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ChristianKl comments on Open thread, Aug. 03 - Aug. 09, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (177)
Right...
How would you usually go about calculating marginal effectiveness?
In this case it seems like the marginal value of blood donation should be roughly what the organizations like the red cross are willing to pay to get additional blood donations.
You could look at how often patients get less blood because of supply issues.
From the Freakonomics blog: "FDA prohibits any gifts to blood donors in excess of $25 in cumulative value".
Various articles give different amounts for the price per pint that hospitals pay, but it looks like it's in the range of $125 in most cases.
Basically that means that the FDA thinks that putting that limit on blood donations won't reduce the amount of blood donation in critical way that results in people dying as a result.
That is briefly mentioned in the post, and in more detail in the comments.
It does depend on certain efficiency assumptions about the Red Cross, though.
If you don't believe that the Red Cross is doing a good job on this then research it's actual practice and openly criticising it could be high leverage. There enough money in the medical system to pay a reasonable price for the blood that's needed.