“No Give, No Take” Policy Did Not Work As Applied to Blood Donation

Many people shy away from giving blood because they don’t like needles, so there is a shortage of blood donations.  The seemingly simple solution would be to say that one cannot receive a blood transfusion if he or she does not donate blood, but this policy has not extinguished the shortage.  The “no give, no take” policy was first applied to organ donations by Israel, and they have experienced overwhelming success in the first month after they adopted that methodology. Why doesn’t the “no give, no take” methodology work to motivate people to donate blood as well as it works to motivate people to donate organs?  

The executive director of donor marketing for the New York Blood Center explained that until about 50 years ago, blood donation was handled according to a debits and credits system.  The problem was that people would give once to earn their credit, and then would not donate again.  The Blood Center then moved to a “community responsibility” system that encourages people to donate regardless, and it has found that idea works better.  The Center has run low at some points, but it has yet to run out of blood.  

See Lane Filler, Filler: ‘No Give, No Take’ for Organs, Long Island Newsday, May 28, 2012. ‘