Human and animal blood is the thirteenth most traded commodity in the world, worth $252 billion. Most of that is products derived from plasma, and most of it is coming from the United States, the largest exporter of plasma. In 2016, the category of “human and animal blood”—actually mostly blood fractions such as plasma products—earned the United States $19 billion, close to what it got from selling medium-size cars or soybeans.4 The chief of America’s Blood Centers, an association of blood banks, has called it the OPEC of plasma.5 Half of Europe’s plasma for medicinal products comes from
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