In Jingle County, Shanxi, a 19-year-old young man of more than 200 pounds fell before spring.
The first to discover him was his father Zhao Zhijie. On January 15, 2024, after lunch, my son was lying in bed weakly, not even having the strength to wear clothes. The disparity between father and son's physique was too great, so he ran to the opposite side of the house and called his relatives for help, trying to carry him together.
The strength of several people still failed to hold up the young man whom his friends called fat. Later, the hospital was unable to recover and declared the 19-year-old boy's life over.
The next day, under his son's old mattress, the father discovers an experience he never knew about.
His son Zhao Wei has a plasma donation certificate and an "admission certificate" that is considered to be in "critical" condition. Jingle County People's Hospital diagnosed Zhao Wei with "pancytopenia and severe anemia" on January 5. The grieving father, reminded by his son's friend, took aim at the "China Biologics Xinzhou Plasma Station" (hereinafter referred to as the "Xinzhou Plasma Station"), which had drawn Zhao Wei's plasma 16 times in the past eight months.
This plasma station has a four-story building in the city. Outside the four-story plasma station, a luxurious and towering community is rising from the ground, and machines that make sudden noises hit the foundations in preparation for the next tall building.
Few people have noticed that many young people like Zhao Wei in the county will take a bus or taxi to donate plasma every half a month and drive towards the city. There, their blood is drawn out with a needle that is thicker than usual, the plasma is separated, and blood cells such as red blood cells are infused back into the body.
The plasma station gets a 600-gram bag of yellow plasma, and the person who has his blood drawn will receive a lost work fee, ranging from 200 to 400 yuan, plus a meal.
In Shanxi, it's usually a bowl of noodles, in Shandong, it's big meat buns, and in Jiangxi, it's xiaolongbao.
This type of person has a similar situation: low education, low income, and self-support. Many times, they remain silent on this land, as silent as poplars on the Loess Plateau, and are taken for granted that they should find their own way in an unfavorable environment.
Death of the boy
In Jingle County, 120 kilometers west of Xinzhou city, the sparsely populated Loess Plateau has nothing to do with the lush green, and gray is the main color in March.
Zhao Wei grew up in the "remote and poor" county in the eyes of Xinzhou people, and never left. His home is located on the outskirts of the county, on the side of the road, opposite the gas station, where large trucks and buses whizz by, and passers-by's eyes are always blown into the sand.
In March, the sun became more and more vicious, and the death of the county's youth began to cause commotion.
Zhang Le's stationery store is 600 meters away from Zhao Wei's house. She told me in a high-pitched voice that not long ago, a young boy "drew blood plasma and died." "How can our average family donate plasma to sell for money?" In the eyes of this proprietress, donating plasma is a "risky" move, which she can't understand.
The stationery store was separated by a few more stores, and a new green signboard site was opened last autumn - "Jingle Propaganda Point of China Bio Xinzhou Plasma Station". After Zhao Wei's death was exposed, it has ceased business.
China Biologics Xinzhou Plasma Station Jingle Propaganda Point
Zhang Le once looked inside, and there were not many people in the station on weekdays, and there were three or four nurses. But she can often see cars parked in front of the door, "pulling away" the people who have gathered there.
But as for who the dead Zhao Wei was, the vast majority of people were ignorant and silent.
Before his death, he worked in an Internet café about 2 kilometers from his home. On the first floor of the Internet café with poor air circulation, more than 20 e-sports tables and chairs are placed horizontally and vertically. Most of the young and middle-aged men gathered here were playing games, and some were asleep on the table. No one remembered Zhao Wei, who had worked here for one month.
My father, Zhao Zhijie, had a hoarse voice and told me that his son worked as a network manager in an Internet café in the county town in December last year, going out every morning and leaving work at 11 o'clock in the evening. About a week before he died, he began to fall ill – developing symptoms that seemed to be a cold.
"I gave him medicine and canned food, and mixed water for my child every day. I thought the kid was tired and told him to rest. ”
But his father, who has not returned home for a long time after working outside, does not know where his children will work and where they will go on weekdays in 2023, when Zhao Wei starts donating plasma.
