Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of Iheartrading.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
Speaker 2: name is Nol.
Speaker 3: They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Paul, mission controlled decads. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 3: You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
Speaker 3: want you to know. A little bit sleep deprived, we're
Speaker 3: on the road, two thirds of us. But we decided
Speaker 3: to make good on something we talked about previously. In
Speaker 3: an earlier episode, we explored a frightened conspiracy surround in
Speaker 3: prison corruption, tainted blood products, and a global network of
Speaker 3: blood brokers who, through either net leigence or knowing misconduct,
Speaker 3: gave thousands of people incredibly dangerous infections HIV, hepatitis, probably more.
Speaker 3: And in that episode, remember we noted that this was
Speaker 3: only one blood conspiracy when we'd have to return to
Speaker 3: them in the future.
Speaker 4: Right, Yes, So please do go back and check out
Speaker 4: Bad Blood Part one for the kind of groundwork of
Speaker 4: how blood and plasma donations work. We will go into
Speaker 4: some more further detail about that on this episode. We
Speaker 4: also in that previous episode go into why transfusions are
Speaker 4: so very important, as well as a brief history of
Speaker 4: some of the medical breakthroughs that include things like plasma
Speaker 4: products and the things that can be used to help
Speaker 4: treat very serious diseases. Hence the extra kind of ickiness
Speaker 4: when these kind of shortcuts are taken that result in
Speaker 4: people who are desperately in need of remedy end up
Speaker 4: being infected when all they are trying to do is
Speaker 4: cure themselves of an already life threatening condition like hemophilia.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is a very good thing, just to
Speaker 3: get it out in the front, like the idea of blood, transfusions, donations, plasma,
Speaker 3: all of that has saved millions and millions of lives.
Speaker 3: Every year. People donate over one hundred million units of
Speaker 3: blood across the globe. And we talked a little bit
Speaker 3: about units in our previous episode. I don't think we
Speaker 3: defined it, so just in case, a unit of blood
Speaker 3: is about five hundred and twenty five milliliters, roughly the
Speaker 3: equivalent of one pint, So for loose cocktail napkin blood math,
Speaker 3: that's a one hundred million pints of blood, which sounds
Speaker 3: like a lot, and it's a lot. It's a lot
Speaker 3: of blood. It's if you saw it in one room,
Speaker 3: you would be like, this is too much blood.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well yeah, because there are things called blood banks
Speaker 2: that came around in the late nineteen thirties nineteen thirty seven,
Speaker 2: where it's a.
Speaker 4: Vampire to make their deposits.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but sorry, it is. They make all their deposits.
Speaker 2: They also make lots of withdraws. But it is crazy
Speaker 2: to think that since then, since the late nineteen thirties,
Speaker 2: we have had these things called blood banks. Refrigeration and
Speaker 2: storage techniques improved a lot from that time. But one
Speaker 2: of the biggest problems with storing this huge amount of
Speaker 2: blood that we're talking about here is how quickly that
Speaker 2: blood goes bad, right yeah, yeah, which means it means
Speaker 2: there has to be a constant basically flow of blood
Speaker 2: into the blood banks and out of the blood banks,
Speaker 2: or else it's wasted.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there needs to be a churn there, and not
Speaker 3: everyone is. There's like a base expected demand for blood
Speaker 3: or plasma, but not everyone in need of a transfusion
Speaker 3: needs the same amount of blood obviously, and individual cases
Speaker 3: vary on so many There are just so many variables, right.
Speaker 3: We know that demand can also vary by region, peak
Speaker 3: holiday periods, illnesses like a pandemic, for example, and even
Speaker 3: just the time of the year can make a big
Speaker 3: difference because there are times when you know, car accidents
Speaker 3: might spike and things of that nature. So there's another
Speaker 3: issue too, right, you have to have the churn. This
Speaker 3: is not stuff that you should legally or ethically just
Speaker 3: keep around and roll the dice on. And not everybody
Speaker 3: can donate blood.
Speaker 4: I would be interested to know a stat I'm not
Speaker 4: sure we have this today of how much blood does
Speaker 4: go to waste if waste is maybe the right word there,
Speaker 4: because you know, it does have a shelf life. And
Speaker 4: I would think that there would be people in charge
Speaker 4: of these types of programs that are gauging demand and
Speaker 4: you know, keeping that in mind or taking that into account.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, in part one, one of the major issues
Speaker 2: in the Factor eight issue when we were talking about
Speaker 2: the Arkansas prison system was that their refrigerant systems went out,
Speaker 2: and almost immediately when that occurs, if the blood has
Speaker 2: been stored in a non refrigerated unit, it should be
Speaker 2: thrown away with all of these blood donation programs like
Speaker 2: across the board anywhere. If it if this blood that's
Speaker 2: stored is not refrigerated, it should go because it's no
Speaker 2: longer viable and safe to use. But I don't know.
Speaker 2: I guess my point here is that keeping stuff cold
Speaker 2: is very important and that's one of the only reasons
Speaker 2: that we can actually, you know, have large amounts of
Speaker 2: this stuff. We didn't even talk about blood types right
Speaker 2: because of it.
