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As US economy tanks, no limits to make ends meet
2009-02-12
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Americans are selling everything from the hair on their heads to what's coursing though their veins to make ends meet, as the US economy continues to tank. Websites offering advice on selling plasma, sperm, or locks of hair have seen huge upticks in traffic, as have the individuals and businesses that will buy the highly personal items which are now being used by desperate Americans for their own personal bail-out. "I'm having problems paying rent, food, car insurance, bills. Ten, 20 or 40 dollars is a little help I'm glad to accept. I wouldn't have thought I would go this low... but I'm trapped," a woman named only as Emily said in a message sent to Phil Maher, founder of the bloodbanker.com website. Maher has seen traffic to bloodbanker.com increase more than 50 percent in the past three months, he said. "Single moms have written to me saying they never thought about donating plasma but just got laid off. So they've been going to a clinic, giving plasma and getting their 25 dollars a time," Maher told AFP. Another site run by 32-year-old Maher, spermbanker.com, has seen a whopping 80-percent rise in traffic. Giving plasma twice a week could bring in about 240 dollars a month and "help pay the heating bill", while giving sperm can be much more lucrative, said Maher. "You can donate every two to three days, twice to three times a week if you're lucky. So three times a week, 100 dollars per donation, with a year's commitment. It can get really interesting," Maher said. The number of women who have applied to become egg donors has also risen, in spite of the fact that the process is more invasive and uncomfortable than sperm donation. Starting in October, as the United States scrambled to stop its financial institutions from imploding and unemployment climbed, Pennsylvania Hospital saw a significant rise in the number of applicants looking to donate their eggs, Maureen Kelly, head of the egg donor program at the hospital, told AFP. "Prior to October, some months were as low as 18 and the highest months were around 40, but we're seeing 40-60 applicants consistently now," Kelly said. "The timing would suggest that there is a financial motivation." Angela Bevill, founder of An Eggceptional Match (AEM), a Colorado agency that matches would-be parents with egg donors or surrogate mothers, has also noticed a rise in the number of women applying to become egg donors. AEM pays at least 5,000 dollars to egg donors, and allows a woman to make a maximum of six donations, including those made at other clinics. But becoming an egg, plasma or sperm donor does not happen overnight and is not an instant bail-out option. All three processes require donors to undergo rigorous screening, and many applicants don't make the cut. Danielle Moores of Xytex, one of the oldest sperm banks in the United States, told AFP that around 95 percent of applicants are weeded out in pre-donation screening, which can take several weeks. Not everyone can or wants to become a human guinea pig either, but taking part in clinical trials allowed Paul Clough to earn 26,000 dollars last year. "I did HIV, cholesterol, Parkinson's. I probably had needles stuck into me 400 times," said the 30-year-old, who has set up a website called jalr.com -- for "just another lab rat" -- to help others navigate the ins and outs of offering oneself up for science and a fairly fat check. But, Clough warned, clinical trials are not for the faint-hearted. "You get a lot of people who are queasy and pass out when they're being screened. They don't get into the study," he said. For those who fail to be chosen or don't want to donate body parts or fluids or be poked with needles, there are less invasive ways to make a bit of money. They can sell their gold jewelry, their Swiss watch, their designer clothing -- or their hair. Deana Pendragon of North Carolina chose to do the latter. She sold her brilliant red hair -- all three feet (one meter) of it -- for 2,000 dollars through HairTrader.com last year. "It came down to the middle of my calves," Pendragon told AFP. "I sold it because my husband's car died and we were having some financial problems. I run an entertainment business and entertainment has been really hard hit this past year, and with the economy doing what it did, we were having some problems," she said. "I didn't want to get into debt over a car, but we needed a car. "So I chopped off my hair," she said.
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