Living downstairs in Zhao Wei's house, Li Yan, the proprietress of the breakfast shop, has some impressions of this fat guy.
Zhao Wei (photo provided by the interviewee)
Her family shares a courtyard and a two-story bungalow with the Zhao family. The young man's life trajectory is usually through the creaky staircase of her kitchen back door, out of or back to her home on the second floor, near the road.
This two-story home is also as old and shabby as the exterior wall of a two-story building. The windows near the hallway were thick with dust, and the white walls of the house were a little old and black. In the small room by the north-facing window, there was only one bed, not even a wardrobe.
Li Yan remembered that Zhao Wei always wore so many sets of clothes, but "children love to be clean", and his usual clothes are clean.
When Zhao Wei moved, she could always hear it—because of his heavy weight, the stairs would make a heavy noise.
Or because of fat, Li Yan recalled that when Zhao Wei came to the store to eat, she would make large wontons that were not written on the signboard. Whenever this happens, he will take out a packet of instant noodles from his pocket, and he doesn't want to trouble her to cook it, so he soaks the dry noodle cake in the wonton soup.
This woman who migrated from Yunnan also carefully discovered the difference between "illness" and "illness". In January, Li Yan also told her family that the children upstairs no longer made heavy noises when they walked.
His steps grew lighter and he liked to drag the floor more and more.
Until January 15, death suddenly befell the upstairs family.
Another world
The father who couldn't bear it checked the hospital list and his son's mobile phone only to find that the child had another world.
In May last year, Zhao Wei took the initiative to send a WeChat message to a friend surnamed Li, asking him: "Can the work of drawing plasma be done now?"
He learned about the existence of the plasma station at least a year ago. Red Star News reported that in 2022, when he had no money to go online, Zhao Wei joked with a friend, "If you can't do it, it's the same as (Li), selling blood."
The chat records provided by Zhao Zhijie show that on May 3, 2023, Zhao Wei began to communicate with a man with a WeChat note of "Xinzhou Plasma Station surnamed Lu" to donate plasma to the plasma station.
Chat records between Zhao Wei and the man surnamed Lu
On May 18, 2023, Lu asked him, "Will you come tomorrow?" and he replied decisively, "Come". This is the second time in his life that he has donated plasma, and he has received more than the first time 280 yuan in "lost work expenses".
Later, on June 1 and June 20, 2023, Zhao Wei took the initiative to ask Lu if he would be able to donate plasma again. Since then, he has been as excited as riding the express train of the times, and almost every half month, he has taken a car to Xinzhou, and donated plasma a total of 16 times in 8 months.
He also sent a WeChat message to Lu in July 2023, taking the initiative to ask him, "When did the Jingle sub-station get it?"
"I want to go. He said.
Regarding his son's enthusiasm for "donating plasma" last year, Zhao Zhijie believes that this is the plasma station's use of money temptation, pulling people's heads, etc., to "induce" him to donate plasma, which led to the tragedy.
Chat records between Zhao Wei and the man surnamed Lu
On January 5, Zhao Wei went to Jingle County People's Hospital for examination. According to the hospital's admission certificate, Zhao Wei's admission condition was "critical", and he was diagnosed with "the cause of palpitations to be investigated, pancytopenia, severe anemia", and suspected hematopoietic dysfunction. The serological examination report showed that Zhao Wei's "serum total bilirubin measurement" and "serum total protein measurement" and other indicators were no longer at normal values.
Zhao Zhijie said that after the incident, he reported Zhao Wei's situation by calling the police and calling the mayor's hotline, but he did not receive a reply. After the Chinese New Year, he contacted lawyers everywhere and prepared to go through the judicial process to investigate the Xinzhou plasma station where the child donated plasma.
The relevant person in charge of the Xinfu District Health Commission replied to the media on March 19 that what caused Zhao Wei's death requires medical damage appraisal or judicial appraisal, and only in this way can it be clear whether the cause of death is responsible for the apheresis station. However, on January 15, Zhao had already been buried in the ground, two months ago, and if he wanted to pass the judicial appraisal or medical damage appraisal, he still needed further investigation by the relevant departments.