Speaker 4: We did it, but we did just yeah, yeah, just
Speaker 4: in terms of like the universal donor and all of
Speaker 4: that stuff, and then some of the rarer types, and
Speaker 4: it is really quick. We did find the stat eight
Speaker 4: point eight seven percent of units donated apparently are discarded
Speaker 4: in the UK, so globally, globally, it would seem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess there are many reasons why you would
Speaker 2: have to discard great samples or whatever these leaders of blood.
Speaker 3: If it's contaminated, then that would be ethically and legally
Speaker 3: a reason to discard it. We also needed to talk
Speaker 3: a little bit about the importance of heating different blood
Speaker 3: products as a way of removing infections. That's what we're
Speaker 3: saying is is a very important thing. It has saved many,
Speaker 3: many lives, and there is a lot of stuff that
Speaker 3: can go wrong, like right now, due to the restrictions
Speaker 3: on eligibility for blood donors only, like only thirty percent
Speaker 3: of the US population is thought to be eligible, and
Speaker 3: there are all kinds of reasons for that, you know,
Speaker 3: like you are not supposed to donate blood, if you
Speaker 3: have used needles to inject drugs or steroids without doctor's
Speaker 3: recommendation HIV, if you have ever had actual relations and
Speaker 3: return for drugs or money, if you have a couple
Speaker 3: of different specific diseases, or if you have if you're pregnant,
Speaker 3: So fewer people can give blood that we might assume.
Speaker 3: And right now in the US, if you are giving blood,
Speaker 3: you are donating your blood. You are voluntarily giving it away.
Speaker 3: But if you're donating plasma, which takes longer, then you
Speaker 3: you can get compensated. Plasma donations can be compensated in
Speaker 3: the US just because the process is more involved, Like
Speaker 3: depending on the version of plasma donation, it's at least
Speaker 3: ninety minutes to donate, and then you probably are going
Speaker 3: to be there for two hours because you have to
Speaker 3: hang out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and definitely eat the cookies. When they offer you cookies,
Speaker 2: because that's you should need to get that sugar back
Speaker 2: in your system. But guys, thirty eight percent of people
Speaker 2: can donate right are eligible. Then let's really think about
Speaker 2: how many people actually donate, because if like think about voting,
Speaker 2: everybody that can vote, and then how many people actually
Speaker 2: vote and take the time to do it. And in
Speaker 2: this case, you know, a somewhat selfless act, unless you're
Speaker 2: giving the plasma donation, maybe you can argue that it's
Speaker 2: you know, for money, but most of this is a
Speaker 2: selfless act to donate blood. I just wonder how many
Speaker 2: people actually donate every year. It's got to be pretty low.
Speaker 4: It does seem like the number has also decreased over
Speaker 4: the last twenty years. According to a couple of sources
Speaker 4: that I found about.
Speaker 3: Forty okay, I was looking at a Red Cross as
Speaker 3: well too. They have specific demographics of people like the
Speaker 3: most the age, an identity or the age, and like
Speaker 3: ethnicity or socioeconomic status. To the people most likely to
Speaker 3: donate blood, it's college educated males between thirty and fifty
Speaker 3: or something like that. And this this means that, yeah,
Speaker 3: I think is an appropriate example. A lot of people
Speaker 3: can do this do not. And sometimes it's like one
Speaker 3: of those things where you think, oh, it's good in theory,
Speaker 3: but I won't go out of my way to do it. However,
Speaker 3: if I'm like walking by the mall and I see
Speaker 3: a blood drive, then I'm happy to do it when
Speaker 3: I come across it, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I would just have to admit that I
Speaker 2: don't man, and I should. I know, I should. The
Speaker 2: only people I donate blood to or Lab Corp. And
Speaker 2: that's when they're testing me out. You know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've got a real aversion to needles and that's
Speaker 4: no excuse. And maybe this will be the year that
Speaker 4: I put on my big boy pants and do that,
Speaker 4: because you know, Ben, I was looking around and I
Speaker 4: found a very recent article on NBC News with some
Speaker 4: quotes from the Red Cross saying that I didn't think
Speaker 4: about this, but because of things like COVID that blood
Speaker 4: donation has significantly dropped even further. And it was already
Speaker 4: way down, and they said in this article that over
Speaker 4: the past twenty years it has decreased by about forty percent,
Speaker 4: so they they categorize it as catastrophic levels.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they had the first ever I think we mentioned
Speaker 3: some of this in part one. But they had the
Speaker 3: first ever like blood crisis, they declared it recently, and
Speaker 3: it was due to the pandemic. It also we see
Speaker 3: that during times of peace of these donations start to
Speaker 3: peter down a little bit, because you know, if there's
Speaker 3: a war going on, if there's a war effort, then
Speaker 3: all the there's patriotism involved. Right now, you're doing your
Speaker 3: part for the folks on the front line. But yeah,
Speaker 3: for any number of reasons, this donation stuff, even when
Speaker 3: it goes well, it is a continual churning process, and
Speaker 3: the system is far from perfect. The industry has made
Speaker 3: horrific fatal missteps in the past. We talked about Factor eight,
Speaker 3: just the quick and dirty on that and the Factor
Speaker 3: eight scandal. Prisoners were exploited to donate blood even when
Speaker 3: they were known to have HIV and hepatitis, and this
Speaker 3: affected innocent people around the world. To this day, we
Speaker 3: don't know how many were impacted by these products that
Speaker 3: all came from a single prison. All we know is
Speaker 3: this is not the only example attained to products. Maybe,
Speaker 3: before we move on a little bit further, we should
Speaker 3: talk about another documentary we're mentioning this off air Bad Blood,
Speaker 3: which is a great compliment to the other documentary Factor eight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can check it out. You can find it.
