IN RESPONSE TO MY EARLIER BLOOD DONATION POST, a reader emails:

As a career blood banker I wanted to write to thank you not just for the donation but for the publicity. The average donor is getting older and a lot of younger people can’t donate because they have tattoos or piercings.

You aren’t seeing things, the questionnaire IS getting longer. We are also looking at more testing (they are considering mandating a test for Babesiosis) and if that wasn’t enough, Obama’s tax on medical devices will add $2.50 to the cost of producing a unit of blood. That cost is passed on to the patient and at 15 million units of blood each year you can do the math. He’s going to kill a vital part of the health care industry for the sake of his ideology.

Okay, that’s a new one. And, yeah, the tattoo/piercing thing is obviously an issue, as are lots of other exclusions.