Zhao Wei's admission certificate
The Xinfu District Health and Sports Bureau also issued a notice on March 19 saying that a special investigation and disposal team had been set up to carry out an investigation. The company involved has been suspended for rectification. Currently, the investigation is still ongoing.
Pulp donors
Will bi-weekly plasma donation cause any damage to my body?
Zhao Wei's good friend, 22-year-old Zhao Wei, sided with the side of support.
Zhao Wei also grew up in Jingle County. On the short video platform, he likes to post videos of himself driving, as well as the appearance of smoking cigarettes and swallowing clouds and fog in front of the camera.
In 2021, he was introduced by a friend and met Zhao Wei, who was 2 years younger. The latter played a good game.
Zhao Wei remembered that there was a game ranking list in the Internet café, and Zhao Wei won the first place every time, and it was "cliff-like". "Everyone else takes one or two thousand points, but he gets three or four thousand points. ”
This year was also the first time that Zhao Wei knew about the industry of "donating plasma and earning subsidies". He recalled that in 2021, the propagandists of the Xinzhou Plasma Station set up their booths in the central square of the county.
The square is located opposite the convenience market with the most concentrated flow of people in Jingle County. Housewives waiting to pick up their children, the elderly, and green-haired youths who have nothing to do, all come here to play cards, chat, or simply bask in the sun. So, when something new comes, even the person handing out flyers will become the focus of the audience.
On March 29, the central square of Jingle County in Xinzhou was full of people
"Chartered pick-up and drop-off is good for the body, and you can get a certain amount of lost time every time. Zhao Wei remembered the words of the staff. He left his name and contact information at the booth at the Xinzhou plasma station.
Unlike whole blood donation, plasma donation is only the liquid part of the blood donated, which makes up about 55% of a person's blood. According to the mainland's "Instructions for Blood Plasma Donors (2021 Edition)", the interval between two plasma donations shall not be less than 14 days, and the cumulative number of plasma donations for adults shall not exceed 24 times in a year.
Correspondingly, the main body of plasma collection is also different from whole blood donation, and the main operator of apheresis plasma station is generally an enterprise. The collected plasma is used to make various blood products such as albumin, immunoglobulins, and clotting factors.
Collection of plasma/Source: CCTV Military
There's an easier way to tell the difference between the two: Whole blood donations are usually unpaid, while plasma donors receive a subsidy.
Deng Yong, a professor of health law at the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, explained to Nanfeng that the subsidy standard for plasma donation varies from country to region around the world and may be adjusted over time.
"In China, the subsidy given by plasma stations usually consists of two parts: one is a basic nutrition and transportation subsidy, and the other is an incentive based on the amount and frequency of plasma donations. ”
Lin Mingyue, a "post-80s" in a county town in Shandong, will start donating plasma in 2021 because of subsidies and generous rewards.
He patted me on my stout arm when I donated plasma, with tattoos on it and thick needles inserted into it.
Like Zhao Wei, after the minimum interval of 14 days stipulated by the state, he got on the bus and walked towards the plasma station in the city. For the past three years, he has donated "top grid" - 24 times of plasma every year.
The benefits of "top grid", Lin Mingyue said, can not only get more lost work expenses, but also the most prizes at the end of the year. "I'll give you an example, if you donate (pulp) 1-5 times a year, the plasma station will distribute 5 catties of rice, and 5-10 times, he will distribute 20 catties of rice. ”
As for why the figure has an extra 600 yuan per month, he seems to be understated: "Don't figure anything, I used to be extravagant." Now there are as many as there are to spend as much as they want. But when it comes to the anniversary celebration of the plasma station and the lottery held during the Spring Festival, "the first prize has a washing machine and a refrigerator", Li Mingyue's tone became excited again.
In 2023, Lin Mingyue will receive the highest-level gift rewarded by the plasma station, a heavy nut gift package.
3 years ago, he embarked on the road of donating pulp, which does not seem to have brought much change to his body. "After a few hours of dedication, just drink plenty of water. Lin Mingyue told me. He didn't notice any negative reactions to donating plasma, "(even if there were) it didn't matter."
