Where Does Your Blood Go? 完整註解

閱讀前你該知道的事

「提取血液、儲存，並輸給需要的患者」在現代已是習以為常的做法，但這種情況並非一直如此。作者 BEN BELEK 在文中深入探討血液捐贈的歷史與產業發展，從中反映出人類的無私奉獻、創意和團隊合作，同時也揭露其中的貪婪、種族歧視和疏忽。這引發了一個值得探討的問題：獻血究竟是一份禮物還是商品？

文章結構簡單易於理解，但使用較多醫療相關的詞彙

閱讀前你該知道的詞彙

commodity 商品

anthropology 人類學。本文以人類學的角度去看血液產業的發展

(blood) plasma 血漿

moral/ethical 道德的

donor 捐贈者
recipient 受贈者

exploit 剝削、利用、壓榨

閱讀全文 >> Is Donated Blood a Gift or a Commodity?

兒子的輸血經歷

IN THE SPRING of 2013, my son, then 5 months old, became very sick. It took just under a month of anxious head-scratching before doctors finally diagnosed his condition as Kawasaki disease, an uncommon form of autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis.

作者 Ben Belek 的兒子五個月大的時候生了一場重病。醫生研究了快一個月才診斷出是Kawasaki disease，一種不常見的 autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis (自體免疫性血管炎)。

Once his diagnosis was confirmed, he was treated through a procedure known as intravenous immunoglobulin therapy, in which antibodies collected from the blood plasma of between 1,000 and 10,000 donors are injected intravenously in the patient. To my partner’s and my relief, the treatment worked: He got better almost immediately.