Speaker 1: Well, fellow conspiracy realists, think you as always so much
Speaker 1: for tuning in. We are returning to you with a
Speaker 1: classic episode that is not for the faint of heart.
Speaker 1: We do have, I think, an ethical responsibility to mention
Speaker 1: that this contains graphic descriptions of disturbing and very real conspiracies.
Speaker 1: We called it the Red Market. It's about the organ trade,
Speaker 1: not the organ trail. We did this in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: You know, I commented off Mike, this is one of
Speaker 2: my favorites, which I don't know what that says about me.
Speaker 2: I just I've always been fascinated by the black market
Speaker 2: trading of human organs.
Speaker 3: There's a Korean film from the early.
Speaker 2: Two thousands called Sympathy for Mister Vengeance that really got
Speaker 2: my mind whirling.
Speaker 3: As far as like this type of crime.
Speaker 2: I think I probably mentioned that on the episode as well,
Speaker 2: but it's really does. It is a whole world that
Speaker 2: you might not be aware of, blissfully, and we're about
Speaker 2: to take you down that particular bloody rabbit hole.
Speaker 4: Yeah. This is also one of my favorite videos we
Speaker 4: ever made, guys, when we went on a little road
Speaker 4: trip to the Guide Stones and we made a video
Speaker 4: in the car Ben talking about the red Market, and
Speaker 4: it was awesome. You did a drive and make a
Speaker 4: video which was probably.
Speaker 1: We never explained it.
Speaker 4: We do explain it, but we also just it was
Speaker 4: a little dangerous. You were just driving and being awesome
Speaker 4: on camera and I don't know how you did both
Speaker 4: at the same time, but you pulled it off. But
Speaker 4: great video. Check it out on the YouTube channel. Did
Speaker 4: you guys hear about this guy in Kentucky from It's
Speaker 4: a story that is just coming out now, but it
Speaker 4: happened in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Most got his organs almost wasted. Yeah, he almost that.
Speaker 1: He was an organ donor, yes, and it's legal for
Speaker 1: people to take your organs as an organ donor if
Speaker 1: you are dead.
Speaker 4: Yes, And he was declared brain dead after he over dosed.
Speaker 4: But then as he was being wheeled in to have
Speaker 4: his organs taken out, he was attempting to move his
Speaker 4: eyes around and let people know he was awake. His
Speaker 4: family noticed. Doctors tell him, no, no, that's just normal.
Speaker 4: That's what happens. He gets on the O R table
Speaker 4: he's being prepped, and then he starts flailing around on
Speaker 4: the table and the surgeons are like, guys, we can't
Speaker 4: do this, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1: The still moving Yeah. Usually this is a part of
Speaker 1: why this classic episode resonates with us so much tonight, folks,
Speaker 1: as you listen with us and explore this with us,
Speaker 1: it is possible that the government of China is executing
Speaker 1: prisoners and political or religious dissidents and then selling their organs.
Speaker 4: And the big scary takeaway in this episode the remember
Speaker 4: the thing we talked about is where else could it
Speaker 4: be happening?
Speaker 1: And how?
Speaker 3: Well, let's jump right into the episode, guys.
Speaker 5: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
Speaker 5: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 5: learn this stuff they don't.
Speaker 1: Want you to know.
Speaker 4: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 4: my name is Noel.
Speaker 1: They call me Ben and you are you? And that
Speaker 1: makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Today's
Speaker 1: podcast comes oddly enough, from a pretty tasteless joke that
Speaker 1: we made a while back, and I don't remember if
Speaker 1: it made it to the air.
Speaker 3: It did.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we were joking about the Oregon Trail because someone
Speaker 4: suggested we covered the topic of illegal organ trafficking, which
Speaker 4: is a great suggestion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then we all died of dysentery.
Speaker 1: And then we all die of dysentery in the middle.
Speaker 3: Of a spoiler alert.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because we were dumb enough to start the game
Speaker 1: as farmers. Oh they never do that, way harder. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we were kicking around, just terrible titles, and one of
Speaker 1: those was, of course.
Speaker 3: The organ trail. The organ Well, if you say it
Speaker 3: like that, yeah, it can go either way.
Speaker 1: Well, title aside, this is I don't apologize for that
Speaker 1: title pn. I didn't. I just said title aside. Okay,
Speaker 1: So we think this is a complex, global and continual
Speaker 1: phenomenon and it is worth exploring in depth because, aside
Speaker 1: from some maybe scare pieces that pop up at a
Speaker 1: slow day in the news cycle, this is not really
Speaker 1: examined and the causes of it aren't examined as well.
Speaker 1: There is a lot of stuff they don't want you
Speaker 1: to know about organ transplants, the organ trade in general,
Speaker 1: what has been called the red market. So at first
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you, guys, Matt Noll, those are
Speaker 1: our real names. Sorry for everyone. Should we apologize for
Speaker 1: that one?
Speaker 3: I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: That's a good point, So have you guys ever known
Speaker 1: or been acquainted with someone who received an organ transplant.
Speaker 4: I could not come up with a good example when
Speaker 4: I was going back through my life.
Speaker 3: If you count bone marrow, which I think you should, Yeah,
Speaker 3: then yes, I know. It's an intense process as far
Speaker 3: as like getting on a list, getting matched with the
Speaker 3: right candidate, and then actually getting the procedure done and
Speaker 3: having everything booked because it is a very timely process.
Speaker 3: You know, once everything goes through, and there's a lot
Speaker 3: of uncertainty, and you even hear stories about people trying
Speaker 3: to get higher up on the list by you know,
Speaker 3: grease and some palms here and there, you know, right,
Speaker 3: So I mean there's a lot at stake obviously, and
Speaker 3: I won't say who this person was just to you know,
Speaker 3: maintain their their privacy, but yeah, it was it was
Speaker 3: very nerve nerve wracking, just wondering when it was going
Speaker 3: to happen, when it was going to go through, and
Speaker 3: when it did go through, if everything was going to
Speaker 3: work out correctly.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm, yeah, because even with everything going as well
Speaker 1: as possible, there's still, ah, there's still a significant risk.
Speaker 3: Sure, and it's not like if that one doesn't work out.
Speaker 3: They're just going to give you another one. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's the one that you get, and then if it
Speaker 3: doesn't work out, if you make it, you have to
Speaker 3: start the whole process over it.
Speaker 1: So that is a terrifying prospect. Let's let's talk about
Speaker 1: organs first, because, as you know, this podcast is part
Speaker 1: of how stuff works. So we want to start at
Speaker 1: the most basic thing. Organs. There are what are the
Speaker 1: few things that everybody has in common? Everyone who is
Speaker 1: involved with this show, we all have organs.