Speaker 2: I think you've found it on Amazon right ben where
Speaker 2: you can actually watch it right now. It's a documentary
Speaker 2: that was at least produced or released on behalf of
Speaker 2: the creator marilynd Ness and PBS in public broadcasting, and
Speaker 2: came out twenty ten. It's like about an hour and
Speaker 2: a half. It's a feature length documentary. It's about the
Speaker 2: same thing. I would say, at least from everything I've
Speaker 2: read about it. I have not watched it yet. According
Speaker 2: to the synopsis, it's about the ten thousand people with
Speaker 2: hemophilia that were using this Factor eight product who were
Speaker 2: infected with either HIV, hepatitis C, or some combination.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so check that out to get another angle on
Speaker 3: what's happening here. Neither of those films really mention what
Speaker 3: we're going to explore today, because it turns out other
Speaker 3: countries have plenty of bad blood scandals all their own.
Speaker 3: We're going to pause for a word from our sponsors,
Speaker 3: and then we'll head east. Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 3: There is a disturbing, perhaps equally if not more disturbing
Speaker 3: example of when the blood trade goes wrong from China,
Speaker 3: and it involves something called plasma farese, which is our
Speaker 3: unfortunate word for the day. It's the fancy term for
Speaker 3: kind of plasma donation where long story short, they take
Speaker 3: the plasma out of you, they separate the plasma for
Speaker 3: the breast of your stuff that makes up your blood,
Speaker 3: and then they put that junk back inside you. Why,
Speaker 3: they heist one piece of your blood so that they
Speaker 3: don't fully deplete your supplies.
Speaker 2: So like the they okay, they take all the blood out,
Speaker 2: they take your plasma, they spin it and they take
Speaker 2: your plasma. Then they put your red blood cells, white
Speaker 2: blood cells, and platelets all back in. Just shove them
Speaker 2: back in you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well slowly with finesse.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: Is that is that standard operating procedure or is this
Speaker 4: a bad move?
Speaker 3: This is this is in theory, a really good way
Speaker 3: to do it.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And from nineteen ninety one to nineteen ninety five
Speaker 3: in China, the Henan provincial government had this kind of
Speaker 3: plasma campaign and they were paying people, mostly farmers, mostly
Speaker 3: not very wealthy people in rural areas to participle. Yeah. Well, oh, God,
Speaker 3: the life of people lived, the life of people in
Speaker 3: these rural towns was often really challenging, and the market
Speaker 3: was just becoming liberalized. So this blood plasma economy, that's
Speaker 3: what they called the campaign. How nosparatu is that it
Speaker 3: seemed like a good idea at first, so they called this.
Speaker 3: The authorities called this thing the Blood Plasma Economy Initiative,
Speaker 3: which sounds straight out of like count Orlock and nosparatu,
Speaker 3: but it could have been. It was a win win
Speaker 3: because biotech firms had a huge demand for massive supply
Speaker 3: of blood. They had so much plasma and they had
Speaker 3: so much cash to burn. This was also a great
Speaker 3: program for middlemen, for blood brokers. There was a lot
Speaker 3: of profit to be made.
Speaker 2: So okay, so these biotech companies are paying every one
Speaker 2: of these people to come in and donate their plasma.
Speaker 2: That's what we're saying.
Speaker 3: No, not that owing there. What's happening is it's a market,
Speaker 3: a markup game like any other middleman game. The the
Speaker 3: people in these rural areas are selling their plasma for
Speaker 3: something like the equivalent of ten dollars and ninety cents
Speaker 3: for six hundred grams. But then the blood stations the
Speaker 3: plasma stations are turning around and they're selling that for
Speaker 3: a significant markup to the biotech companies.
Speaker 2: It's it sounds exactly like the factory thing, right, because
Speaker 2: the prisoners were making like seven dollars per donation. But
Speaker 2: there was it. Yeah, their money wasn't real. It was
Speaker 2: for inside the system they're existing in, and then the
Speaker 2: biotech companies are turning that around for what do we
Speaker 2: say it was? It was something insane like one hundred
Speaker 2: and something dollars per donation that they made.
Speaker 4: And it was also like a government contract too, like
Speaker 4: you know where the prison had kind of made this deal,
Speaker 4: this sweetheart deal, and no one would cop to any
Speaker 4: of the mouthfeasons ever along the way. And I don't
Speaker 4: believe as far as where we left off in the
Speaker 4: documentary that we discussed and you know the work of
Speaker 4: Kelly Doudah, anyone has really taken the fall in any
Speaker 4: kind of big, you know, significant, meaningful way.
