How safe is plasma donation?

 Here's a story from the NYT, about the recent regularization of paid plasma donation in (some provinces of) Canada.

How Safe Is Plasma Donation?
Two recent deaths tied to for-profit clinics in Canada raised concerns about the health effects of having plasma drawn as often as twice a week. By Roni Caryn Rabin and Vjosa Isai

"Donating plasma, which is used to make lifesaving medicinal products, is widely perceived as low-risk. But questions about the safety of the practice arose this week when Canadian health authorities confirmed they were investigating two recent deaths of people who gave plasma at for-profit clinics in Winnipeg operated by Grifols, a Spanish health care company. 

"Millions of people donate frequently in North America. An estimated 60 to 70 percent of plasma-derived medicinal products worldwide are made from plasma donated in the United States.

And demand for plasma is growing. The market for plasma-derived medicinal products is valued at $40.35 billion and is expected to double over the next eight years, as the products are used to treat an expanding number of conditions, including immune deficiency syndromes and bleeding disorders.

But the health impact of frequent plasma donation on the donors themselves has not been well studied, and there is no consensus among health regulators about how long donors should wait between plasma draws.

In both Canada and the United States, companies can pay people an honorarium for donating their plasma, and health regulations say that people can donate up to twice a week.  

...

"A 2020 investigation by the F.D.A. into 34 deaths reported as being associated with plasma donation did not determine that donation was the cause of death in any of the cases. It ruled donation out entirely as a cause in 31 cases. "

 

My academic career to date, in two word clouds (covering 1974-1999 and 2000-2025)

 Here's a website that will make a word cloud based on your Google Scholar page: Scholar Goggler.

 I used it to create a kind of data-graphic of my career to date, by producing two word clouds from article titles on my Scholar page from 1974-1998 and from 1999-2025.  Those ranges have two properties: they are almost equally long, and so divide my career so far in half, and they also cover the period in which I mostly saw myself as a game-theorist and experimenter (studying bargaining, early in the period, and matching markets later), and the period in which I became something of a practical market designer drawing on those tools among others. (For context, my paper with Elliott Peranson on redesigning the medical residency match appeared in 1999*)

1974-1997 journal article titles

 

 

1998-2025 Journal article titles

 

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* Roth, A.E. and E. Peranson, "The Redesign of the Matching Market for American Physicians: Some Engineering Aspects of Economic Design,” American Economic Review, 89, 4, September, 1999, 748-780. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.89.4.748  

Citizen historians, preserving records before they are censored (shades of 1984)

 Citizen historians are documenting history as displayed e.g. in signs at national museums and monuments, as those are censored, so that the censorship will be known, and the past will be remembered.

The Washington Post has the story:

A professor challenged the Smithsonian. Security shut the gallery. As President Donald Trump seeks to reshape its museums and other cultural institutions, wall text has become a battleground and documentation a form of resistance.  By Kelsey Ables

"On a Monday afternoon this winter, 64-year-old historian James Millward climbed the steps of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery with a “little stack of handouts, like a good professor,” and no sense of the drama that was about to unfold.

He had heard that when the museum swapped out the president’s portrait in January, it also removed a placard mentioning Donald Trump’s impeachments and the Jan. 6 insurrection. For Millward, a scholar of Chinese history, well-versed in the censorial methods of that country’s Communist Party, the development stirred a familiar feeling: unease at seeing “history being snipped and clipped and disappeared.” 

...

"Stationed next to the freshly mounted portrait, which shows the president scowling over his desk, Millward offered printouts of the old wall text to interested visitors. They stated plainly that Trump was “impeached twice, on charges of abuse of power and incitement of insurrection.”

Millward called it “guerrilla teaching.” He was at the Portrait Gallery as an educator but also as co-founder of Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian, a group that last year spent thousands of hours documenting every corner of the Smithsonian, to track any changes made as Trump administration officials assert control over the content of the museums. “I think it’s really important,” he says, “to show that the people are noticing.” 

...

"Within minutes, Millward estimates, a group of eight to 10 guards had gathered in the gallery. They were wearing different uniforms, he says, some with handcuffs and guns. Soon, they cleared the room of visitors and closed off the exhibition. 

... 

" Richard Meyer, an art history professor at Stanford University who has studied censorship, says the work of groups such as Citizen Historians could prove critical.

