Pharyngula::A practical tip about blood

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Friday, December 09, 2005

A practical tip about blood

PZ Myers • 45 Comments (last page)

Some of my students are doing an experiment with leeches; they're knocking out serotonergic neurons with 5,7-dihydroxytryptamine to observe changes in their feeding behavior. Leeches feed on blood, of course, so I needed to get a supply (I don't think it's quite fair to ask students to let leeches suck on them, and while I might consider turning myself into a food source for a few animals, it seemed a better idea to get another source).

My first thought was to just go to the local grocery store. Heck, this is a rural area full of Scandinavians—they must know about blud klub (blood dumplings) and blood sausage. I think I ruined my reputation forever, though: when I asked, the butcher's eyes bugged out and he said, "WHAT??!?" like I'd asked for a dollop of placenta or something, and after I walked away I saw he'd gathered all of the guys back there and they were whispering and staring at me and pointing. I then tried using the phone, on the principle that at least they wouldn't give me the hairy eyeball—I had one fellow at a meatlocker hang up on me, and others just muttered incredulously at me. Weird. People who hack up dead animals for a living think I'm some kind of pervert.

I was beginning to wonder if our humane society would miss a kitten or two, but figured I'd be blackballed for life if anyone found out I was feeding kittens to leeches, even if we are currently facing a surplus of animals (please, everyone, if you need a pet, adopt one from your local humane society).

So my next good idea was to call up the lab at my nearby hospital. I expected that there'd be all kinds of red tape in getting blood there, but no…they were friendly and helpful and completely unfazed by someone calling up and asking for a half-pint of blood. These were my kind of people! I just walked over and they handed me a big bag full of bloody vials, no trouble at all.

The lesson I've learned is that while it may be awkward to get blood from an animal, there are buckets of the stuff lying around if you're willing to settle for human sources. This probably won't help you much if you're hoping to make up some blud klub for the holidays, though.

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Comments:

#53086: — 12/09 at 10:20 AM
Let the leeches feed on the students. Isn't that what students are for? It will get them ready for when the get to the real world and have to deal with lawyers and politicians.

#53087: — 12/09 at 10:22 AM
You might want to be careful about letting students handle human blood- your administration may have liability heebie-jeebies about that. (Or are you doing all the feeding yourself?) For the future maybe there's a vet who could provide you with horse blood? When I got my training in forensic bloodstain pattern analysis I know it was horse blood that we used for the hands-on exercises, but I don't know how the instructors got hold of it.

Don't know about the Scandinavian version, but on the off chance that you actually have a taste for blood sausage you can get Irish blood pudding (yum- I'm serious, it's delicious) from irishfoods.com.

#53092: — 12/09 at 10:37 AM
Seriously not cool, IMHO. The students will need to take precautions about blood-borne pathogens (even if the blood is from clean-living Scandinavians), i.e., gloves, goggles, and probably a Class II hood. And I'm not sure the hospital didn't violate some form of biosafety or HIPAA code by giving you the blood in the first place.

We (faculty and TA) did a hemolysis experiment on human blood, donated by a physiologist who studies his own corpuscles and is shunted for the purpose, since it reduces animal-animal variation. When it came time for the actual experiment, we used rat blood, also donated by a physiologist colleague. Another possibility would be an immuologist who would be bleeding a rabbit. But human = no-no for standard undergrads.

Frank

#53095: — 12/09 at 10:41 AM
We used to use blood from the red cross that had been rejected for transfusion into humans to feed our Plasmodium colony.

#53098: PZ Myers — 12/09 at 10:49 AM
Now you've got me concerned. Hitting up the hospital was the very last on my list of ideas because of those worries about human sources, but I was reassured by the fact that the lab people there were completely unconcerned about it.

The students know to treat human blood as if it were poison. I'll check around to see what other people here say.

PZ Myers
Division of Science and Math
University of Minnesota, Morris

#53101: Steve Ervin — 12/09 at 10:55 AM
I once met a professor from UC Davis named Ming Wong. Ming was (is) one of the world's experts on tapeworms. Each of her graduate students was required to harbor one for ready access to research material. A little blood sucking seems mild by comparison, but I do second the cautions on AIDS problems and lawsuits.

