Why does our body reject other people’s donated organs and require immunosuppressants to be taken but getting someone else’s blood is ok?
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Blood is a lot simpler and has a lot fewer antigens – that is, things that can trigger your immune system to attack. Blood is *relatively* simple, compared to all of the proteins and tissues things found in an organ.
That said, blood still has *some* antigens that your body *will* eventually notice and attack. It doesn’t matter much, though, because blood doesn’t last very long in your own body anyway. Your own red blood cells only live for about 120 days, after which they are broken down and replaced. A blood transfusion is never meant to be a permanent solution, just a temporary fix to prevent your body from dying before it has a chance to produce its own blood.
As long as the blood matches your blood type, it will take a while for your body to reject and attack the blood. In the mean time, your body will be producing its own blood so by the time the donor blood is destroyed you won’t need it.
Compare that to an organ donation where you almost certainly need that organ to continue living and can’t make your own replacement. You can’t let your donor heart get attacked and destroyed because your body isn’t going to spontaneously generate a new one and you’ll die without one.
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