scholarly journals Paying for Plasma: Commodification, Exploitation, and Canada's Plasma Shortage

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Vida Panitch ◽  
Lendell Chad Horne

A private, for-profit company has recently opened a pair of plasma donation centres in Canada, at which donors can be compensated up to $50 for their plasma. This has sparked a nation-wide debate around the ethics of paying plasma donors. Our aim in this paper is to shift the terms of the current debate away from the question of whether plasma donors should be paid and toward the question of who should be paying them. We consider arguments against paying plasma donors grounded in concerns about exploitation, commodification, and the introduction of a profit motive. We find them all to be normatively inconclusive, but also overbroad in light of Canada’s persistent reliance on plasma from paid donors in the United States. While we believe that there are good reasons to oppose allowing a private company to profit from Canada’s blood supply, these concerns can be addressed if payment is dispensed instead by a public, not-for-profit agency. In short, we reject profiting from plasma while we endorse paying for plasma; we therefore conclude in favour of a new Canadian regime of public sector plasma collection and compensation.

1986 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. A. Swanson ◽  
John C. Gardner

This research documents the emergence of accounting procedures and concepts in a centrally controlled not-for-profit organization during a period of change and consolidation. The evolution of accounting as prescribed by the General Canons is identified and its implementation throughout the church conferences is examined.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy Guharoy ◽  
Mohamad G. Fakih ◽  
Jeffrey Seggerman ◽  
Karen Smethers ◽  
Ann Hendrich

Author(s):  
Patrice D. Rankine

This essay examines the contradiction of classics for all, evident in but not exclusive to the not-for-profit enterprise by the same name (Classics for All) that seeks to promote the Greek and Latin classics in schools across the United Kingdom. Embodying a form like the classics can mean not slavish mastery, but an improvisational artistry that alters the form so that it bends to one’s will. Issues of access, however, problematize the simple assertion of classics for all. The realities that necessitated the Black Lives Matter movement, in contrast to a more hopeful, turn-of-the-twentieth-century Du Boisan notion of the removal of the Veil of segregation, run counter to classics for all. There have been sufficient signs within the twenty-first century of the rejection of a broad, democratic, multicultural movement toward American wholeness symbolized in the election of President Barack Hussein Obama. Nevertheless, economic disparities that separate black and white in the United States remain, and the post-Obama era evidences significant backlash across the “Black Atlantic” world. The classics is caught up in this backlash.


1987 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 739-744
Author(s):  
Paul C. Szasz

By now everyone in the United States, certainly every lawyer, must be conscious of the tort liability crisis and the consequent liability insurance crisis. Private individuals, businesses, not-for-profit enterprises and even governmental units, from school boards to the federal Government, are finding that the damages they have to pay or their insurance costs are skyrocketing, sometimes catastrophically or even cripplingly; as a result, worthwhile events must be canceled and valuable facilities are idled. Although it may be thought that these mundane concerns cannot affect an international organization—even one, like the United Nations, based in the United States—that surely it can shelter itself with its immunity, this unfortunately is not so. Although the United Nations, like other intergovernmental organizations, does enjoy full jurisdictional immunity, based generally upon its Charter but more specifically on international treaties and even national legislation, there is somewhat less to this protection than meets the uninformed eye. Since their member states expect the organizations they establish to be good international citizens, they have prohibited them from hiding behind their functional immunity for the purpose of evading either contractor tort-related responsibilities. Indeed, they may only use their immunity in order to avoid litigation in a national court or some other inappropriate forum; but if they cannot resolve a dispute, for example with a tort claimant, they must offer some other suitable means of settling the matter, such as by arbitration.


