I kid you not, 13 K a year if you qualify. :biggrin:
You can donate blood, plasma, eggs, and sperm. Why not poop? Yes, your feces are perhaps your greatest untapped monetary resource. Thanks to a nonprofit organization called OpenBiome, you can cash in to the tune of $13,000 a year -- and save lives while you're at it.
Since 2013, OpenBiome has been processing and shipping loads of it all over the country. The frozen stool is administered to patients who are very sick with infections of a bacteria called C. difficile. The bacteria can cause extreme gastrointestinal distress, leaving some sufferers housebound. Antibiotics often help, but sometimes the bacteria rears back as soon as treatment stops. That leads to a miserable, continuous course of antibiotics.
By introducing healthy fecal matter into the gut of a patient (by way of endoscopy, nasal tubes, or swallowed capsules) doctors can abolish C. difficile for good. Finding a donor is tough business, and some patients grow so desperate that they treat themselves with fecal matter from friends and family. That's what happened to a friend of OpenBiome's founders, inspiring them to open up the first nationwide bank. So far they've shipped about 2,000 treatments to 185 hospitals around the country.
And yes, they pay for healthy poop: $40 a sample, with a $50 bonus if you come in five days a week. That's $250 for a week of donations, or $13,000 a year.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/01/29/you-can-earn-13000-a-year-selling-your-poop/ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/01/29/you-can-earn-13000-a-year-selling-your-poop/)
Quote from: Solar on March 04, 2015, 07:33:28 AM
I kid you not, 13 K a year if you qualify. :biggrin:
You can donate blood, plasma, eggs, and sperm. Why not poop? Yes, your feces are perhaps your greatest untapped monetary resource. Thanks to a nonprofit organization called OpenBiome, you can cash in to the tune of $13,000 a year -- and save lives while you're at it.
Since 2013, OpenBiome has been processing and shipping loads of it all over the country. The frozen stool is administered to patients who are very sick with infections of a bacteria called C. difficile. The bacteria can cause extreme gastrointestinal distress, leaving some sufferers housebound. Antibiotics often help, but sometimes the bacteria rears back as soon as treatment stops. That leads to a miserable, continuous course of antibiotics.
By introducing healthy fecal matter into the gut of a patient (by way of endoscopy, nasal tubes, or swallowed capsules) doctors can abolish C. difficile for good. Finding a donor is tough business, and some patients grow so desperate that they treat themselves with fecal matter from friends and family. That's what happened to a friend of OpenBiome's founders, inspiring them to open up the first nationwide bank. So far they've shipped about 2,000 treatments to 185 hospitals around the country.
And yes, they pay for healthy poop: $40 a sample, with a $50 bonus if you come in five days a week. That's $250 for a week of donations, or $13,000 a year.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/01/29/you-can-earn-13000-a-year-selling-your-poop/ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/01/29/you-can-earn-13000-a-year-selling-your-poop/)
I almost lost my wife 4 years ago from a bacterial infections. I had to go out of town for a special Rx that cost 500$ at the time. (vancomycin) She had to take it twice a day for 12 days. If that did not work then she would have had the poop pill next. The Doc. said she was very lucky that the Vancomycin worked for her. She was in quarantine for 7 days.
It blows my mind to think that someone, sometime in the past, actually considered treating a sick person with a healthy person's shit. Blood, maybe, or bone marrow, or a healthy kidney or cornea. But a shit transplant?
Sick patient: "Oh, God, my gut is killin' me! All the tools of modern medicine have failed me! What am I to do?"
Donor: "Dude, I'm feelin' pretty healthy. I'll just give you some of my shit, and that'll straighten you out. Be right back...."
Quote from: TboneAgain on March 04, 2015, 12:19:35 PM
It blows my mind to think that someone, sometime in the past, actually considered treating a sick person with a healthy person's shit. Blood, maybe, or bone marrow, or a healthy kidney or cornea. But a shit transplant?
Sick patient: "Oh, God, my gut is killin' me! All the tools of modern medicine have failed me! What am I to do?"
Donor: "Dude, I'm feelin' pretty healthy. I'll just give you some of my shit, and that'll straighten you out. Be right back...."
Trust me IF it's was the last thing that would save my good wife's life. She is taking the Poop Pill. :smile:
Quote from: walkstall on March 04, 2015, 04:13:58 PM
Trust me IF it's was the last thing that would save my good wife's life. She is taking the Poop Pill. :smile:
Of course, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
But where did the idea come from? Who thought of it, and why?
Quote from: TboneAgain on March 04, 2015, 04:59:50 PM
Of course, ya gotta do what ya gotta do. But where did the idea come from? Who thought of it, and why?
I remember this from science class in 1968, where the teacher talked of ancient civilizations practicing this after observing animals that were ailing and eating dung.
And here we were worried that today's journalists would wind up jobless!....
It's a shitty job, but someone has to do it. (AND, someone had to say it! lol)
Looks like I'll have to eat more Taco Bell!
Quote from: Solar on March 05, 2015, 08:20:17 AM
I remember this from science class in 1968, where the teacher talked of ancient civilizations practicing this after observing animals that were ailing and eating dung.
Okay, but weren't punji sticks (in Vietnam) often treated with human feces for the express purpose of causing death? How does one differentiate the good poop from the bad poop? Is ingesting the poop by mouth inherently safer than having it placed untreated into the bloodstream?
I guess I don't have my shit together on this subject... :tounge:
Quote from: TboneAgain on May 01, 2015, 11:12:44 AM
Okay, but weren't punji sticks (in Vietnam) often treated with human feces for the express purpose of causing death? How does one differentiate the good poop from the bad poop? Is ingesting the poop by mouth inherently safer than having it placed untreated into the bloodstream?
I guess I don't have my shit together on this subject... :tounge:
Excrement by itself isn't necessarily harmful, it's when you leave it exposed to warm humid environments and mixed with God knows what else, and enters the blood stream directly, is when infection sets in.
Taking it internally requires it to pass through the digestive process before it enters the blood stream.