Speaker 4: Yes, everyone listening to the show hopefully has organs.
Speaker 1: Maybe there's some sort of machine consciousness listening there, and
Speaker 1: that gets into a conversation about what would constitute an organ.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe Dick Cheney is listening with his robotic heart
Speaker 4: that just constantly circulates blood instead of pumping.
Speaker 1: That's a pacemaker. That's not, isn't it. I thought it was.
Speaker 4: It's not. He doesn't have a pacemaker anymore. Now it's
Speaker 4: just a constant flow of blood. There's no he has
Speaker 4: no heartbeat.
Speaker 3: Oh, I thought you just meant he was like a
Speaker 3: heartless individual. I thought you were, Well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, no, I'm not rioffing this is true, But
Speaker 4: but I'm also implying certain certain ways.
Speaker 1: There are levels to this statement. Well, I want one
Speaker 1: of those.
Speaker 3: Cheney charming person That's true.
Speaker 1: You usually say that as.
Speaker 3: Soon as I'm smiling. I'm doing it just just just
Speaker 3: for the for folks listening, I am doing a big
Speaker 3: chess or cat grin here.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I say things like I mean them, and then
Speaker 3: I'm smiling or making a face that these guys and
Speaker 3: you guys don't see that. So you may think I
Speaker 3: have quite an odd variety of opinions out there in
Speaker 3: podcast Lamba. Just to set the record straight, you know,
Speaker 3: Dick Cheney's the Prince going.
Speaker 1: Noe Brown is a huge Dick Cheney fan. So, by
Speaker 1: the strictest definition and in biology, biologically speaking, outside of
Speaker 1: the world of music, an organ is just a group
Speaker 1: of tissues in a living organism that have been adapted
Speaker 1: to perform a specific function. Sounds simple, don't Yeah, it
Speaker 1: sounds pretty simple. You have a heart, and your heart
Speaker 1: has like one main job, right.
Speaker 4: Sure, same with your liver, your kidneys, your eyes, all
Speaker 4: of the parts. I think there are seventy eight official organs.
Speaker 1: Well by that by it depends again on the definition
Speaker 1: and be around seventy eight. People will argue back and
Speaker 1: forth what does or does not constitute a organ entire.
Speaker 3: What I find meat though, is that these organs are
Speaker 3: divided into two very distinct categories. All the ones we
Speaker 3: mentioned are considered vital organs, which are organs that are
Speaker 3: absolutely essential for maintaining your health and you know, your life. Ultimately.
Speaker 3: These are the kinds of things like your heart, your brain,
Speaker 3: your kidneys, your liver, things that perform processes that you
Speaker 3: need done in order to live in the environment that we.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the besides the eyes, I mentioned the eyes,
Speaker 4: that's true, but I don't know.
Speaker 3: Would you consider eye as part of this second category
Speaker 3: vestigial organs, which is no way yeah either, well.
Speaker 4: I I don't know. I don't know. I think you
Speaker 4: would probably get arguments for that.
Speaker 3: I suppose you could say, maybe we could live in
Speaker 3: a society or we have evolved beyond the need of
Speaker 3: our eyes, but you'd certainly put you at a disadvantage.
Speaker 1: Sure, and right now society has evolved to make something
Speaker 1: like blindness or deafness not a death sentence. But people
Speaker 1: were simply animals in the.
Speaker 3: Wild gather type scenario, like you d be sunk.
Speaker 1: It'd be it would be more difficult, for sure. And
Speaker 1: that's that's one of the that's one of the great
Speaker 1: benefits of the the whole human experiment. Right. But well,
Speaker 1: let's talk about these other organs vestigial right, vestigial organs.
Speaker 1: This would be something that is a rudimentary structure in
Speaker 1: us that corresponds to a functional structure in another animal. Right,
Speaker 1: sometimes described as the lower animals, which I think is
Speaker 1: hugely condescending and unfair. But we have all kinds.
Speaker 3: Of examples of this, right, What about things like tonsils
Speaker 3: or like an appendix.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wisdom teeth or maybe a tail. Yes, people are
Speaker 1: born sometimes with the tail.
Speaker 3: Perhaps male nipples.
Speaker 1: Oh man, whoa, I'm so tired of like it used
Speaker 1: to really bother me. It's like, why are these here?
Speaker 1: Is it no purpose?
Speaker 4: You guys aren't using them right, I mean not like
Speaker 4: right now. No, I'm just saying you're not using them correctly.
Speaker 1: Oh, I see, we're a family show, did you guys see?
Speaker 4: I just yeah, really fast? Okay? Did you see the
Speaker 4: article about the Atlanta Native couple Josh and Chuck posted
Speaker 4: this quick thing? A woman who left her job to
Speaker 4: find a male partner, oh to to breastfeeds feed like adults,
Speaker 4: And this is apparently a huge thing.
Speaker 3: Is it like a like a fetishy thing?
Speaker 4: I think it is?
Speaker 3: OK?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he doesn't have some sort of strange disorder
Speaker 1: that makes him some sort of breast milk vampire.
Speaker 3: Does she like have to burp him and stuff?
Speaker 4: I don't know, but but I did some looking into
Speaker 4: this story, and it appears that there's a whole counterculture
Speaker 4: of people who do this, who believe that there are
Speaker 4: massive health benefits for both.
Speaker 1: Parties, people who say that their health benefits.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and perhaps that is an episode for another day.
Speaker 1: And perhaps perhaps you are right, And hey, it's tough
Speaker 1: to be happy, So I wish them the best of luck.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it's consensual returning to organs. So we've
Speaker 1: got these things. We need many of them. There's some
Speaker 1: that we don't particularly need need to live, right.
Speaker 3: You can go without acadney, you know both.
Speaker 1: You could go without wisdom teeth, right, sure, So what
Speaker 1: do you do when the important ones fail? The ones
Speaker 1: that are not like add on packages to the car
Speaker 1: that is your body, but the stuff that's like the
Speaker 1: engine and the transmission, well, for thousands and thousands and
Speaker 1: thousands of years. When people's organs failed, they died. Yep,
Speaker 1: that was it, sometimes quickly, sometimes in prolonged, excruciatingly painful ways.
Speaker 1: The human body. To bring it to our current capitalists societ,
Speaker 1: the human body was a product with planned obsolescence, no warranties,
Speaker 1: and no returns, no exchanges either.
Speaker 4: And that's not to say that over the years throughout
Speaker 4: history medical science hasn't been attempting to replace these things
Speaker 4: in dying humans when their heart is giving out or
Speaker 4: their liver is dying or something like that. We've attempted
Speaker 4: humans many times to try and replace these things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not you, Nolan, me, but fellow members of our
Speaker 1: species have been experimenting with organ transplants since at least
Speaker 1: the seventeenth century, in animals and in humans. And along
Speaker 1: the way there were many, many, many gruesome, horrific and
Speaker 1: tragic failures.
