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Finance & economics
財經版塊
Paying for pints
血的代價
Blood boom
繁榮的血液貿易
Reliance on America's plasma grows, as other countries castigate its practices.
隨著其他國家譴責血漿采集行為，各國對美國血漿的依賴日益增長。
An unusual sort of business will soon open in Shelby, North Carolina.
一種不尋常的生意即將在北卡羅來納州的謝爾比開業。
It will take over premises previously run by a flooring company, tucked in beside shops selling clothes, paint and fast food.
它將接手之前一家地板公司的營業場所，隱于賣服裝、油漆和快餐的商店旁邊。
But it will not sell anything itself.
但是這家公司本身不會出售任何東西。
Instead, willing donors, paid around $40 a pop, will sit connected to an apheresis machine.
相反，自愿獻血者（每次大約得到40美元報酬）將坐在血漿分離機旁，血管與機器相連。
Over the course of an hour, the machine will extract their blood, siphon out plasma and recirculate the remaining fluid.
在一個小時的過程中，這臺機器會抽取他們的血液，吸出血漿，并將剩余的液體重新輸回獻血者體內。
The plasma will then be made into medicines, such as clotting factors for haemophiliacs and intravenous immunoglobulins for those suffering from autoimmune diseases.
然后血漿將被制成藥物，如用于血友病患者的凝血因子和用于自身免疫性疾病患者的靜脈注射免疫球蛋白。
Shelby’s latest arrival will be one of 400 or so plasma-collection centres to have opened in America since the start of 2020, as pharmaceutical firms respond to growing demand.
謝爾比最新開設的血漿采集中心將是自2020年初以來在美國開設的大約400家血漿采集中心之一，因為制藥公司正在響應不斷增長的需求。
Last year American blood-product exports accounted for 1.8% of the country’s total goods exports, up from just 0.5% a decade ago—and were worth $37bn.
去年，美國血液制品出口占該國貨物出口總額的1.8%，而十年前僅為0.5%，當時價值370億美元。
That makes blood the country’s ninth-largest goods export, ahead of coal and gold.
這使得血液成為美國第九大出口貨物，領先于煤炭和黃金。
All told, America now supplies 70% or so of the plasma used to make medicine.
總體來說，美國現在供應了70%左右的用于制造藥品的血漿。
America’s booming blood trade is not an unmitigated success story, however, since it reflects problems elsewhere.
然而，美國繁榮的血液貿易并不是純粹的成功，因為它反映了其他地方的問題。
The trade is mostly driven by two factors.
該貿易主要由兩個因素驅動。
The first is greater demand for plasma products: doctors have found ever more uses for the medicines, especially intravenous immunoglobulin.
第一個因素是對血漿制品的需求增加：醫生發現了越來越多的對這些藥物的用途，尤其是靜脈注射免疫球蛋白。
According to Marketing Research Bureau, a data firm, the market for immunoglobulin has grown by 5-7% a year for the past quarter of a century.
根據數據公司“市場研究局”，在過去25年里，免疫球蛋白市場每年增長5-7%。
The second reason is restrictions on plasma collection in other countries, owing to a combination of misplaced worries about safety and concerns about the morality of rewarding people for their bodily fluids.
第二個因素是其他國家對血漿采集的限制，這是由于人們有一些不必要的對安全問題的擔憂，而且人們對因捐贈體液而獲得報酬的道德問題存在憂慮。
It is, for instance, illegal to pay for plasma donation in Britain, although the National Health Service does offer gifts and acknowledgments when donors reach certain milestones.
例如在英國，向血漿捐贈者付費是非法的，盡管國家醫療服務體系確實會在捐贈者達到某些里程碑時贈送禮物和表示感謝。
In June the European Parliament approved new regulations that allow compensation to be offered for donations, but ban it from being mentioned in advertising and cap payments to an amount proportionate to the value of time spent donating.
今年6月，歐洲議會批準了新法規，允許為血漿捐贈提供報酬，但禁止在獻血廣告中提及報酬，并將報酬金額限制在與獻血所花的時間價值成比例的數額內。
Whereas Americans can donate 104 times a year, many Europeans are limited to less than 30 times.
美國人一年可以獻血104次，而許多歐洲人則被限制在不到30次。
Such qualms do not stop countries from importing American blood.
這些疑慮并沒有阻止各國進口美國血液。
Britain and Canada are almost entirely dependent on the country’s plasma; Europe brings in lots, too.
英國和加拿大幾乎完全依賴美國的血漿；歐洲也進口了不少。
China, a great rival of America in other areas of trade, is also more than happy to take advantage of America’s supply.
中國在其他貿易領域是美國的強大競爭對手，但中國也很樂意利用美國的血液供應。
Some 43% of Chinese imports of blood products now come from its geopolitical rival, up from just 14% a decade ago, according to figures from the UN.
根據聯合國的數據，中國進口的血液制品中約有43%來自美國，而十年前這一比例僅為14%。
Chinese policymakers ban imports of plasma—a legacy of an attempt to prevent the spread of HIV in the 1980s—with the exception of a single protein, known as albumin.
中國政策制定者禁止進口血漿——這是20世紀80年代為防止艾滋病傳播而遺留下來的政策——但有一種蛋白質除外，即人血白蛋白。
That alone is driving the trade.
單是這種蛋白就推動了貿易。
Some countries are even more flagrant in their double standards.
一些國家在實行雙重標準方面甚至更加明目張膽。
France lobbied against the European Union’s recent regulatory changes, arguing that they risked making the human body a commodity, as is “already a reality in the United States”.
法國進行游說，反對歐盟最近的監管改革（即為捐贈者提供報酬），認為這可能會使人體成為一種商品，而“人體成為商品在美國已經變成了現實”。
At the same time, the French government is the sole shareholder in a company that owns six plasma centres in America, which pay donors, with the fluid collected available for use in France.
與此同時，法國政府卻是一家在美國擁有六個血漿中心的公司的唯一股東，這些中心向捐贈者付費，收集的血漿可在法國使用。
Yet hypocrisy is far from the worst problem in the blood trade.
然而，偽善遠不是血液貿易中最嚴重的問題。
According to Albert Farrugia of the University of Western Australia and colleagues, consumption of plasma medicine would be greater still if more was available.
根據西澳大學的阿爾伯特·法魯賈及其同事，如果有更多的血液可供使用，那么對血漿藥品的消費量將會更大。
They find that outside America, Australia and Canada, use of immunoglobulin is lower than studies estimating demand suggest it ought to be, indicating that people who would benefit from treatment are missing out.
他們發現，在美國、澳大利亞和加拿大以外，免疫球蛋白的使用低于研究所估計的應有的需求，這表明一些本應從治療中受益的人沒有進行治療。
Poorer countries are priced out of the market altogether and use almost no plasma-derived medicines.
較貧窮的國家則完全被排除在市場定價之外，幾乎不使用血漿衍生藥物。
Meanwhile, suitable synthetic plasma alternatives are thought to be some way off.
同時，合適的人工合成血漿替代品距離能夠使用還有一段路要走。
It can take hundreds of donations’ worth of plasma to treat a single patient suffering from an autoimmune condition for a year.
要給一名患有自身免疫性疾病的患者進行一年的治療，可能需要數百份捐贈的血漿。
So until other countries get their act together—bleed, America, bleed.
所以，在其他國家共同采取行動之前，流血吧，美國，繼續流血吧。