Steve E.

#53102: Mrs Tilton — 12/09 at 10:58 AM
Steve, we call those nasty wee fried blood clots black pudding; don't want to tip off the tourists to what's on their breakfast plate by using the word 'blood'. White pudding isn't an improvement; it's liver sausage. (Hmm, now I think of it, the Cajuns have a blood sausage called, I think, boudin noir; same concept, and I suspect that 'boudin' and 'pudding' are cognate.)

Anyway, here is one example of how my theism provides me with a support and comfort poor benighted PZ is denied. Faced with a plate of black pudding, I have assurance in my heart that, if the good Lord had intended us to eat internal organs, they'd be made of steak. But if you like the things, well, bon appetit; it's probably not a burning-in-hell-forever offence.

#53104: — 12/09 at 11:05 AM
Frank - while biosafety protocols might be at issue, there shouldn't be any problem here with HIPAA unless there were patient names attached to the blood. HIPAA only has to do with privacy, and if it's not identified in some way so as to be linked back to an individual, there's no problem with passing the stuff out like candy. (so to speak).

#53106: Martha — 12/09 at 11:08 AM
Why don't you go up to the West Central Research farm in Morris? They, at least not long ago, have dairy cattle and occasionally some sheep. With dairy they have to take fairly regular blood samples, you may be able to work something out with them in the future.

http://wcroc.coafes.umn.edu/home.html

#53107: Jeff Keezel — 12/09 at 11:09 AM
If the human blood proves too problematic, try another grocer. The wife needed blood for something a couple years back and got a good quart of beef blood from our local grocer...thekeez

#53108: Ron Sullivan — 12/09 at 11:13 AM
Back in the day, every hospital I worked in had some doc or other who raised roses, and who would take any "expired" blood from the blood bank (expired in terms of shelf-life) home to feed them. Much complaining since AIDS precautions; apparently nothing else is quite so good.

Which would explain the behavior of every damned rosebush I've ever pruned. Ungrateful little SOBs.

PZ, in your place I wouldn't panic, but I would ask the lab folks about screening and precautions. It's possible they weren't just grabbing vials at random to give you.

#53111: — 12/09 at 11:20 AM
I don't know what the situation is like in the US, but in the UK there's a perpetual shortage of human blood for transfusions (and organs, of course). It amazes me the hospital was so happy to give up it up.

#53115: Mrs Tilton — 12/09 at 11:34 AM
I don't know whether Morris has a kosher butcher's shop, but doesn't the traditional Jewish method of preparing meat for cooking involve draining the blood from the animal's corpse? I'd imagine a kosher butcher would be happy to have somebody drive up with a tanker and haul enough of the stuff to keep a large army of leeches fat and happy -- otherwise he'd need to get of it himself somehow, and I don't know whether one is allowed to just pour it down the drain.

#53117: Orac — 12/09 at 11:43 AM
Human blood is safe to handle as long as it's done properly. That means gloves, eye protection, and masks.

Of course, as a surgeon it's my business to come in contact with human blood; so it doesn't bother me. However, it might be a good idea to learn about universal bodily fluid precautions and teach your students before doing this again.

--
Orac “A statement of fact cannot be insolent.”
http://oracknows.blogspot.com

#53119: — 12/09 at 11:54 AM
I know there are video presentations covering
lab safety that are available that you can show
your students. Does the Biology department
have a policy covering exposure to bloodborne
pathogens- something like this-

http://www.pitt.edu/HOME/PP/policies/06/06-01-03.html

Could you have a nurse from the campus clinic
draw blood so each student can use their own?

#53120: Jake — 12/09 at 11:55 AM
Not to join in a pile-on, but, um.. aren't there people who need that blood? I'm always hearing about how there are shortages of donated blood, so it seems kind of wasteful to feed human blood to leeches.

Couldn't you, like, get some lab rats that were due to be put down and bleed them (post-killing, of course)? Okay, now that me cred as a vegetarian is completely destroyed I'm just gonna go away.

#53121: DouglasG — 12/09 at 11:56 AM
My dad used to run his own butcher/locker place. Back in the day (25+ years ago), he could let the blood flow down the drain. Now with Mad Cow, etc. they probably can't. However, who is to say.