Speaker 4: A lot of them we don't even know about because
Speaker 4: they were never written down.
Speaker 1: Right, But we do have early examples.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sixteen sixty eight, a bone graft was attempted using
Speaker 3: a dog's skull and actually successfully attached this graft to
Speaker 3: a human's head.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And we see the animal transplants, the practice
Speaker 1: of putting animal components into a human body, where we're
Speaker 1: not unheard of.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean at the time, it probably seemed like
Speaker 3: a logical jump to make you know, why not, let's
Speaker 3: just give it a shot.
Speaker 1: And that could have also been at the uh what
Speaker 1: if stage?
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure, especially if you're getting desperate trying to save somebody,
Speaker 4: I mean, and if someone is on their last legs,
Speaker 4: you'd try anything, and in that desperation. In nineteen oh five,
Speaker 4: there were some doctors who took slices of a rabbit kidney.
Speaker 4: They put it into a child and it did seem
Speaker 4: to improve kidney function, at least for a little while. Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: the child did die shortly after that from from pulmonary congestion.
Speaker 1: Right. And then in the same year nineteen o five,
Speaker 1: doctors managed to transplant a cornea into the damaged eye
Speaker 1: of a laborer, restoring his sight.
Speaker 4: That's that, to me is crazy to think about in
Speaker 4: nineteen oh five, like any kind of eye surgery back then.
Speaker 1: That's like buy an a lottery ticket every day for
Speaker 1: a week and winning.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Then in nineteen oh six we have a French surgeon
Speaker 3: Matteo Jubilet who attempted to save two patients' lives they
Speaker 3: were suffering from renal failure by transplanting goat kidney into
Speaker 3: one of the patients and a pig kidney into the other,
Speaker 3: and they died shortly thereafter work. And I think what
Speaker 3: the big takeaway is from a lot of these early
Speaker 3: examples is that these organs are incredibly specific. They and
Speaker 3: this just goes into the whole idea of being on
Speaker 3: a transplant list or like you have to get just
Speaker 3: the right one. It has to match your type of
Speaker 3: as to there are a lot of factors involved that
Speaker 3: you know will make this work, otherwise your body will
Speaker 3: literally reject.
Speaker 1: This organ right in this There were other attempts through
Speaker 1: the thirties and on and on up and with each
Speaker 1: of these, with each of these failures, there were hard
Speaker 1: lessons learned, and it looked like it maybe it might
Speaker 1: be something that was just going to be beyond the
Speaker 1: bounds of reliable medical technology and science, at least that
Speaker 1: is until the first successful organ transplant in December of
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was this guy named Ronald Herrick. He was
Speaker 4: the first one. He had a successful transplant procedure. Pretty awesome.
Speaker 4: It was. It's a cool story too, actually, and there's
Speaker 4: a house Stuff Works article on organ donation where you
Speaker 4: can find this story. He had a twin brother named Richard,
Speaker 4: and one of his you know, his kidneys were failing,
Speaker 4: and his brother basically decided, well, what if I give
Speaker 4: one of my kidneys? And the doctor saw this was
Speaker 4: really interesting because it hadn't been successful in the past,
Speaker 4: but because their genetics were so close, almost identical, they
Speaker 4: thought perhaps it would work. So the doctors didn't have
Speaker 4: much faith that this would actually be carried out. Even
Speaker 4: though you know, they have faith in themselves and being
Speaker 4: able to make the procedure happen, they don't think it
Speaker 4: will the organ itself will take. The great thing is
Speaker 4: that it did work. Both of them survives and they
Speaker 4: went on to live happily ever after, right or did they?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean that part. We're kidding on that part. No
Speaker 1: one does that. But they did. Okay, Yeah, they did great,
Speaker 1: they both recovered at least.
Speaker 3: What a Debbie Downer you are, sir?
Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, I guess I'm more what's a word for
Speaker 1: downer that starts with a bee? So we could do
Speaker 1: it like Benji bad attitude.
Speaker 3: No, that's terrible. Well, that's why you're right.
Speaker 1: You're absolutely right, and there's no reason to be down,
Speaker 1: is there? Because this worked very well and after this
Speaker 1: watershed moment, more and more successful transplants took place. So today,
Speaker 1: at least in the US and really globally, if you
Speaker 1: are someone with enough money and enough luck and enough opportunity,
Speaker 1: you really can get a second chance at life with
Speaker 1: a new organ. We cannot emphasize how amazing this is
Speaker 1: and how technology still since I'm going to try to
Speaker 1: be positive for the rest of the podcast, Nation, I
Speaker 1: appreciate it to you. We still know that this medical
Speaker 1: technology continues to evolve at a breakneck pace, you know,
Speaker 1: doing amazing things. If a child, for a child born
Speaker 1: today the day you're hearing this, by the time they
Speaker 1: are eighteen, it is quite possible that they will be
Speaker 1: able to buy grown organs grown in a lab, not
Speaker 1: taken from another person, or to take possibly organs from
Speaker 1: genetically modified animals or entirely entirely synthetic ye things. However,
Speaker 1: we're not there yet at this point, yours, the best
Speaker 1: and only way that you can get another organ is
Speaker 1: by getting it from another person. Many people volunteer to
Speaker 1: donate their own organs, like the twin we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: either a kidney or you know, you can live with
Speaker 1: one kidney, like you said, Noel.
Speaker 4: You can chop a liver almost in half and it
Speaker 4: will regenerate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it'll regenerate almost as full size. Or if
Speaker 1: you are a person with the driver's license in the US,
Speaker 1: you are incentivized to be an organ donor could you
Speaker 1: get a little discount yep. And what they do is
Speaker 1: they just say, well, if the worst thing happens, the
Speaker 1: worst thing for you at least, then something great might
Speaker 1: happen for some other people.
Speaker 4: Which is a pretty terrifying thought. But at the same time,
Speaker 4: you know, if you're dead, depending on your religious and
Speaker 4: spiritual beliefs, then hey, who cares, somebody else can use it.
Speaker 3: You can't take them with you.
Speaker 1: You know, And arguably you could say this is a
Speaker 1: form of extending someone's life if you are if a
Speaker 1: piece of you lives on in someone else.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, The pharaohs of Egypt would probably disagree though, I mean,
Speaker 3: they had all of their organs pulled out and put
Speaker 3: into jars and preserved. Yeah, in their tombs, you know,
Speaker 3: so that they could have them in the actual life.