Speaker 2: But I get what you're saying, Ben, So if that,
Speaker 2: if this structure is in place, you're saying, a middle
Speaker 2: person that that can get between those two systems, right,
Speaker 2: can make crazy amounts of money. Probably, how does.
Speaker 4: One become said middle person, is this a licensed thing?
Speaker 4: Is how do you get into the blood broker biz?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So, I mean if you just have blood.
Speaker 3: Most of the folklore what happens is your master bites you,
Speaker 3: but you don't get any of their blood, so you're
Speaker 3: imbused with certain abilities.
Speaker 4: It is vampiric, though the whole thing is very I
Speaker 4: don't know a great example of taking advantage of a
Speaker 4: system that doesn't have enough oversight, it would seem yeah,
Speaker 4: and this was.
Speaker 3: A long problem. So one misconception about this I think
Speaker 3: that happened when it was initially reported in the West
Speaker 3: is the blood plasma economy, which in the beginning was
Speaker 3: hailed as this amazing thing, like this kind of thing
Speaker 3: economists should study and health professionals should study. It does
Speaker 3: not come out of the blue. It is indeed an
Speaker 3: escalation an expansion of programs in China dating back to
Speaker 3: the nineteen forties where they built out, you know, as
Speaker 3: they had more and more people moving into these huge cities,
Speaker 3: they had a growing demand for blood and they went
Speaker 3: to the urban or they went from the urban to
Speaker 3: the rural areas to supply it. So they've been doing
Speaker 3: this for decades. The blood plasma economy, which was starting
Speaker 3: in you know, nineteen ninety This was the rise of
Speaker 3: the well they're called like the sueta or the bloodheads,
Speaker 3: and they were already they were already established well enough
Speaker 3: that they had a street name for people who made
Speaker 3: a living like this.
Speaker 2: And some of these are people who are donating or
Speaker 2: the people who were collecting.
Speaker 3: These were people who were doing both, so it could
Speaker 3: get yeah, in general, refer to people in the industry
Speaker 3: and these middlemen, you know, they might go into a
Speaker 3: village and they might organize a group travel to a station, right,
Speaker 3: and then they get a viig off that. So by
Speaker 3: the time the BP blood plasm economy comes into play,
Speaker 3: they're already thousands of public donation centers and commercial private
Speaker 3: monetized centers, and those private were commercialized ones those are
Speaker 3: owned by the blood brokers often right, So you know,
Speaker 3: think about it, though in the nineteen nineties, you're in
Speaker 3: a rural, agrarian part of trying, a payment for one
Speaker 3: plasma donation could be more than you would make in
Speaker 3: a month.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's a lot of parallels here with the
Speaker 4: closed system of a prison. I mean not to say
Speaker 4: that these farmers are you know, imprisoned per se, but
Speaker 4: they are cut off from the rest of society, you know,
Speaker 4: at least the more industrialized parts of the country, and
Speaker 4: it would seem that they are being incentivized in a
Speaker 4: way that's similar to the way the prisoners were being incentivized.
Speaker 4: And it can cause some weird, shady math, I believe
Speaker 4: somewhere down the line.
Speaker 2: It feels like morals get bent often when there is
Speaker 2: that kind of what monetary incentivization. I mean, look at capitalism. Hey,
Speaker 2: but yeah, it's just on both.
Speaker 4: Sides though, with the folks donating and with the folks
Speaker 4: that maybe would be turning a blind eye because gosh,
Speaker 4: it's such a sweetheart deal. We can't you know, pass
Speaker 4: up any We need all the blood we can get.
Speaker 2: Well, think about right now, if you could double your
Speaker 2: monthly wage, like right now, if you can go donate
Speaker 2: blood and double your monthly wage. You don't you don't
Speaker 2: not do that right.
Speaker 3: Right It's and it's also there are a couple of
Speaker 3: other things that get twisted here. One of them is,
Speaker 3: you know, if you are the authorities who are most
Speaker 3: like on paper, the people required to keep this all
Speaker 3: on the up and up, on the government side. Then
Speaker 3: you also have a quota of the amount of blood
Speaker 3: that you are expected to produce with your programs, and
Speaker 3: a number of things you have to supply to hospitals.
Speaker 3: So which do you prioritize more? You know, it's like
Speaker 3: no child left behind? I mean, it isn't it.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. Like, when you have this
Speaker 4: mandate that is very unreasonable, you're going to do whatever
Speaker 4: it takes to reach it. You know.
Speaker 3: Boeing excuse me, another Boeing panel left work early? Guys,
Speaker 3: Are you serious? I just passed.
Speaker 4: John Oliver a bit and that they Wow, how are
Speaker 4: they going to come back from that?
Speaker 2: That is wild?
Speaker 4: Because they're too big to fail.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a too big to fail thing
Speaker 3: in an industry that has a little bit of what
Speaker 3: we call plot armor in the world of fandom in fiction.
Speaker 4: Now, not to derail, but I did not quite realize
Speaker 4: that those planes are the one with the door got
Speaker 4: sucked down off was brand new. I did not realize
Speaker 4: that these are like like like systematic design flaws and
Speaker 4: or quality control flaws.