Anyway, the meat industry has changed significantly since then. Most grocery stores get their meat pre-cut. The blood is all left at the packing plant. My guess is that the local grocery doesn't have any access to it except in specialty orders etc.

I'm sure there are plenty of deer hunters in that part of Minnesota. There may be a deer processing place or individual that may be able to help. You could try checking with a local taxidermist. Just a few thoughts...

Also, on the blood from the hospital. Yes it is probably expired. It also is likely screened against HIV, Creutzfelt-Jakob, and other transmittable blood diseases.

Douglas E. Gogerty
-----
“No, I’m from Iowa. I just work in outer space.”
-James T. Kirk

#53124: Orac — 12/09 at 12:02 PM
Jake,

Chances are, this is blood that has expired and couldn't be given to patients anyway. Blood expires after 30 days, if I recall correctly.

--
Orac “A statement of fact cannot be insolent.”
http://oracknows.blogspot.com

#53127: — 12/09 at 12:10 PM
while we're on the subject, does anybody know of a source of black pudding somewhere in north west Oregon? People around here tend to go a funny colour when I ask for it, and then necessarily have to explain to them what it is...

#53130: — 12/09 at 12:14 PM
I know this won't be much help to you in Morris, but any city that has a Chinatown is likely to have a food store that caters to Chinese clients, and they will happily sell you pig blood. Quite apart from its more obvious culinary uses, blood is also a very useful thickening agent in certain dishes, like coq au vin.

#53131: — 12/09 at 12:15 PM
You really, really, shouldn't be using human stuff. People get very highly specific training in pathogen avoidance and students are not known for care. Plus, newbies make mistakes.

Potential sources (be up front and say it's for a science lab experiment):
Hunters (still deer season out there?)

Slaughterhouses--many places have smaller operations that handle local cows/sheep/chckens. You might want to call a local farm that sells meat and ask them who does their wet work.

Anyone who is working with rodents. Which I used to do; you're always killing them off for some reason or another and you can sometimes spare some blood.

#53132: — 12/09 at 12:24 PM
"I'd be blackballed for life if anyone found out I was feeding kittens to leeches, even if we are currently facing a surplus of animals"

I'm not sure about blackballing but I would never see eye to eye with you again. (A safe assumption over the web. Never the less...) Now, we know there is a large surplus of humans...

Getting biohazard waste such as extranous blood out of a hospital instead of incinerating it seems to be too easy in US. I think it is illegal here (Sweden).

I have never heard about 'blud klub' (a Norwegian food?) but there sure are a loot of blood foods in Sweden, usually with swine blood.

Most common are 'blodpudding' (also called 'student beef'

, which is not a blood sausage but more like a cake, which you slice and fry. It is eaten with all sorts of food, but cowberry (lingonberry) jam is traditional.

Over different parts of the country you will find 'blodkorv' (blood sausage), 'paltbroed' (hard bread with blood), 'blodplattar' (thinner and crispier blodpudding), 'blodbroed' (bread with blood) which may be cooked down with sausages to a soup, and 'svartsoppa' ('black soup', preferably on geese blood).

Speaking of funny food we eat horse meat too. Yum!

And to come full circle, our largest nonhematophagous leech is the 'horse' leech.

#53135: — 12/09 at 12:31 PM

I suspect that 'boudin' and 'pudding' are cognate.

I think, Mrs. T, that 'boudin' is strictly 'sausage'; we geologists have appropriated the term for a sausage-shaped structure found in folded rocks:

http://homepage.usask.ca/~mjr347/prog/geoe118/geoe118.048.html

#53136: coturnix — 12/09 at 12:31 PM
I could never really develop a taste for the local Serbian version of the blood sausage. My father used to love it.

#53137: Phineas — 12/09 at 12:32 PM
I certainly respect your reluctance to feed kittens to your leeches. But recall that Bill Frist vivisected cats in his med school days, and he's Senate Majority Leader. So maybe shocking animal cruelty is actually a good career move.

I mean, who doesn't respect Bill Frist?

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Friday, December 09, 2005

A practical tip about blood

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