Speaker 1: And that was part of the that was part of
Speaker 1: the belief system at the time, you know. And there
Speaker 1: there's still some there's still some religions and belief systems
Speaker 1: that do not allow for organ donation, like the aroma
Speaker 1: don't practice it because they believe you need your physical
Speaker 1: body and all its components for at least the first year.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because you have to retrace your steps.
Speaker 1: Right, and now we know, now we know that this
Speaker 1: this stuff does work. It gives the average person a
Speaker 1: chance to be a hero and should be quite candid,
Speaker 1: this is a situation where people need heroes. Between nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight and two thousand and eight, there were more
Speaker 1: than ninety one thousand living donations. It's donations from somebody
Speaker 1: who gave theory will survive after. In two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: nearly forty six percent of organ donors we're living donors.
Speaker 1: So that accounts for about twenty one point six percent
Speaker 1: of all organs donated. So, like Matt you said, you
Speaker 1: can donate part your liver and live and donate part
Speaker 1: of a lung, part of your pancreas. You can donate
Speaker 1: a whole kidney, yeah, or part of your intestines.
Speaker 4: You do have to be in pretty darn good health
Speaker 4: to make a donation like this. Oh. I mean, it
Speaker 4: is true that there are only a few prohibitive factors
Speaker 4: that could stop you certain diseases, being HIV positive or
Speaker 4: something like that. But you know, still, I don't think
Speaker 4: anyone would want my liver, probably, Ben.
Speaker 3: Do we have a stat about how often direct family
Speaker 3: members are the ones that are doing the donation, because
Speaker 3: that would just seem to me that would sure save
Speaker 3: a lot of this process lists and the waiting lists
Speaker 3: search for compatibility.
Speaker 1: Well, we don't have that exactly, but we do know
Speaker 1: according to the American Transplant Foundation that of about five
Speaker 1: thousand living donations that occur that they watched, only one
Speaker 1: in four of the donors was not biologically related to
Speaker 1: the recipient, at least from their perspective.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 1: It's not legal to buy or sell organs here in
Speaker 1: the US for transplant, but it is legal to buy
Speaker 1: and sell them for research purposes. So as long as
Speaker 1: you say, well, sorry, uncle Sam, this is not for me.
Speaker 1: I am doing a science project, and I We've got
Speaker 1: a couple more stats if you want. According to the
Speaker 1: Department of Health and Human Services, more than two thousand
Speaker 1: new names are added to the national waiting list for
Speaker 1: organ transplants and to get that every month and every day,
Speaker 1: the day you are listening to this podcast, ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: in the US alone, about eighteen people die while waiting
Speaker 1: for an organ transplant. So these people, these voluntary donors,
Speaker 1: living or dead, are doing terrific, wonderful and much needed.
Speaker 4: Work and we need more.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing, not all of these donors are volunteers.
Speaker 3: As it turns out, quite a few of them are victims.
Speaker 3: And we'll get more into that after we take a
Speaker 3: quick break.
Speaker 4: So, as you can tell from the statistics we covered
Speaker 4: earlier everything that we've talked about thus far, the need
Speaker 4: for organs far outweighs the supply for organs.
Speaker 3: And what happens then there is a basically a golf
Speaker 3: that needs to be filled. And as we know, when
Speaker 3: there's money to be made, people are going to come
Speaker 3: along and fill that golf.
Speaker 4: Yeah, when's when supply and demand don't meet, there's going
Speaker 4: to be profit. And that's what we see.
Speaker 1: And the question becomes a essential you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: This is not well, I steal a Selica or an
Speaker 1: Lantra from someone because I want a Selica or an Lantra,
Speaker 1: or God forbid a Honda Odyssey, which is not worth it.
Speaker 1: This is a question of survival. If you are sitting
Speaker 1: next to someone listening to this, and you are close
Speaker 1: to that person, look at each other. What would you
Speaker 1: do to keep them alive? Would you donate your kidney?
Speaker 1: If given the opportunity, would you find them a heart?
Speaker 1: The average heart will beat approximately two point five billion
Speaker 1: times in the course of an average person's life. So
Speaker 1: now you need to start thinking about the age of
Speaker 1: this heart you would procure, because honestly, you'll get more
Speaker 1: mileage the younger. That transplant source is Wow, Ben Well,
Speaker 1: it's true. Unfortunately, it's true, and let's be honest. This
Speaker 1: is just my personal opinion here. Some of the results
Speaker 1: of this come about because the American medical system is
Speaker 1: a joke without a punchline. People are dying due to
Speaker 1: a phenomenally byzantine system of jacked up prices for operations
Speaker 1: and medicines that would be affordable in many other countries.
Speaker 1: This is again, this is just my opinion, but there
Speaker 1: are numerous facts that point to the point to a
Speaker 1: very poor performance on the part of the US medical
Speaker 1: system in comparison to the rest of the developed world.
Speaker 1: I mean, if we are considering the entire population, if
Speaker 1: we're only considering the people who can pay the price tag,
Speaker 1: then the US medical system is the best in the world.
Speaker 3: And look at the examples. You see if people that
Speaker 3: you know are in the hospital for three or four
Speaker 3: days and then their insurance gets cut off or like
Speaker 3: you know, it maxes out, and they're left with like
Speaker 3: a ten thousand dollars bill for being the hospital for
Speaker 3: a few days just so they can.
Speaker 4: Breathe for a fifty thousand dollars bill of course, yeah.
Speaker 1: Exactly right, and then be in debt for the rest
Speaker 1: of their lives or bankrupt. Right. So this I mean,
Speaker 1: and that maybe is a subject. I know, it's a
Speaker 1: touchy one for a lot of people. So that will
Speaker 1: perhaps be a subject of a future show. I don't
Speaker 1: know what you guys think. And of course we can
Speaker 1: anticipate the arguments. People say, well, medical care is not free.
Speaker 1: That is true, and that's something we can explore in
Speaker 1: a future episode. Right now, in the case of kidneys,
Speaker 1: which are by far one of the most common organs
Speaker 1: transplant donated harvested traffic, only seventeen percent of the annual
Speaker 1: demand is being met, and due to again skyrocketing medical
Speaker 1: cost the vast majority of US citizens have virtually no
Speaker 1: way of affording a living donor. So make no mistake,
Speaker 1: legal organ transplants, like many other operations, are are overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: out of the reach of a lot of people.
Speaker 3: Not to mention, maybe you're just so far down the list. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's just the time of this is not on your side.
Speaker 3: People will do desperate things in times of this kind
Speaker 3: of stress.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really good point, because even if we're
Speaker 1: talking about people who have enough capital or income to
Speaker 1: to have the best medical care in the world right
Speaker 1: and maybe survive as long as they can on the list,
Speaker 1: then there's some things you know, you just can't legally buy.
