Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Challenge Fears of Donating Blood?

Pre-Lois knows Clark is Superman...

Lois and Clark investigate the outbreak of a strange illness in metropolis. It turns out the virus was spread by some criminal infecting blood donations.

Sometime within the story, People at the planet are asked to donate... what excuse will Clark come up with?

History of hepatitis from eating in a third world country?

There are a number of conditions that bar you from donating blood. He traveled the world in his youth and contracted malaria. That permanently bars you from donating because the parasite that causes malaria can't be gotten rid of, at least with our current knowledge. Or he takes blood pressure medication. Some young people have a genetically based blood pressure problem, and you can't donate if you take blood pressure drugs. Or he recently had a tattoo. I know that for some period of time after a tattoo is done, they won't allow you to donate (I think it's about a year.)

Nan

Or he could claim to have just been vaccinated for something.

Many people do not approve of Blood transfusions. Most groups that run blood drives are rather concerned not to give offense to those groups.

With the rise of Hep C and HIV blood drive groups have become even more concerned with the risk of "outing" someone who has such a disease.

Thus it is highly unlikely anyone would make a point of the issue if Clark simply said no.

And also, if you've spent a good amount of time in Germany or certain other European countries, they won't let you donate for fear of mad cow disease. At least that's the reason they gave me when I tried. *grumble*

I think that's the case for people who have lived in England for a period of time of at least six months or something between certain years.

Here's a page from the American Red Cross that gives eligibility guidlines on various topics/diseases.

It would be a lie, but he could also claim to have donated last month. Blood donors are limited to donating no more frequently than every 8 weeks.

In polite company, "I can't" should be sufficient. If pushed, "I'm not eligible to donate" should be the end of it, and he would be completely within his rights to not provide any further details. In all probability, he won't be the only one at the Planet who can't donate.

It is extremely likely that one of the articles they will be researching is one appealing to the population of Metropolis to donate blood. Such an article would include details on who is and who is not eligible to donate. It would become clear to everyone that not everyone will be able or eligible to donate.

Those who can, should. Those who cannot, should not be made to feel guilty, nor should they be singled out for attention in any way.

Whenever I've given blood there have been numerous points at which I would have been able to say that I shouldn't be giving blood - for example, if I said I was in the middle of dental work they would tell me to come back when it was finished, if I'd taken various forms of medication or had a vaccination in the last few days, etc.

The "travelling in Africa / Europe (and eating meat) for more than 6 months" thing would certainly work for US citizens; other excuses would include having had growth hormone treatment as a child, hepatitis and various other forms of infection, a recent blood transfusion - "Yes, I think Superman must have given me a blood transfusion when he was cloning me!" - or the sheer "fact" of being a clone (as Clark claimed post the Bonny & Clyde episode) and presumably having weird frog DNA and stem cells in his blood.

They never said Clark was a clone post Bonny & Clyde. I got the impression that between Superman freezing him and Dr. Hamilton's notes that his life was "saved" not cloned.

That wasn't quite the impression I got, but maybe I wasn't paying enough attention - I'll have to watch it again.

Transcript excerpt says:

CLARK
Well, Superman found me just after they dumped my body. He froze me with his superbreath to preserve my tissue, then took me to Professor Hamilton's lab and followed the procedures in his manuscript...
HAMILTON
Of course! Freezing the tissue means no permanent damage.

CLARK
So it's as if I never died.


Does that help?