“Censorship is not just one moment,” he says. “It’s not just some external authority coming and saying, ‘This is going to be removed.’”

Documentation is a way to fight back. Because, he says, “the worst kind of censorship is the censorship we never know has happened.”

Exodus from NIH

 MedpageToday has the story:

The People — and Research — Lost in the NIH Exodus  by Rachana Pradhan and Katheryn Houghton, KFF Health News 

"Chou specializes in communication between patients and their healthcare providers, and social media's role in public health. She joined the federal government in 2007 as a fellow and became a civil servant in 2010.

She left her National Cancer Institute job in January, she said, because the "work is no longer based on facts or truth."

...

"Romberg is a scientist who specializes in preventing the use of and addiction to tobacco, electronic cigarettes, and cannabis. The harms that stem from substance use or addiction don't affect all Americans equally, she said.

Romberg left her "dream job" at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in December, she said, because Trump policies had compromised the research she helped oversee. Among other things, Romberg said, grants were terminated under an initiative she led to reduce health disparities among racial and ethnic minorities related to substance use.  

...

"The loss of staff means the NIH has "lost so much of that institutional knowledge and leadership, which is not something that is easy or can be learned overnight," 

Fuhito Kojima wins the R. K. Cho Economics Prize from Yonsei University

 Here's the announcement:

R. K. Cho Economics Prize 

"The R. K. Cho Economics Prize 2026 will be awarded to Professor Fuhito Kojima (University of Tokyo) for the practical development and implementation of matching theory.

"Professor Kojima is a leading scholar in the fields of matching theory and market design. He has developed these fields by studying practical aspects of matching markets such as large markets and distributional constraints. Building on his theoretical knowledge, he has contributed to the improvement of real-world matching and allocation mechanisms, including medical residency programs and nursery school admissions in Japan."

Here's the program of celebratory events:

2026 R. K. Cho Economics Prize Events  (May 6-8)

Symposium Celebrating 
Fuhito Kojima's Prize
323 Daewoo Hall, Yonsei University
May 6 (Wednesday)
9:00-9:20 Registration, Opening Remark

9:20-10:10 Fuhito Kojima (University of Tokyo)

"Fragmentation of Matching Markets and How Economics Can Help Integrate Them"

10:10-11:00 Michihiro Kandori (University of Tokyo)

"The Second Welfare Theorem in Markets with Discrete and Continuous Goods"

11:10-12:00 Yeon-Koo Che (Columbia University)

"Learning Against Nature: Minimax Regret and the Price of Robustness"

13:00-13:50 Duk Gyoo Kim (Yonsei University)

"Good-Citizen Lottery"

14:00-14:50 Jinwoo Kim (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)

"Monotone Comparative Statics without Lattices"

Prize Ceremony
B130 Daewoo Hall, Yonsei University
May 6 (Wednesday)
15:00-15:20 Registration

15:20-16:10 Award Ceremony

16:20-17:10 Award Lecture by Fuhito Kojima

"Science and Engineering of Market Design: Call for Action"


Fuhito Kojima Public Lecture Series
323 Daewoo Hall, Yonsei University
May 7 (Thursday)
13:00-14:30 Lecture 1: "Introduction to Matching Theory and Market Design"

15:00-16:30 Lecture 2: "How to Use Market Design under Practical Constraints of Society: Part 1"

May 8 (Friday)
10:00-11:30 Lecture 3: "How to Use Market Design under Practical Constraints of Society: Part 2"

Organizers: Jaeok Park, Daeyoung Jeong, Duk Gyoo Kim

Contact: rkcho.prize@yonsei.ac.kr 

Kidney exchange developments in India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Germany

 Here are recent reports on kidney exchange from  India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Germany.

 Atul Agnihotri: SOMETHING REMARKABLE IS HAPPENING IN KIDNEY TRANSPLANTATION IN INDIA.

"Through collaboration with 63 transplant centers, APKD India enabled 130 kidney swap transplants in 2025, quietly becoming ONE OF THE LARGEST KIDNEY SWAP PROGRAMS outside the U.S.

And the momentum continues — January has already kicked off with 22 swap transplants.

A powerful reminder that when hospitals collaborate, more patients receive the gift of life.