Speaker 1: So imagine, imagine, Matt, that you are a multi millionaire,
Speaker 1: but nope, but you can't. You can't afford this legal avenue,
Speaker 1: and that leaves you with two options.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess I would die or I would find
Speaker 4: a way to get one.
Speaker 1: Guess which one people tend to choose.
Speaker 4: I'm guessing they just take kidneys.
Speaker 3: According to the UN, there are three broad categories of
Speaker 3: organ trafficking. Number one are cases involving traffickers that force
Speaker 3: or actually deceive victims into giving up an organ. Example
Speaker 3: might be a person's kidnapped, their organ is harvested.
Speaker 1: Or or this is the one that everyone knows from
Speaker 1: the movies, right, you meet a charming stranger, a great
Speaker 1: cool guy or girl or group of people, and you
Speaker 1: party a little harder than you intended and the next
Speaker 1: thing you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you wake up in a tub of ice in
Speaker 4: the hotel and there's some staples on your side.
Speaker 3: That's chilling. I talked to you guys about this before
Speaker 3: the show the movie Sympathy for Mister Vengeance. I think
Speaker 3: this is a it's a really really dark movie. It's
Speaker 3: beautifully made, though not but it's for kids. But it
Speaker 3: involves this very thing, and it points to some of
Speaker 3: the conditions that might lead someone to enter into an
Speaker 3: even an agreement with these type of folks. Where one
Speaker 3: of the main characters has a sister who needs I
Speaker 3: believe it's a kidney, and she's on this waiting list
Speaker 3: but it's not working out and it's taking too long
Speaker 3: and she's not doing well. So the main character finds
Speaker 3: these gangsters and agrees with them, like, Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: you're gonna take out my kidney and we're going to
Speaker 3: do the operation. Instead, they knock him out, take his
Speaker 3: kidney and his money, and disappear.
Speaker 1: Right, And this is common enough to be a trope
Speaker 1: in a lot of fiction as far as how often
Speaker 1: it actually happens that way in real life, it's it's
Speaker 1: tough to find proof. But that's not the only case.
Speaker 1: You said, there are three categories.
Speaker 3: Right, So the second category involves cases where victims formally
Speaker 3: or informally agree to sell an organ and then are
Speaker 3: cheated out of money. So the thing for the film
Speaker 3: is almost a combination of the two. Are then cheated
Speaker 3: out of the money or paid less than promised and threatened,
Speaker 3: you know totally.
Speaker 1: You'll take what we give you exactly. You're lucky to
Speaker 1: leave with your life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. These are opportunistic, manipulative
Speaker 3: folks that are that are doing these things. They are
Speaker 3: finding people in their time of need, their time of
Speaker 3: most desperation. Yeah, and you know, turning the screws on
Speaker 3: the criminals.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, and sometimes it even does happen voluntarily where
Speaker 4: someone will fly to Turkey or something to give their
Speaker 4: their kidney four or five thousand dollars, you know, four
Speaker 4: ten thousand dollars US. Meanwhile, the person who is taking
Speaker 4: the kidney is going to make ten times that, twenty
Speaker 4: times that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And as as problematic as Ben said as are
Speaker 3: medical system is at least you do have some assurances
Speaker 3: and you know everything's documented and you know nothing like that.
Speaker 1: Whatever happen, and hopefully your chances of survival are much
Speaker 1: higher because it's cleaner and they're they're better standards for care.
Speaker 1: But there's there's another thing we have to say here.
Speaker 1: I don't want to jump I have too far other
Speaker 1: than to say there is a vast criminal element to this.
Speaker 1: And this is something that happens. Whenever something is illegal
Speaker 1: the people are going to do. There will be, as
Speaker 1: you said, no opportunistic people involved. Imagine having a gambling debt.
Speaker 1: You're in over your head, you have no hope of
Speaker 1: paying this off within the time allotted to you. And
Speaker 1: then Noel, let's say I have a gambling debt to you.
Speaker 1: Let's say what's a massive amount of money to owe
Speaker 1: for gambling.
Speaker 3: One million dollars.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I had a wild night in Macau, and
Speaker 1: now I owe you, the shadowy leader of the underworld,
Speaker 1: one million dollars. And you told me I have forty
Speaker 1: eight hours, it's our forty seven, and I'm dragged you
Speaker 1: into whatever palatial you have sure, And and then you
Speaker 1: make it very clear that you're you're fine with killing me,
Speaker 1: but you give me a chance. You tell me I
Speaker 1: can give up, you know, my kidney or part of
Speaker 1: my lung or my liver. And of course people are
Speaker 1: going to say yes to something like that. It's horrific,
Speaker 1: but they will. And then there's the third case, which
Speaker 1: to me is one of the saddest.
Speaker 4: I have to say. Guys, in this example, it would
Speaker 4: be it would make a lot more sense if it
Speaker 4: was maybe one hundred thousand dollars, because they would make
Speaker 4: that if you owed a million dollars.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they would just kill me and take and harvest.
Speaker 4: Because they could. They could pretty much make that from
Speaker 4: your entire body.
Speaker 1: I would go to the chop shop. Yikes, don't do it, No,
Speaker 1: don't do it. Tell me, I've never started gambling. I've
Speaker 1: never gambled, and I don't intend to start now because
Speaker 1: I am frightened by this scenario.
Speaker 3: No, it's true. I mean even you know, I've played
Speaker 3: some slots here and there, but same don't think I
Speaker 3: could ever.
Speaker 1: Go bewn that. I thought you were about to say. No,
Speaker 1: it's true. I guess I would have.
Speaker 3: To do that. Well, you know, when faced with that
Speaker 3: situation and I have to take care of my investment.
Speaker 1: Oh oh yeah, Ice Cold, I respect you though. Number three,
Speaker 1: This is perhaps one of the saddest.
Speaker 4: Yes. The third example is when a vulnerable person receives
Speaker 4: treatment for some ailment, perhaps it's real, perhaps it's not,
Speaker 4: only to find when they come out of surgery or
Speaker 4: whatever procedure they went through, they find that one or
Speaker 4: more of their organs have been removed during the operation,
Speaker 4: and it ranges from what organs are taken in this procedure.
Speaker 4: And this is one of the more terrifying. I mean,
Speaker 4: these are all terrifying, but this one to me. Trusting
Speaker 4: someone going into a surgery or something like that only
Speaker 4: to find that something completely different has happened. Yikes.
Speaker 3: And we're talking about completely enfranchised people that have no recourse,
Speaker 3: migrant workers, homeless people, the impoverished, the illiterate. They are
Speaker 3: just easy targets for these folks who want to prey
Speaker 3: on the fact that they have no one to protect them.