The important thing is that the money for donating pulp is "much easier" than his daily salary of 200 yuan for working in the school cafeteria.
Zhao Wei also donated plasma three times in a row in 2021 in order to get subsidies. But he found that after donating plasma, "the body collapsed badly", and the specific manifestation was that he had no strength and no energy. It usually takes two or three hours for this symptom to get better.
He then noticed that his body's immunity was declining. He became susceptible to illness and needed medication to control minor ailments.
Since then, Zhao Wei rarely donated plasma.
So, in May 2023, his good brother Zhao Wei asked him for the contact information of the personnel of the Xinzhou plasma station, but he did not reply.
money
Everything still couldn't resist, and 19-year-old Zhao Wei embarked on the road of offering pulp through another friend.
"Lack of money, my doll is introverted. This is the reason why Zhao Zhijie explained that his son donated pulp.
He found that when he had no money, Zhao Wei did not ask his family for help. Looking at his son's chat, he found out that Zhao Wei had borrowed money from a friend for 3 yuan.
In Zhao Wei's eyes, in the three or four years since he knew Zhao Wei, he has always been "self-reliant". His father was away from home for a long time, and his mother was mentally ill. Many times, he is the "head of the family", who has to cook for his mother and take care of the two of them.
Stills from "The World of Grass and Trees".
Many neighbors also remember that the teenager dropped out of school after graduating from primary school to live with his mother. For many years, he made a living by working as a webmaster in an Internet café or as a waiter. ”
This "poor" child does not have the standard electric car for young people in the county, and he relies on walking to go out. Zhao Wei recalls that most of the year, introverted good friends are willing to "stay" at home. When the boys go out to play, it is nothing more than "playing billiards, playing games, and going out to eat", and Zhao Wei rarely appears.
"He will only be willing to come out if I call him. ”
He is also one of the few people who has been to Zhao Wei's house.
Zhao Wei commented that this home "has no appearance of home at all". The room is particularly dark, "surrounded by walls". Walking in, there is no computer to play League of Legends, no TV, and even no sofa.
Stills from "Priceless Treasure".
In winter, the light of Zhao Wei's house in Zhao Wei's memory is a little darker, and the heating doesn't seem to work. Because it was not warm enough, Zhao Wei's mother was wrapped in a quilt all day and "didn't get out of bed and walk around."
In this case, Zhao Wei also believes that donating plasma is a move that a good friend has to do when he is short of money. The two or three hundred yuan subsidized by the plasma station "is equivalent to two or three thousand yuan for him, and it can sustain him for many days."
Zhao Zhijie also wants to know where his son's money is being spent. But most of the time, the plasma station subsidizes cash, and when his son died, his WeChat balance and wallet were already out of money.
He found from the chat records that in the second half of 2023, Zhao Wei gave a lot of online money transactions to Internet cafes. He is willing to let others advance money to access the Internet, and he will also pay out of his own pocket to make up for the gap in the bill of the Internet café.
Someone asked him to borrow money, 10 yuan, 15 yuan, 20 yuan, as long as he has money, he is willing to borrow.
His last big expense was a new mobile phone he bought in December last year.
Zhao Wei (photo provided by the interviewee)
That month, Shanxi was already heating. Zhao Zhijie returned home for the first time in the past four years, and the family of three was reunited.
He didn't expect that his son, who had just come of age and weighed more than 200 pounds, would carefully notice that he was using an old-fashioned mobile phone given by a relative.
Half a month later, Zhao Wei directly put a smartphone in front of him and said to him, "Dad, use a new one."
He only learned the price after his son's death, and this smartphone cost Zhao Wei 950 yuan.
On January 13, Zhao Wei, who was sick, did not forget to ask his father to help him pick up the express.
The courier box was not opened until after his death.
It was a pair of women's shoes worth 68 yuan, and my mother's shoe size and style.
Possible vulnerabilities
Donating plasma for money is the main concern of many young people in the county such as "Zhao Wei" and "Zhao Wei".
