MacRumors 2012 Blood Drive

[MacRumors]

MacRumors is pleased to announce the third annual MacRumors Blood Drive, for the month of May 2012. We encourage forum members and site visitors to donate blood or platelets at any hospital or blood donation center in their city. We want to increase the number of life-saving donations by our online community for the benefit of people in their real-world communities. We also ask donors to post photos or stories in our Blood Drive thread. Saving a life is its own reward but accepting recognition as a donor helps spread the message to others. Please join us in showing the spirit of our community by donating blood or platelets this month and letting us know. Details are in the MacRumors 2012 Blood Drive thread.

Most blood drives are specific to a physical organization at a particular location. Ours is online and worldwide. You can help people in your city who are in need of life-saving blood and platelets in less than an hour of your time. If you are eligible to donate blood you can go to a hospital, community center, the Red Cross, or an independent donation center near you. If you are not eligible to donate yourself, please help the Blood Drive by encouraging other people to donate; see the Blood Drive thread for ideas.

Donated blood and platelets are needed every few seconds, all year, not just when calamities occur. They save the lives of people recovering from accidents, undergoing surgery, or struck by illness, including MacRumors forum members who have let us know that their lives were saved by donated blood. There's no gift more precious than the gift of life.

Specific donor eligibility requirements vary by country. For links and general information see our Blood and Platelet Donation Guide. You can also save lives by registering to donate your organs and tissue and by registering to be a bone marrow donor; see our Organ, Tissue, and Bone Marrow Donation Guide.




Apple's health, relief, and charity efforts over the years have included donations for 9/11 workers in 2001, the fundraising Songs for Sudan effort in 2004, (PRODUCT) RED participation since 2006, help for victims of the Haitian earthquake in 2010 and Japanese earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, and most recently a $50 million donation to Stanford University hospitals and a charitable donation matching program that are part of Apple's recent emphasis on corporate philanthropy.

Article Link: MacRumors 2012 Blood Drive

[MultiMediaWill]

One does not simply donate blood without fainting.

[stridemat]

Such a good cause. I am booked in with my local donation centre and will be attending on the 16 May.

I would urge everyone who can to donate.

[Tesseract]

I always feel left out of these blood drives

Lived in too many crazy places. My blood has been blacklisted. T.T

Someone donate an extra couple o' pints for me!

[aardwolf]

I find this hilarious... I planned to give blood on the way home from work today before I ever knew about this... I told my wife this morning I would be a bit late getting home. :-)

[grooveattack]

booked mine in for the 23rd of this month in the UK!!!

[MVallee]

Can't donate blood because I'm gay.

[Doctor Q]

Originally Posted by MultiMediaWill

One does not simply donate blood without fainting.

Even if you don't think you can donate yourself, you can help the cause by talking to other people about donating. If you get someone else to donate blood, that adds as much to the blood supply as if you had donated yourself. That's why we've asked people to post in the Blood Drive thread to tell us about their recruiting successes.

[ghostface147]

Wish I could, but world travels blacklist me.

[DoofenshmirtzEI]

Originally Posted by Tesseract

I always feel left out of these blood drives

Lived in too many crazy places. My blood has been blacklisted. T.T

Someone donate an extra couple o' pints for me!

Ditto. Although in my case, it's just the UK that has polluted my blood. Bad news for the people who got the 2 gallons I'd worked my way up to before they told me not to ever come back.

[BenHoleton]

Originally Posted by Tesseract

I always feel left out of these blood drives

Lived in too many crazy places. My blood has been blacklisted. T.T

Someone donate an extra couple o' pints for me!

Same here. i spend too much time in third world countries to be able to donate. But a great cause!

[fun173]

Good Job MR users

[Bill Gates cat]

I've been a blood donor forever and a platelet donor for over 8 years now, reaching over 108 donations. Everyone should give it a go. You never know, someone you know might need it one day!!!

[astr0]

Also gay here and unable to donate blood... :/ Would if I could!