Speaker 1: And they can be any age, they can be any
Speaker 1: you know, cree, race, ethnicity, whatever sort of label you
Speaker 1: want to attach to an example of the human species.
Speaker 3: As long as they got the goods and by that
Speaker 3: I mean kidneys, livers, any of these organs that are
Speaker 3: you know, ultimately pretty easy to remove in a bench,
Speaker 3: which is horrifying in and of itself, especially when you
Speaker 3: consider that you know, these are not done in sanitary conditions,
Speaker 3: These are not done.
Speaker 4: In clean rooms, you know, well, yeah, And the fact
Speaker 4: that they could be removed and then you can still
Speaker 4: live depending on how you were treated after and what
Speaker 4: type of process they took to actually remove it and
Speaker 4: then fix you up, which is that to me is awful.
Speaker 4: Can you imagine living after that just happening to you,
Speaker 4: the PTSD that you would experience in your life.
Speaker 1: I personally would be thrilled to be alive, sure, because
Speaker 1: I think at the time and money you save if
Speaker 1: you're working with volume on sutures, on cleaning.
Speaker 3: Up are you saying I mean, I'm trying to just
Speaker 3: figure out why it's in their best interest to leave
Speaker 3: these people alive in the first place.
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of it is because it
Speaker 1: is a transaction, you know, So if it's a transaction,
Speaker 1: then it's ultimately a business. And if the business model
Speaker 1: is you know, if you establish consistency, people will only
Speaker 1: come back to you or only go pay you if
Speaker 1: they know they're going to live. Yeah. So if we're
Speaker 1: around the street turns out that you just kill people
Speaker 1: and take their organs, which we do have cases of that,
Speaker 1: then people aren't going to go to you with their
Speaker 1: debts or their blood money of one sort or another.
Speaker 1: And okay, so we said earlier that kidneys make up
Speaker 1: seventy five percent of this illegal organ trade. But do
Speaker 1: you know why. It's not just because you can take
Speaker 1: one and sell, although I think that's a huge part
Speaker 1: of it. It's also because of the rising rates of diabetes,
Speaker 1: high blood pressure, heart problems and such across the globe.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you need those the filtration system that are
Speaker 4: the kidneys which are failing across the board.
Speaker 1: And for everyone who might think this is a strange
Speaker 1: thing for us to cover, we would argue that this
Speaker 1: is an example of not one, but multiple international conspiracies,
Speaker 1: not theories. And again, a conspiracy just means people working
Speaker 1: together in secret toward a common goal. Organized crime necessitates conspiracies.
Speaker 1: This involves recruiters, people who transport or the patient, underground,
Speaker 1: medical staff, middleman contractors, buyers, and banks that store the
Speaker 1: organs because remember, organs don't keep and a lot of
Speaker 1: people throughout the history of organ transplants have died because
Speaker 1: an organ was pulled from a cadaver that have been
Speaker 1: dead for hours. You know, So this stuff is on
Speaker 1: ice and on the good side, on the legal side,
Speaker 1: there's this amazing logistics chain of of how people move
Speaker 1: an organ and keep it stored on ice across the
Speaker 1: country or across the ocean to save someone's life. And
Speaker 1: this can be a good thing.
Speaker 4: It can be a good thing for the law side.
Speaker 4: The problem is, because these networks are so large, when
Speaker 4: they get exposed, it will a lot of times be
Speaker 4: one arm or one one section of a network, and
Speaker 4: you never really get to see the larger picture because
Speaker 4: you know, when you're operating underground like this, you just
Speaker 4: pick up shop and get out of there. If there
Speaker 4: isn't a good paper trail.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, So let's talk about some facts about organ trafficking.
Speaker 1: So I'll start with one. Organ trafficking accounts for five
Speaker 1: to ten percent of all kidney transplants worldwide.
Speaker 3: Is mind blowing to me.
Speaker 1: That's like saying illegal car sales account for ten percent
Speaker 1: of all cars purchased, you know in the US.
Speaker 3: Or some you just wouldn't ever associate that, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Who is interesting?
Speaker 4: And according to the WHO, the World Health Organization, the
Speaker 4: illegal trade and kidneys has risen to a level that
Speaker 4: an estimated ten thousand black market operations involving purchased human
Speaker 4: organs now take place every year. And according to a
Speaker 4: couple of organizations organ Failure Solutions, Organs Watch, and EESOT,
Speaker 4: the typical organ donor is a male about twenty eight
Speaker 4: point nine, let's say twenty nine years old, with an
Speaker 4: annual income of four hundred and eighty dollars, while the
Speaker 4: typical recipient is a male of about forty eight point
Speaker 4: one years old with an annual income of fifty three
Speaker 4: thousand dollars. So the discrepancy there between the donor and
Speaker 4: the recipient is pretty telling.
Speaker 1: And organs aren't just used for transplants. There's a demand
Speaker 1: for illicit experimentation from unethical scientists. Think of these as
Speaker 1: the modern version of resurrection men.
Speaker 4: Recerave robbers.
Speaker 1: Threat resurrection men were grave robbers, especially during a time
Speaker 1: when it was legal to experiment on cadavers for med
Speaker 1: schools and stuff, but it was illegal to procure the bodies.
Speaker 1: So that's a chilling but not entirely inaccurate comparison. And
Speaker 1: then of course there are there are other body parts,
Speaker 1: such as bones or genitalia, that are used for magical.
Speaker 3: Rituals, and the profit margins here can be outrageous. In
Speaker 3: July of two thousand and nine, Levy Itzac Rosenbaum was
Speaker 3: arrested in Brooklyn for conspiring to arrange the sale of
Speaker 3: an Israeli citizen's kidney to an undercover FBI agent for
Speaker 3: one hundred and sixty thousand dollars. He said he'd been
Speaker 3: selling kidneys for ten years underground. He paid ten thousand
Speaker 3: for a kidney and sold it for one hundred and
Speaker 3: sixty thousand.
Speaker 4: And there are an unsettling number of examples of at
Speaker 4: least parts of networks that have been exposed to. Al
Speaker 4: Jazeera really recently put out a story I think in
Speaker 4: February about a small syndicate in Indonesia in this place
Speaker 4: called Java, West Java, where this really small village that
Speaker 4: had a population of thirty people, a large number of
Speaker 4: them sold their kidneys for around five thousand dollars each
Speaker 4: and it was being run out of a state hospital.