In 2021, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College compared whole blood donors with apheresis plasma donors in a paper and found significant differences between the two groups.
In the former, the number of people who donate whole blood increases with the improvement of academic qualifications, and the proportion of people with college/university degree or above is the largest. On the contrary, the proportion of plasma donors with junior high school education is the largest, and only 4.5% of those with college/university or above donate plasma.
The disparity between the groups, the researchers pointed out in the paper, is because "the mainland has a certain amount of financial compensation for plasma donors, which is more attractive to low-educated and low-income groups".
Another set of data also illustrates the differences between different groups of people - plasma donors have the largest proportion of annual family income of less than 30,000 yuan, as high as two-thirds.
Low-income groups, which are easily stimulated by money, support the huge demand and fierce competition in the blood products market.
Zhao Wei's Xinzhou plasma station, the parent company is Beijing Tiantan Biotechnology, which was listed in 1998. In the annual report released on March 28, Tiantan Biotech disclosed that there will be 79 plasma stations in operation in 2023, collecting a total of 2,415 tons of plasma, an increase of 18% year-on-year. This pulp volume accounts for about 20% of the total pulp production in the industry, ranking first in the industry, and has become the "company advantage" listed in the annual report of Tiantan Biology.
When the power of business promotes pulp mining, Deng Yong, who has long studied medical and health law, believes that the loopholes that companies may breed are divided into several categories: First, they take advantage of information asymmetry and do not adequately inform donors of possible risks.
the second is excessive collection, ignoring the health status of the donor in pursuit of profit;
Third, there is a lack of effective internal control and external supervision.
Zhao Wei recalled to Nanfeng Window that in order to attract guests, the Xinzhou Plasma Station encouraged them to donate plasma as soon as the 14-day period expired, so that the subsidy was higher. Zhao Zhijie also saw from his son's chat record that if Zhao Wei donated pulp quickly after 14 days after the last donation, "Xinzhou Plasma Station would be able to give him dozens of more pieces."
China Biologics Xinzhou Plasma Station
Zhao Wei remembers that he donated plasma at the Xinzhou plasma station and only did a physical examination for the first time. The next few times, he just measured his blood pressure before donating plasma, and he was able to complete the plasma donation. However, according to the requirements of the "Instructions for Plasma Donors (2021 Edition)", before each plasma donation, the donor's weight, blood pressure, pulse, body temperature, chest, and abdomen need to be measured, and the plasma can only be donated if the requirements are met.
And the publicity methods of many plasma stations to the outside world are also controversial.
In the case of the Xinzhou plasma station, a conspicuous poster is posted on the wall of the store at the "Jingle Propaganda Point", listing the benefits of donating plasma.
These benefits include: "Regular plasma donation is conducive to the removal of high-lipid plasma from the body and reduces the risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases". In addition, "regular plasma donation is also effective in preventing and relieving rheumatism, gout, and joint pain. Similar copywriting is also spreading on the public accounts of many plasma stations. For example, "Top 10 Benefits of Plasma Donation" and "Do You Know the Benefits of Plasma Donation?".
However, the impact of pulp donation on the human body has two sides. Clinicians are more cautious about this.
Xinzhou blood donation slogan
Talking about this topic, Gao Ao, an attending physician in the Department of Hematology of Ganzhou Municipal Hospital in Jiangxi Province, said cautiously: "Donating plasma cannot be said to be harmful to the human body, nor can it be said to be completely beneficial. ”
In plasma, 90%-92% of the components are water, and the rest are proteins, inorganic salts, lipids, etc. Gao Ao told me that donating plasma can indeed reduce blood lipids to a certain extent, because the components of human blood lipid viscosity are mainly in plasma. But at the same time, plasma contains important components such as globulins and coagulation factors.
"Long-term, frequent plasma donations can lead to malnutrition and coagulation disorders. He said.
Gao Ao explained that even if the pulp is donated every 14 days according to the regulations, if people donate pulp frequently for a long time, it may also cause anemia. This is because, in addition to iron, folic acid, and vitamins, the formation of red blood cells requires one of the most critical factors - proteins in the blood plasma. If there is not enough protein, there is not enough "raw material" to produce blood cells, and anemia can occur.