Speaker 2: It's wild. Yeah, well, man, well, don't don't talk about
Speaker 2: it and go to your car at your hotel. Just
Speaker 2: don't go out to your car that's parked at your hotel.
Speaker 2: If you're talking about this stuff, that's all.
Speaker 3: And do make sure that if you are worried about that,
Speaker 3: you spread the word well at advance and several times
Speaker 3: on record, tell people that you will never take your
Speaker 3: own life, and you know, let us know, let us
Speaker 3: know what goes. There's another twist to this blood plasma
Speaker 3: economy program. If you are paying people to donate plasma
Speaker 3: and or blood, then you're removing any success for voluntary
Speaker 3: donation because now people even and try to tried it
Speaker 3: for a while, but even people who voluntary would have
Speaker 3: voluntarily donated blood or plasma, they're saying, well, why the
Speaker 3: hell would I do that now when I could just
Speaker 3: go a town over and get paid to do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no reason it.
Speaker 3: So we see these economic incentives, if not part of
Speaker 3: an active conspiracy, they do coalesce and they have a
Speaker 3: cumulative effect. This shows us that, I don't know, it's
Speaker 3: important to remember this blood economy thing, blood plasma economy,
Speaker 3: it came as a result of earlier stuff. So wouldn't
Speaker 3: that mean in theory, lessons learned from the earlier programs
Speaker 3: would make it more of a win win, like the brokers,
Speaker 3: the biotech still makes a lot of money and then
Speaker 3: the people donating stay safe and the people getting the
Speaker 3: donations stay safe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, how stable was that system because it seems
Speaker 2: like you could build it to where everybody wins. So
Speaker 2: it was right, everything was fine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's our show. Thanks for tuning in, fans. Yeah. No,
Speaker 3: the the absolutely right. The theory could be fine, but
Speaker 3: the problem stem from the way the plasma is extracted.
Speaker 3: And I think it would be it's smart for us
Speaker 3: to walk through what actually happens here. We were not
Speaker 3: being facetious where we said, we're not being you know,
Speaker 3: we're not doing a bit when we say they would
Speaker 3: take stuff from you and then put your blood back
Speaker 3: in you. Although I know it sounds like a four
Speaker 3: year old trying to describe blood donation, but we're not
Speaker 3: medical experts. This is true though. They did take stuff
Speaker 3: and put it back in.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, So let's go through the steps. Step one,
Speaker 2: insert a syringe into a person's body that goes into
Speaker 2: their bloodstream and take out the blood. That's all the blood,
Speaker 2: by the way, that's like the whole blood.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, not all of their blood.
Speaker 2: No, no, to just his whole blood. It's got all
Speaker 2: the parts.
Speaker 4: Step two we've talked about the spinning part of the process,
Speaker 4: where in the plasma is separated from the blood in
Speaker 4: a centrifuge. That is a machine that has then used
Speaker 4: to extract that plasma. Step three, Oh.
Speaker 3: Yes, step three. After the plasma is extracted, like like
Speaker 3: you're saying, that takes a while for them to separate
Speaker 3: this stuff, then that the same blood minus the plasma
Speaker 3: is pumped back into the person's body. So it's a
Speaker 3: more involved process. It sounds super weird. We think so too,
Speaker 3: but it is completely safe so long as everybody's following
Speaker 3: the SOPs of sterilization and safety. That did not happened.
Speaker 4: Real quick aside, is this the same process that was
Speaker 4: or is done over here putting the blood back in?
Speaker 4: Or is this is there something unique about this particular process.
Speaker 3: I'm not on factor eight and correct is here, folks
Speaker 3: on factor eight. I think they were just taking the
Speaker 3: plasma and separating it after they extracted it. I don't
Speaker 3: know if they were putting it back in the bodies.
Speaker 3: I think the main you know, for them, the problem
Speaker 3: was they weren't vetting the donors very well, and then
Speaker 3: they were also through negligence, they were spreading infections from
Speaker 3: donors to other donors.
Speaker 4: And we should also add that, similarly to you know
Speaker 4: what what ended up happening with the factor eight. The
Speaker 4: advances of biotechnologlogy have led to synthesized versions of this
Speaker 4: that don't require the actual plasma. So that's a good
Speaker 4: thing moving forward. But we're in the thick of this
Speaker 4: part right now that very much aligns with the factor
Speaker 4: eight story in terms of this was the only game
Speaker 4: in town forgetting that plasma for creating these products. Plasma
Speaker 4: itself is still needed, but in terms of using it
Speaker 4: to make the hemophilia medications, and.
Speaker 2: I'm stuck on the steps that we just described because
Speaker 2: in my mind, if you're going to do this properly
Speaker 2: and as you as you state had been, you know,
Speaker 2: through sterilization like standards and those kinds of things. Let's
Speaker 2: say let's say I donated blood, my blood gets taken out,
Speaker 2: it gets spun in a centrifuge that only contains my blood.
Speaker 2: That way, when the plasma is left and you've still
Speaker 2: got the red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets
Speaker 2: that stuff goes directly back into my body, right, because
Speaker 2: it's my blood. Get it back in my body. Please.
Speaker 2: Thank you were saying that didn't happen.