Speaker 4: Really crazy stuff like that. Just some bad people who
Speaker 4: are working with a couple other bad people inside a
Speaker 4: state run organization. A story from The Guardian in two
Speaker 4: thousand and nine discussed how some pathologists in Israel were
Speaker 4: harvesting organs from Palestinians and several others. That was in
Speaker 4: the nineteen nineties. It has ended officially at least, which
Speaker 4: is nice. And if you search for this kind of
Speaker 4: this stuff, just put organ Harvesting Network into Google and
Speaker 4: then click on the news column and just go back,
Speaker 4: and it's prevalent. There's a lot of it.
Speaker 1: And in neither of the cases that Matt just mentioned,
Speaker 1: neither in Indonesia nor in Israel, were these state sanctioned things.
Speaker 1: These were under ground cabals operating and then they were
Speaker 1: eventually exposed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's almost always how it is.
Speaker 1: Except in the People's Republic of China and the People's
Speaker 1: Republic of China. You can see numerous accusations that say
Speaker 1: the government itself is harvesting organs from executed prisoners, or,
Speaker 1: as claimed in a PBS documentary from twenty fifteen, that
Speaker 1: the government is actually collecting organs from live prisoners or
Speaker 1: practitioners of a spiritual group, of a spiritual belief system
Speaker 1: called Follongong. The idea here is that China is arbitrarily
Speaker 1: imprisoning this minority religious group and then torturing them, killing them,
Speaker 1: selling their organs, getting rich off what's called transplant tourism.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 4: And again you can find it in the US, you
Speaker 4: can find it in Brazil, in South Africa. It's this
Speaker 4: practice is occurring all over the globe.
Speaker 3: So you guys, why is this still going on? Why
Speaker 3: is this still so prevalent?
Speaker 1: I would say there's several reasons. One of the big
Speaker 1: ones would be demand. And if we're saying demand, what
Speaker 1: we need to look at will be the precipitous rise
Speaker 1: of health conditions in the you know what, in the
Speaker 1: world entire because there's this big stereotype of terribly unhealthy Americans, right,
Speaker 1: that stereotype has some truth in it. One in nine
Speaker 1: or twenty six million Americans have kidney disease and most
Speaker 1: probably don't know it, but obesity and diabetes and related
Speaker 1: things are on the rise in the developing world as well,
Speaker 1: so there are more people with worse parts. And I
Speaker 1: think as long as as that situation continues, until we
Speaker 1: can grow stuff in a vat yep, until we can
Speaker 1: all live a more healthy lifestyle. And I am not volunteering,
Speaker 1: by the way, because I'm setting my ways and they
Speaker 1: are terrible until we can iron man or chainey up
Speaker 1: some some suitable technological or mechanical replacement.
Speaker 4: Good. The problem, the problem with this stuff, ben is
Speaker 4: that it's still going to favor those that are wealthy
Speaker 4: because it will cost money. It's a service either, you know,
Speaker 4: it's not easy to remove an organ and put it
Speaker 4: back in.
Speaker 3: Well. Sure, and as we start to develop, you know,
Speaker 3: more high tech ways of doing this, whether it's lab
Speaker 3: grown or what have you, it's going to be like
Speaker 3: these hypothetical situations with life extension technology. Who is that
Speaker 3: going to be for, right, It's going to be for
Speaker 3: the upper class, which is the class that is basically
Speaker 3: in control.
Speaker 4: M HM.
Speaker 1: That's a harrowing point because on the surface, the legal
Speaker 1: organ trade. At least if you look at the rules
Speaker 1: or the guidelines for the list, they say that this
Speaker 1: a person's placement on the list is evaluated by factors
Speaker 1: that are entirely biologically related, severity of illness, time spent waiting,
Speaker 1: blood type, match potential, and at least according to American
Speaker 1: Transplant Foundation, income, race, and social status are never taken
Speaker 1: into account in the allocation process, which sounds like a
Speaker 1: beautiful thing.
Speaker 4: Until you take into account means to move yourself up
Speaker 4: on that list that aren't necessarily proven, right, but you know,
Speaker 4: colluding with someone who controls the list.
Speaker 1: Or staying or you know, the means to participate in
Speaker 1: this illegal market which is making hundreds of millions, hundreds
Speaker 1: of millions of dollars minimum, probably more in an estimated billion.
Speaker 1: And also also it's tough to find these sorts of
Speaker 1: rings and wipe them out entirely. You know, people's survival
Speaker 1: instinct is good. The money it's just so profitable, right,
Speaker 1: And these are people often operating across international boundaries. So
Speaker 1: at this point, at that at this point, regardless of
Speaker 1: the various solutions to the various causes for this sort
Speaker 1: of situation, it just that it doesn't seem to be
Speaker 1: going away.
Speaker 4: This is really tough because in a lot of the
Speaker 4: black markets that we've looked at in the past, it
Speaker 4: seems as though the legalization of whatever product that is
Speaker 4: being sold can kind of solve that black market because
Speaker 4: it then becomes a free market thing. Okay, right, with
Speaker 4: this situation, you can't really legalize just the voluntary donation
Speaker 4: and receiving of organs from other humans, at least I
Speaker 4: can't foresee away.
Speaker 3: Well, it just a lot is left up to chance.
Speaker 3: When you go the legal route, and it almost seems
Speaker 3: like the illegal route, you might be more likely to
Speaker 3: at least have the perception that you're going to get
Speaker 3: what you need, you know about having to jump through
Speaker 3: as many hoops or wait as long, and you have
Speaker 3: less uncertainty.
Speaker 1: And you could even hypothetically hire an entire network, so
Speaker 1: you could get the level of care that you would
Speaker 1: expect from a you know, from a top notch hospital.
Speaker 1: If you just buy a doctor and her his services
Speaker 1: for this one thing, if you just contracted out, it
Speaker 1: would cost an enormous amount of money. But if a
Speaker 1: new kidney gives you another nine years of life, a
Speaker 1: lot of people would see that as a as a
Speaker 1: fair trade, you know, and I'm sure that a lot
Speaker 1: of the people who are participating in this illegal organ
Speaker 1: trafficking are also doing it out of desperation and are
Speaker 1: not monstrous people, you know, they are Possibly maybe it's
Speaker 1: more like a matchmaking thing where they meet someone who
Speaker 1: wants money and they have the money and they say, okay, here,
Speaker 1: let's make a deal. Maybe it is. It may well
Speaker 1: be consensual many times, but also many times it is not.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because we also we've seen that this matches up
Speaker 4: with the act of human trafficking as well, right, I mean,
Speaker 4: where people will be treated like cattle and taken to
Speaker 4: another place where this will happen to them. It's been
Speaker 4: reported on a lot by the un of how closely
Speaker 4: linked human trafficking and organ trafficking is, so you know,
Speaker 4: it's weird how far ranging this process or how much
Speaker 4: it encompasses. It's also one of these kind of devil's
Speaker 4: bargain scenarios where you don't really.
