must be 5-foot-7-inches or under and educated.” (Craigslist.com, the online classified ad database, now bans such advertisements.)

Selling yourself doesn’t apply only to bodily fluids; some LSU students make extra money selling their time and energy to the Pennington Biomedical Research Center. An ad for a research study there piqued Elliot Sandidge’s interest in January 2008.

“I actually saw an ad in the Reveille,” Sandidge, an accounting senior, told me. “I was sitting at work in Hatcher Hall and saw in big, bold print — ‘2,000 dollars’ — and I was like, ‘Uh, yeah!’”

The ad called for men between the ages of 18 and 25 to participate in a research study, but listed no other details.

He explained, “I called them and they asked a bunch of questions, like if I smoked. They needed people with a family history of diabetes. I came in and basically had a physical to make sure I was in good enough physical condition to handle everything they were going to do.”

Sandidge underwent three pre-trial appointments, including one overnight stay at the beginning and end of the trial. “They did a bunch of things while I was there,” Sandidge said. “The biggest thing was a muscle biopsy. I’d never had one before and it wasn’t too bad. They gave me a shot to numb the area and I couldn’t feel a thing while they were doing it.”

For the next four weeks Sandidge went to Pennington and rode a bike under various conditions; the purpose of the exercise was to test strength and fitness. “One of the tests they did was [have me] get on a bike and ride until I couldn’t ride any more, while every couple of minutes or so they would increase the resistance.” At the beginning of the trial Sandidge could bike for 12 minutes; by the end he could reach 15. “According to them, three minutes was a lot!” he said.

The researchers also put Sandidge on a specific diet. “They gave me stuff to eat and that was all I could eat. Then at the end they did all the tests again.”

Sandidge found his experience at Pennington both enjoyable and financially rewarding. “They were really good with working around my school schedule while I was there,” he recalled. But the best reason for participating in a research study? “I got $600 for each of the overnight things and $800 for the exercise,” he said. For Sandidge, there was nothing to lose in getting paid to get in shape. “No real downside,” he said. “It’s money and all you have to do is let them experiment.”

Caitlyn McMullen participated in a different Pennington research study in March 2008. “It lasted three weeks,” McMullen said. “I had one two-hour evaluation, then I had to go for two sessions, four hours each.”

McMullen’s study, called “The Gum Study,” tested how chewing gum affected hunger, thirst, mood, memory and other factors.

“During my first session, I got there and I had to eat a bunch of food and then hang out for four hours and answer questions every 30 minutes,” McMullen said. “My next session was the exact same thing, except I chewed gum the whole time.”

McMullen was paid $140 for her participation, essentially earning a wage of $14 an hour. “It’s easy money,” McMullen said. “But it’s hard to work around your schedule.”

Still, the experience was worth it to McMullen. “I would do it again,” she said. “My main reason for doing it was because I was backpacking in Europe in the summer and didn’t think I had enough money. It really did help me out.”

Pennington Biomedical Research Center focuses on 10 areas of research, from diabetes and obesity to cancer and genomics. There are over 50 separate laboratories where experiments are conducted, 15 of which are currently seeking volunteers. Studies include nutrition, aging, weight loss and diabetes, ranging from one-day studies to two-year commitments. And as far as compensation goes, no study pays less than $100 and some were as much as $5,000.

Whether selling plasma, eggs or just time, ZLB Plasma’s Delahoussaye sees the appeal. “When it comes down to getting free money, everyone is for it.”