Speaker 3: We're saying that's what's supposed to happen. And in between
Speaker 3: donors and donation instances, then the all the material would
Speaker 3: be either cleaned or thrown away. Right, the needle gets
Speaker 3: thrown out into a biohazard container, this interfuge gets sterilized,
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera. That's what is supposed to happen. However,
Speaker 3: as Kim Sang puts it right in for the Singtile Daily,
Speaker 3: the blood plasma economy was such a booming business. It
Speaker 3: was such like a bitcoin. All of a sudden, it
Speaker 3: seemed like a huge It was like an oil boom really,
Speaker 3: except for blood.
Speaker 2: And you couldn't get the blood out fast enough right
Speaker 2: and turn those donation tables basically.
Speaker 3: And so the needles were being recycled, the bags that
Speaker 3: held the blood were being recycled. Other instruments, can painters
Speaker 3: that had like had direct contact with human blood, we're
Speaker 3: getting recycled. And some people, some stations, we still don't
Speaker 3: know how many mixed different blood blood from different donors
Speaker 3: in the same centrifuge, creating massive possibilities for contamination because
Speaker 3: the way it works is, yeah, it doesn't like let's say,
Speaker 3: in the course of a day, let's say, you know,
Speaker 3: anywhere from twelve to fifty people, their blood got mixed
Speaker 3: in with this unknowingly, and then as things get reused
Speaker 3: over the course of the day, if let's say the
Speaker 3: third person or the fourteenth person who donates plasma has
Speaker 3: hepatitis or they have HIV, then everyone in line after
Speaker 3: them when that stuff is getting pumped back into them
Speaker 3: now they've got it too.
Speaker 4: And guys, I want to apologize. I think I made
Speaker 4: sort of a dumb point earlier. At least this stuff
Speaker 4: we're talking about here isn't the same as the Arkansas
Speaker 4: story because they're not making this serum. They're not making
Speaker 4: factor eight or a product to treat hemophilia. This is
Speaker 4: exclusively plasma donation for people who need plasma transfusions or
Speaker 4: for other medical procedures other than I guess it could
Speaker 4: end up in pools of the stuff that is used
Speaker 4: for the same kind of medication, right, yeah, but not
Speaker 4: specifically for that.
Speaker 3: It goes straight to the biotech companies to make any
Speaker 3: number of things with it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yes, it could still you know, hurting people in
Speaker 4: the same in a similar way.
Speaker 2: Well, and as we're talking, yeah, we're talking about the
Speaker 2: cross contamination here. That's for people, the donors who are
Speaker 2: getting that blood pumped back into them that's now mixed
Speaker 2: with all these other people. It's also for that plasma
Speaker 2: that when it gets spun up, it's now spun up
Speaker 2: with a bunch of other blood that who knows, you know,
Speaker 2: what could be in that one sample that now contains,
Speaker 2: as Ben said, the culmination of everybody who donated that
Speaker 2: day before the thing got sterilized again.
Speaker 4: I mean, it reminds me of It's like not cleaning
Speaker 4: the soda machine.
Speaker 2: Oh god, yeah, don't think about it.
Speaker 3: I think its way way way in your body. And
Speaker 3: you guys show too, right because you're glad you brought
Speaker 3: that up. It's so ichy. But I instantly if I
Speaker 3: ever have a fountain drink, I instantly go into that
Speaker 3: paranoia if it tastes even slightly off. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 3: like a fountain drink at a little different I know.
Speaker 3: I was just I was at our our favorite uh
Speaker 3: Popeyes Chicken in Atlanta, the place where you know, the
Speaker 3: drive through person famously told me, what one time up there? Uh,
Speaker 3: I was in there recently, was picking something up and
Speaker 3: I asked for, you know, like a common mill thing,
Speaker 3: and the lady behind the counter told me, you sure
Speaker 3: the soda found has been a bit peppery. Oh, and
Speaker 3: I did it was spicy? Yeah, I don't know, but
Speaker 3: I was like, I, okay, I appreciate it, thanks for
Speaker 3: the you know, thanks for the tip there.
Speaker 2: I have to believe that it was just like spicy,
Speaker 2: a hit in a spicy way, and it shouldn't be
Speaker 2: that way.
Speaker 5: I like to think it was so Mu's first day
Speaker 5: and they said, hold on, you put the spice mix
Speaker 5: on the chicken, and they're like, oh, well, what's done
Speaker 5: is done?
Speaker 2: I see. I thought it was some kind of mold
Speaker 2: that was really kicking things up a notch, you know.
Speaker 3: I think that's what she meant.
Speaker 4: It was spicy mold.
Speaker 3: And so I do think this idea of like the
Speaker 3: soda found thing is unfortunately really great comparison because it
Speaker 3: got even worse as things escalated. To speed up the
Speaker 3: amount of blood that were able to supply number of
Speaker 3: units per day, right, some stations cut out crucial steps
Speaker 3: of this process we've walked through, Like a donor might
Speaker 3: just be given blood from previous donors the same blood type.
Speaker 3: So in your example, Matt, it's not you getting you know,
Speaker 3: getting that tasty Frederick vintage blood minus the plasma back.