Speaker 3: Know the cost, the actual cost.
Speaker 4: Of what you're buying.
Speaker 3: You know, you're paying money and maybe you can afford it,
Speaker 3: and maybe you are a wealthy person that has decided
Speaker 3: to go this route because of the hoops required to
Speaker 3: get on a legal list to get you know, what
Speaker 3: you need when you need it. So maybe you decided
Speaker 3: to go this route because you feel like you can
Speaker 3: make it happen quicker for yourself or a loved one,
Speaker 3: But you don't know who was manipulated, who was taken
Speaker 3: advantage of to get that for you, So you are
Speaker 3: becoming part of this problem by you know, feeding it.
Speaker 1: M Yeah, absolutely agree this. Okay, let's end on an
Speaker 1: up note if we can. I know this has been
Speaker 1: a you know, I took that Debbie down or advice
Speaker 1: to heart, so I'm trying to see some silver linings.
Speaker 1: There is a huge financial incentive now for medical technologists
Speaker 1: and for inventors to create and geneticist as well to
Speaker 1: create some sort of viable alternative, because even if the
Speaker 1: illegal organ trafficking networks expand and expand even more so
Speaker 1: in size, we're at a point where taking things from
Speaker 1: one human and putting them in another is probably not enough.
Speaker 1: So what we're going to need to do as a
Speaker 1: species is to create a viable alternative, and people are
Speaker 1: working around the clock to do so. So this situation
Speaker 1: may become eventually a thing of the past. You know, eventually,
Speaker 1: hopefully your children and your grandchildren will hear about this
Speaker 1: age and medicine and treat it with the same incredulity
Speaker 1: that we used to treat stories of a world before
Speaker 1: germ theory.
Speaker 4: They used to take organs out of one person and
Speaker 4: put it in another person.
Speaker 1: And they used to use hands to type what why
Speaker 1: don't you just think it into your Google?
Speaker 4: I think it is weird to think how long this
Speaker 4: conversation will last digitally. If the Internet stays around for
Speaker 4: long enough, people might actually listen to this and go what.
Speaker 1: It's too scary? But yeah, we hope that. We hope
Speaker 1: that you found this episode worthwhile. Do you have Do
Speaker 1: you have any thoughts on organ transplants ethically, physically, biologically?
Speaker 4: Have you ever had an organ transplant or maybe donated
Speaker 4: one of your own? You want to write to us
Speaker 4: and tell us about it, We would love to hear.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Have you ever made it to the end of the
Speaker 3: organ trail without dying of dysentery?
Speaker 1: I did once, but well I did several times. I
Speaker 1: played on easy mode and I still lossome people.
Speaker 3: You monster.
Speaker 1: One guy broke a leg and then died of dysentery.
Speaker 3: Man, it was rough. Dysentery I think is like the
Speaker 3: base level, and then there's some other stuff.
Speaker 4: Okay, we really had to bring it back there and all.
Speaker 1: I think we should.
Speaker 3: I really just trying to lighten things up a little bit. Guys,
Speaker 3: this got pretty got pretty pretty dark here.
Speaker 1: I you know, I want to play it again and
Speaker 1: then name members of our party, like after after you
Speaker 1: guys and some of our listeners. But I'm afraid of
Speaker 1: you know, what am I going to do if one
Speaker 1: of you guys doesn't make it over the river? You know?
Speaker 3: Well, speaking of parties, let's have a shout out corner Party,
Speaker 3: shut Out Corner.
Speaker 4: Our first shout out goes to Dakota, who works at
Speaker 4: the postal service and listens to our show all delivering mail.
Speaker 4: That's kind of cool, Dakota. Let us know that watch
Speaker 4: Mojo often uses our videos as a kind of source
Speaker 4: material for their own YouTube channel, which is kind of
Speaker 4: what we do with other YouTube channels as well. We'll
Speaker 4: use references and but we did some checking and they
Speaker 4: do give us on screen credit with text, so we're
Speaker 4: totally cool with that. And last thing, he Dakota wanted
Speaker 4: us to say hello to Long John and I don't
Speaker 4: know who that is, but it's it's Dakota's friend the
Speaker 4: Watch Budget.
Speaker 3: They also, I think they did a list a while
Speaker 3: back where they had different conspiracy type shows and.
Speaker 4: We will yeah YouTube conspiracy for you list. So Ben
Speaker 4: Bolan was and Matt and Matt Frederick we were both
Speaker 4: on that list.
Speaker 1: We were guys. We were all on the list. And
Speaker 1: next we have Matt s on Twitter. Matt, you said,
Speaker 1: have you considered doing an episode on the theory that
Speaker 1: we are living in a simulation? Matt, you also sent
Speaker 1: Matt S. You also sent a video of Ella Musk
Speaker 1: discussing this topic, which you, Matt f I am sure
Speaker 1: enjoyed immensely.
Speaker 3: I did.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I shared it with you guys. Maybe
Speaker 4: I didn't, Maybe we just talked about it. It's the
Speaker 4: one where Elon Musk is asked a question about simulated
Speaker 4: universe theory and he basically says, we have a one
Speaker 4: in one billion chance of existing in base reality, which
Speaker 4: if you dig into it a little bit, it's a
Speaker 4: little off. His numbers are a little off, but it's
Speaker 4: still fascinating to think that one of the richest humans
Speaker 4: on the planet believes that.
Speaker 3: Next one, we have one via Facebook from Corey C.
Speaker 3: Thanks for keeping me hip to all the neat, strange
Speaker 3: and weird things you guys cover. Then we have a
Speaker 3: little hashtag party here. Hashtags cadouche hashtag all Hail Our
Speaker 3: age less Overlord Ben hashtag bag of Badger's hashtag the
Speaker 3: only metal is creatle of filth. Hashtag give Matt his
Speaker 3: boat back? Hashtag tell Frank I said hi?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Is this someone that knows Frank? Yeah?
Speaker 4: You talked about Frank a couple of times. Okay, I
Speaker 4: think you even mentioned you should say hi. Have you
Speaker 4: ever see Frank? See Frank say hi to him? He's
Speaker 4: great guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah. IM just wondering if this is someone that knows Frank,
Speaker 3: Like in the real world, Frank does get around.
Speaker 4: Uh maybe I don't.
Speaker 1: There men, Yeah, the many faces of Frank, the many
Speaker 1: faces of Frank. And this thus ends our shout out
Speaker 1: corner for today, and that's our classic episode for this evening.
Speaker 1: We can't wait to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 3: It's right. Let us know what you think. You can
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