The Need

• If only one more percent of all Americans would give blood, blood shortages would disappear for the foreseeable future.
  

• 4.5 million Americans will need a blood transfusion each year.
  

• 43,000 pints: the amount of donated blood used each day in the U.S. and Canada.
  

• Someone needs blood every two seconds.
  

• Only 37 percent of the U.S. population is eligible to donate blood - less than 10 percent do annually.
  

• About one in seven people entering a hospital need blood.
  

• One pint of blood can save up to three lives.
  

• 94 percent of blood donors are registered voters.
  

• Red blood cells carry oxygen to the body's organs and tissues.
  

• Platelets promote blood clotting and give those with leukemia and other cancers a chance to live.
  

• Blood or plasma that comes from people who have been paid for it cannot be used to human transfusion.
  

• Granulocytes, a type of white blood cell, roll along blood vessel walls in search of bacteria to engulf and destroy.
  

• White cells are the body's primary defense against infection.
  

• Much of today's medical care depends on a steady supply of blood from healthy donors
  

• Three pints: the average whole blood and red blood cell transfusion.
  

• Children being treated for cancer, premature infants and children having heart surgery need blood and platelets from donors of all types, especially type O.
  

• Anemic patients need blood transfusions to increase their red blood cell levels.
  

• Cancer, transplant and trauma patients, and patients undergoing open-heart surgery may require platelet transfusions to survive.
  

• Sickle cell disease is an inherited disease that affects more than 80,000 people in the United States, 98 percent of whom are of African descent.
  

• Many patients with severe sickle cell disease receive blood transfusions every month.
  

• A patient could be forced to pass up a lifesaving organ if compatible blood is not available to support the transplant.
  

• Seventeen percent of non-donors cite "never thought about it" as the main reason for not giving, while 15 percent say they're too busy.
  

• The number one reason blood donors say they give is because they "want to help others."
  

• Shortages of all blood types happen during the summer and winter holidays.
  

• Blood centers often run short of types O and B red blood cells.
  

• The rarest blood type is the one not on the shelf when it's needed by a patient.
  

• There is no substitute for human blood.
  

• If all blood donors gave three times a year, blood shortages would be a rare event. (The current average is about two.).
  

• 46.5 gallons: the amount of blood you could donate if you begin at age 17 and donate every 56 days until you turn 79.
  

• You cannot get AIDS or any other infectious disease by donating blood.
  

• Giving blood will not decrease your strength.
  

• 500,000: the number of Americans who donated blood in the days following the September 11 attacks.

• Blood donation. It's about an hour of your time. It's About Life.
  

Information taken from the Community Blood Center’s Blood Facts Page