Speaker 3: You're getting some Randos. It might even be Jonathan Strickland's.
Speaker 2: Oh I could only hope if I got a little
Speaker 2: Strickland blood in me. Man, Just I feel like I
Speaker 2: would get smarter the same.
Speaker 4: Yeah, i'd like the flowers for algrenon type situation. But
Speaker 4: then you get progressively dumber.
Speaker 2: Well, that first moment, like I fully understand what a
Speaker 2: q LED is versus an OLED, and I can like
Speaker 2: break all of that down.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's what. Then we just have to keep
Speaker 3: little vials of it around with us, I guess refrigerated
Speaker 3: inside pockets.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I start slurring his words. We got to give
Speaker 4: him a dose of the juice, know, yest. Oh God,
Speaker 4: Now we're being flippant here because this is so depressing
Speaker 4: and heavy, because it's really the only the Gallo's humor
Speaker 4: is the only way to deal with the fact that
Speaker 4: this happened.
Speaker 3: Jeez, Louise, we're whistling in the graveyard here, folks, for real,
Speaker 3: because this did happen. People were giving blood from other donors.
Speaker 3: They were not informed about this. You would it would
Speaker 3: speed up the process. You wouldn't have to wait for
Speaker 3: They would put your blood centrifuge to run and then
Speaker 3: they would just check on what other centrifuge was done,
Speaker 3: and if they had the same blood type as you,
Speaker 3: they would put that blood inside you. So there were
Speaker 3: also reports that people who tested positive for he B
Speaker 3: hepatitis B were allowed to give blood and their blood
Speaker 3: plasma was just putting a different pile. Basically, yeah, my
Speaker 3: translation with Chinese is not that good. So they love
Speaker 3: bigger a speech, but they yeah the hep B pile. Yeah,
Speaker 3: which all means that without their knowledge and certainly without
Speaker 3: their consent, these financially disadvantaged folks were forced into sharing
Speaker 3: needles on a massive scale. What could go wrong? We'll
Speaker 3: tell you after a word from our sponsor, and we
Speaker 3: have returned.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: China has a famously strict approach to the concerns of
Speaker 3: its population, right and the country is very sensitive about
Speaker 3: certain things, certain events like Tianeman and so on. But
Speaker 3: this public outcry is different. The government can tamp down
Speaker 3: on political protests pretty easily. But this is not necessarily political.
Speaker 3: This is a national medical crisis. Now we don't know
Speaker 3: how many people or country maybe carrying HIV, maybe unknowingly
Speaker 3: transmitting it to their children, their partners, people they just
Speaker 3: hang out with. So the government has to do something.
Speaker 2: Because we're saying it started in nineteen ninety and then
Speaker 2: this system rolled on for three, four, maybe even five years. Wow,
Speaker 2: So I guess that's around the time when they realized
Speaker 2: there are big problems.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, that's right. And then in nineteen ninety five
Speaker 4: they rolled out something else, which was some new policies
Speaker 4: that changed some things around for hopefully the better. The
Speaker 4: very least, the blood stations in Hennan were starting to
Speaker 4: get shut down. And you know, another thing that the
Speaker 4: Chinese government is known for is being a bit opaque,
Speaker 4: let's just say, in terms of their acknowledgment of mistakes
Speaker 4: that were or were not made. So this is about
Speaker 4: the best you're going to get, which was in nineteen
Speaker 4: ninety six when the Ministry of Health issued a document
Speaker 4: called Administrative Statutes of Blood Products that required plasma paresis
Speaker 4: stations only collect plasma from specific areas, but ben I
Speaker 4: wouldn't say they exactly admitted to wrongdoing, right, They just
Speaker 4: just issued some new declarations that changed things around. And
Speaker 4: it wasn't like we're doing this because we fed up. Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're saying they're tightening the restrictions because around this
Speaker 3: time there are these reports that start sporadically coming out
Speaker 3: that say, hey, why does everybody in this village have
Speaker 3: this hepatitis? In particular, why it would look right right
Speaker 3: and the damage had been done. They were thinking, they
Speaker 3: were hoping, whoeveryone's in charge at the time, that if
Speaker 3: they had removed plasma donation stations from those rural areas,
Speaker 3: the ones that seem troublesome, then the problem would solve.
Speaker 3: It's in a way that could save face for everybody
Speaker 3: and let people still make a lot of money off this.
Speaker 3: But like you said, the horses left the bar and
Speaker 3: the badger's out of the bag. Right now, the best
Speaker 3: estimates guess that forty to sixty percent of the more
Speaker 3: than three million people who donated plasma in this way
Speaker 3: contracted AIDS afterwards, and that means that over one million people,
Speaker 3: innocent people died as a direct result of participating in
Speaker 3: this initiative. More will die on the way because these
Speaker 3: infections were carried by them without their knowledge for so
Speaker 3: very long. And it probably, you know, probably authorities knew
Speaker 3: about this and just didn't inform them. I think they
Speaker 3: had to I think they had to know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it feels so similar to the factor eight issue
Speaker 2: because the money was flowing, and how do you You
Speaker 2: can't really put a stop to it when it's floil.