"One Nation, One Swap."

https://lnkd.in/gZD6Q-md "

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Here's an article on the clinical trials of kidney exchange in Brazil, in preparation for a possible change in the transplant law to make it standard practice. 

Doação Renal Pareada (DRP) no Brasil: relato do primeiro caso envolvendo três duplas    Kidney Paired Donation (KPD) in Brazil: first 3-way case report   by Juliana Bastos, Glaucio Silva de Souza, Marcio Luiz de Sousa, Pedro Bastos Guimarães de
Almeida, Thais Freesz, David Jose de Barros
Machado, Elias David-Neto, Gustavo Fernandes Ferreira   https://doi.org/10.1590/2175-8239-JBN-2025-0177pt

 Abstract: Kidney Paired Donation (KPD) is a transformative strategy in living kidney donor transplantation (LDKT), particularly for overcoming immunological barriers that preclude direct donation. In 2021, KPD accounted for one-fifth of adult LDKT and for half of LDKT for sensitized recipients in the United States. In Brazil, with a high prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and over 30,000 patients on transplant waiting lists, the demand for compatible donors far exceeds supply. This article presents a case report of KPD in the Brazilian context, illustrating its feasibility and highlighting challenges and considerations for broader implementation. The case demonstrates KPD’s potential to increase transplant rates, improve outcomes, and reduce dialysis costs. Nevertheless, structural, ethical, and regulatory challenges remain. This report emphasizes the implications of expanding KPD as a sustainable, life-saving strategy in Brazil.

##########

Here's a report from  King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: 

Almeshari, K.A., Broering, D.C., Obeid, D.A., Alali, A.N., Algharabli, A.N., Pana, N.L. and ALI, T.Z., Innovative Strategies in Kidney Paired Donation: Single-Center Experience Achieving the Highest Annual Transplant Volume Globally. Frontiers in Immunology, 17, p.1623684. 

"Methods: We analyzed all kidney transplants performed through our KPD program between January and December 2024. The program aimed to achieve full HLA and ABO compatibility for incompatible pairs, while also incorporating additional strategies: inclusion of compatible pairs to improve HLA matching, acceptance of ABO quasi-compatible matches (e.g., A2 donors to O or B recipients), low-risk HLA-incompatible matching for HLA-incompatible candidates with cPRA >80%, and ABO-incompatible matching for those with cPRA >95%.

Results: A total of 135 patients (121 adults, 14 pediatrics) underwent KPD-facilitated transplantation, including 69 HLA-incompatible (51.1%), 37 ABO-incompatible (27.4%), and 29 compatible (21.5%) pairs. Females comprised 60.7% of the cohort, with a significantly higher proportion in the HLA-incompatible group (p < 0.001). HLA-incompatible recipients were older than others (mean age 42.5 years, p < 0.001). Most transplants (93.3%) occurred through 2- to 5-way closed chains, with the remainder via domino chains (6.7%). 

...

Conclusion: Our single-center experience demonstrates the feasibility and effectiveness of a high-volume KPD program in overcoming immunologic barriers to kidney transplantation. Strategic inclusion of compatible pairs, ABO quasi-compatible matching, low-risk HLA-incompatible, and ABO-incompatible matchings significantly increased access for difficult-to-match recipients. This model may serve as a replicable framework for other high-capacity transplant centers seeking to expand transplant access and improve outcomes for complex patient populations. "

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And here's a report on proposed German legislation to (finally) make kidney exchange legal in Germany: 

Biró, P., Budde, K., Burnapp, L., Cseh, Á., Kurschat, C., Manlove, D., & Ockenfels, A. (2026). Germany's Path to a National Kidney Exchange Program: An Assessment of the 2024 Legislative Proposal. Health Policy, 166, 105578. 

"Highlights

The German Federal Parliament plans to amend the Transplantation Act (1997).
•
The main goal of the reform is to establish a national kidney exchange program.
•
The draft law follows European best practices in many respects.
•
However, the law prohibits the participation of compatible donor–recipient pairs, contrary to international evidence.
•
Germany may join cross-border kidney exchange programs in the future. "

 

Big drop in international students coming to US (particularly from India)

 The Chronicle of Higher Ed has the story:

The Drop in International Students Last Year Was Worse Than We Thought  By Karin Fischer