Names ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Michael D. Sublett

Enterprises, be they for-profit businesses or not-for-profit organizations, require names to differentiate themselves from other entities. Over a span of more than a hundred years entrepreneurs, corporate boards, and organizational founders have chosen to use Corn Belt or some spelling variant to identify their enterprises, perhaps believing that naming after this admired agricultural region will bless their enterprise with its longevity, productivity, and favorable image. This essay looks at the beginnings of Corn Belt as a vernacular term for an agricultural region, picks up the earliest uses of Corn Belt as an inspiration for enterprise names, tracks Corn Belt enterprises through time at one of the core locations of the naming practice, and presents the enterprises that in 2020 greeted the public with Corn Belt in their names.


Author(s):  
Patricia Burch ◽  
Andrew L. LaFave ◽  
Jahni M.A. Smith

This chapter focuses in on the relationships between corporate elites in the United States and two distinct aspects of that emerging landscape: a large not-for-profit firm called inBloom that stored and analyzed student data and a smaller not-for-profit firm called Geo Listening that monitors students’ public social media profiles for negative behavioural indicators. Companies rise (Geo Listening) and fall (inBloom), and we identify the contribution of how and why elite managers operate within the political context in which business operates. We examine the interplay of corporate and political elites, and we note the shift towards more regulation. The implications of this are examined, and while we recognise the dynamics of technology and corporate investment, we also conclude by asking in whose best interests are these firms acting, and who benefits most from their involvement in public education.


2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 144
Author(s):  
Diana K. Wakimoto

A Review of: Applegate, R. (2009). Who benefits? Unionization and academic libraries and librarians. The Library Quarterly, 79(4), 443-463. Abstract Objective – To investigate the quantitative benefits of unionization for libraries, librarians, and students at academic libraries in the United States. Design – Quantitative analysis of existing datasets. Setting – Academic libraries in the United States. Subjects – One thousand nine hundred four accredited colleges and universities in the United States. Methods – Institutions that provided data for both the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Academic Libraries Survey (ALS) and the NCES Integrated Postsecondary Education Data Service (IPEDS) survey series in 2004 were considered for inclusion in this study. Of these institutions, only those with student populations over 500 and employing more than one librarian were included. The study did not include specialized libraries at institutions where “most of their degrees were awarded in a single area” (p. 449). The institutions were categorized by type derived from data by Carnegie and the Association of Research Libraries. The final categories were: ARL, Doctoral Non-ARL, Masters, Baccalaureate, and Associates. Governance was determined by using information from IPEDS that classified the institutions as public, private not-for-profit, and private for-profit. Unionization status was derived from the Directory of Faculty Contracts and Bargaining Agents in Institutions of Higher Education. After private not-for-profit and private for-profit classifications were collapsed into one category, governance and unionization information were combined to create the final governance categories of: private, public nonunionized, and public unionized. The study analyzed the following characteristics in terms of institution type, governance, and institution type and governance interaction: ratio of students to librarians, ratio of library expenditures to institutional budget expenditures, average librarian salary, percentage of staff who were librarians, librarian salaries as a percentage of staff salaries, and percentage of the library budget spent on staff salaries. Main Results – Analysis revealed statistically significant differences (p< .05) between governance and student-librarian ratio and between governance and percentage of library budget spent on staff salaries. No consistently beneficial relationship between governance and student-librarian ratio was determined. A consistently positive relationship was found between governance and percent of the library budget spent on librarian salaries; all public unionized institution types had higher percentages of the library budget devoted to librarian salaries than private and public nonunionized institutions. All five dependent variables showed statistically significant differences (p< .05) when analyzed by institution type. Analysis by institution type and governance interaction found statistically significant differences (p< .05) for student-librarian ratios, librarian salary, and percentage of library budget devoted to staff salaries. Strong R2 values were determined for the dependent variables of: staff salaries as a proportion of library budget (.51) and student-librarian ratio (.34). Conclusion – Based on the results, the author stated that unionization appears to have positive or neutral benefits for the library, librarians, and students, regardless of institutional type. Further quantitative and qualitative research is needed to analyze the effects of unionization on library quality.


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