[bluecrabby]

I'd love to and used to give as often as Red Cross would allow in high school but I'm gay and alas cannot. Thanks to everyone else who can and do, hopefully one day soon I will be able to as well.

[distemp]

I would but...apparently gay blood is still tainted with AIDS so I'm not a viable donor. Maybe next lifetime!

[ironpw]

3 Platelet units!

[nydennis]

I asked the doctor last month if I could Donate and was told it was best not to donate at this time due to getting Dizzy on the Blood pressure medicine to control protein in my Kidneys.

My friend at work's mother needed a bunch of blood recently and it certainly helped save her life. My dad needed several pints of blood in the past as well.

Thanks to all the Donators you really make a difference

[alfonsog]

I'm gay... my blood must be poison.

Also, if there's any single gay male doctors left I'm available...

[JTToft]

I just registered to become a blood donor a couple of months ago. I have been to the preliminary blood test and health inspection, but haven't yet been called in for donation. I really hope I'll get to donate some soon.

I have been a registered organ donor (full permission) since turning 18 three years ago. I am thinking about registering for bone marrow donation as well.

I can only encourage people to donate as much as possible to help those in need! I think it's a wonderful thought that my organs, tissue, sinew and so on might help save someone's life after I die.

[Creepyunclejay]

Wow I've been a big fan of this site but have never posted. I am actually in charge of a blood drive this Saturday!! So if anyone near Lehighton pa wants. Please get a hold of me. Great cause to support!!

[JAQ]

You know, I would love to give blood. But I am legally prohibited from donating by ridiculously outdated, scientifically invalid requirements in the US that exclude all men who have had sex with another man, at any time since 1977, from being donors.

These restrictions made sense once upon a time, when all we knew about HIV was that it was found in blood, passed thru sex, and was introduced in to the human population just after the Bicentennial. But we now know how transmission from person to person can be prevented, and how to screen blood products for it... which we do with the rest of donations, from sexually active women and exclusively heterosexual men, who are also at risk for HIV. Higher risk than (for example) monogamous gay men who have tested HIV- for years, or non-monogamous gay men who consistently practice safer sex.

Pardon the lecture. It's just that the combo of appeals asking me to give blood, combined with rules that tell me that I am somehow unclean and unfit to do so... kind of irritate me. You want to increase the supply of life-saving blood products, without compromising safety, and without nagging straight people to donate more? Start by changing the rules to reflect current medical knowledge and scientifically valid standards, rather than Reagan-era ignorance, prejudice, and politics.

[mikefj2004]

Which one of you, by being anxious, can add so much as a cubits to his lifespan. Sure, give a little blood (that's sacred), preserve the life of the individual for a little longer and yet he/she still dies. Blood is sacred and I won't be giving mine. God's Kingdom will solve all other things.

[aardwolf]

Originally Posted by mikefj2004

Which one of you, by being anxious, can add so much as a cubits to his lifespan. Sure, give a little blood (that's sacred), preserve the life of the individual for a little longer and yet he/she still dies. Blood is sacred and I won't be giving mine. God's Kingdom will solve all other things.

That's a disappointing point of view. So, say you were to give blood and save someone's life. That person who would have died and gone to hell eventually gets saved. Then they become a famous evangelist and led 10,000 people to salvation. Or even cure a disease like HIV/AIDS and save millions of lives. You don't think that would help the kingdom?

Losing my blood temporarily is a minor thing that can save someone's life. After all, my body will make more.

[joec1101]

Originally Posted by aardwolf

That's a disappointing point of view. So, say you were to give blood and save someone's life. That person who would have died and gone to hell eventually gets saved. Then they become a famous evangelist and led 10,000 people to salvation. Or even cure a disease like HIV/AIDS and save millions of lives. You don't think that would help the kingdom?

Losing my blood temporarily is a minor thing that can save someone's life. After all, my body will make more.

It's more than disappointing...don't even get me started on the whole religious brainwashing bu!!5h1t.

...and the ban on the gay community giving blood is absolutely ridiculous...it's really just another form of ignorance. ALL blood can be screened - it shouldn't matter WHO it comes from...