Ma Jun, a professor at the Harbin Institute of Hematology and Oncology, also told the media that plasma donation can promote human metabolism to a certain extent, but long-term plasma donation is not recommended. Long-term, frequent plasma donations have the potential to lead to a decrease in immunoglobulins in the blood, leading to a decrease in the body's immunity.
Medical staff test blood / Source: CCTV
Therefore, "whether it is the elderly or the young, it is not recommended to donate plasma for a long time and frequently," Gao Ao concluded, "After each plasma donation, we should strengthen nutrition and eat more high-protein foods." ”
19-year-old Zhao Wei is obviously a person who has not supplemented much protein.
Silent people
Zhao Wei remembered that this friend of more than 200 catties usually only likes to buy dried noodles or a few steamed buns, and "I haven't eaten a few meals of meat in a year".
A few times, Zhao Wei went to his house in the evening and found that the lights were not turned on.
I asked him why he didn't turn on the lights when it was getting dark. He said that turning on the lights wasted electricity and could not pay the electricity bill. ”
He regretted that he hadn't seen the last of his friends who had been in the dark for a long time. This 22-year-old young man has also stepped out of society and done work that sells his physical strength. As long as there is a project, whether it is in Xinzhou, Taiyuan or outside the province, he will not hesitate to leave the gray hometown and drift to the construction site where the excavator needs to be driven.
In 2023, he will see Zhao Wei less and less.
Zhao Zhijie has also been away for many years for special reasons. When he was away, he would call his son once a year, "on his birthday."
The absence of close people made the teenager silent in front of more people. After learning of his death, a good chef friend sent him a lot of WeChat messages, crying, "Fat, I always thought you were working and earning a good salary." Why did you never know you were going to donate plasma?"
"As a good friend, I didn't even find you. If I had gone back to play with you earlier and stopped you, wouldn't it have been like this?"
On the other side of WeChat, the teenager was always silent, leaving his friends with the image of an "honest man" who was "righteous".
What is certain is that on January 5, 2024, he went to Jingle County People's Hospital, and when he was found to be in "critical" condition, he still intended to bury the secret in his heart. He refused to be admitted to the hospital and did not fill in the phone number of his parents requested by the hospital.
He wrote the phone number of an emergency contact person in the column and wrote the phone number of a netizen who has been in contact for many years.
He gave her the note "Angel".
Zhao Wei knew that the "angel" netizen was in Guangdong. Every time I chatted with her, it was when Zhao Wei seemed happiest and happiest.
No one knows exactly what the 19-year-old was thinking in his last 10 days before he died. The chat records show that Zhao Wei only told the "angel" about his poor physical condition.
In those days, Zhao Wei had no appetite and could only eat canned fruit. The "angel" has been on the other end of the mobile phone, persuading Zhao Wei, who is 2,000 kilometers away, to keep eating and eating more.
Stills from "The Favorite".
Zhao Zhijie said that from the chat records between the two, his son underestimated the severity of the disease, "thinking that it was a disease that was a little worse than a cold." Until January 15, Zhao Wei was weak, lost consciousness and passed away.
Lin Mingyue, who was far away in Shandong, heard about Zhao Wei's death on the news and still planned to continue to donate pulp.
He was reluctant to consider the possible negative consequences of frequent donations.
"People like us have done our best to live at the bottom of the mud. He told me, "I'd be happy if there was a fairly simple, less difficult way to make money." ”
Zhao Wei, who was in Shanxi, remembered that his friend Zhao Wei had always had a wish that had not been fulfilled - to go to Guangdong to meet the "angel". He also likes tattoos and wants to learn this technique and become a tattoo artist in the future.
But because of taking care of my mother, going to work and other reasons, these wishes have become the daily unattainable dreams of young people in the county.
Now, with death, the distant dream is completely shattered.
(Zhang Le, Li Yan, Lin Mingyue are pseudonyms)
Author | Zhu Qiuyu
Edit | to the by
Duty Editor|Wu Qing
Typography | promise