Speaker 2: You could, you should, but you it's kind of difficult
Speaker 2: to do once it's that profitable.
Speaker 4: And you know, I mean in high level officials practice
Speaker 4: plausible deniability. But I swear, you know, I think I
Speaker 4: mentioned you guys off my that I've never been more
Speaker 4: suspicious of the Clintons than I was after discussing that story,
Speaker 4: because there are so many indications that this information was
Speaker 4: absolutely available at the highest levels.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then how far does plausible the diability go.
Speaker 3: I understand that, especially to high level political or corporate positions,
Speaker 3: you might not be able to watch every falling sparrow.
Speaker 2: I'm a busy right.
Speaker 4: You know, time for all this. These are below my
Speaker 4: pay grade.
Speaker 3: But after a certain point, deniability is no longer plausible,
Speaker 3: and you are at the very least, just terrible at.
Speaker 4: Your job, you know what I mean, especially when it
Speaker 4: directly impacts people, not even in your state or province
Speaker 4: or country.
Speaker 3: Right, It's just it's so disappointing, it's heartbreaking.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: The investigations go on and over time what they find
Speaker 3: is more and more villages are ravaged by AIDS and
Speaker 3: hepatitis there. It's almost certainly, it's too generous to say
Speaker 3: almost certainly it is definitely because of these plasma stations.
Speaker 3: And just for a snapshot example, there was a small
Speaker 3: area in Hannan in Kaijan County or Kaijan County. They
Speaker 3: had three hundred or three and seventy villagers. Of those,
Speaker 3: forty three percent tested positive for AIDS.
Speaker 4: God, that's insane. That average is mind boggling.
Speaker 3: It's terrifying, you know. And in the village of Winlu
Speaker 3: when now sixty five percent of the residents tested had HIV.
Speaker 3: And imagine your own hometown, you know, more than half
Speaker 3: a neighbors had been infected by government and action and
Speaker 3: corporate obscenity in this way, you know it Just what
Speaker 3: hits me is if you've ever visited Rule China, you
Speaker 3: know the people there are wonderful. Just like most people
Speaker 3: at most places in the world, their lives are already
Speaker 3: very difficult, very very difficult. And adding this, I mean,
Speaker 3: I just keep thinking of like a kid having to
Speaker 3: learn this.
Speaker 2: Guys, I'm stuck on that that town that had sixty
Speaker 2: five percent of the residents that contracted HIV. That's just
Speaker 2: so devastating and insane, and especially given that this program
Speaker 2: started in nineteen ninety correct, right, if you look back
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three to nineteen eighty five is when pretty
Speaker 2: effective HIV blood tests existed. I mean, so at least
Speaker 2: five years prior to the program even starting, you could
Speaker 2: be screening people. If you're running this program, you could
Speaker 2: be screening everybody who's donating to see, right, And that alone,
Speaker 2: to me is just unconscienable. Yeah, just insane. And then
Speaker 2: and then to let it run for so long, God, man,
Speaker 2: ben I.
Speaker 3: That's what haunts me. Man, That haunts me because bribery
Speaker 3: explains at least part of it, right, which is tremendously
Speaker 3: common in these systems. But again, I'm just I am
Speaker 3: haunted by the image of a kid who already has
Speaker 3: a really tough, challenging life and has all their own,
Speaker 3: you know, they have their dreams, their aims, they want
Speaker 3: to make their parents happy and all this other stuff,
Speaker 3: and then they.
Speaker 4: Learn that.
Speaker 3: The natural progression of their life has been so has
Speaker 3: been knocked off kilter.
Speaker 2: And it's dude, can I ask something horrible? And I'm
Speaker 2: going to ask this just because I want to talk
Speaker 2: about it, and I don't know, and I don't mean
Speaker 2: anything by this other than I'm curious, and it is
Speaker 2: curious to me. I'm thinking about China's one child policy
Speaker 2: that started in nineteen seventy nine in this you know program,
Speaker 2: or about eleven years later. It does make me wonder,
Speaker 2: if there's God, I get that would be the conspiracy. Right,
Speaker 2: was this done purposefully to thin the population even more?
Speaker 2: Because we know that's the purpose of the one child
Speaker 2: policy is to slow down population growth? Right, this is
Speaker 2: the right. This is the program in China that ran
Speaker 2: from nineteen seventy nine to pretty recently, right like twenty
Speaker 2: sixteen or something twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3: Applying prime to the applying to the ha and ethnicity,
Speaker 3: which is oh really the mainstream ethnicity. So like the
Speaker 3: thing about the one child policy is yet it had
Speaker 3: terrible ramification in terms of femicide and things like that.
Speaker 3: The femicide being discovering the biological sex of a child
Speaker 3: in vitro and then having it awarded as a result
Speaker 3: because you would want a male. Yeah, so there was
Speaker 3: this huge distortion between between like male and female birth
Speaker 3: rates or survival rates, if we really want to be
Speaker 3: honest about it. In terms of this, I find that
Speaker 3: a fascinating and intriguing branch of speculation. The only issue
Speaker 3: is there faster, more efficient ways to do it that
Speaker 3: could still give you that plausible deniability.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, I completely agree, I think, and this
Speaker 2: is describing evil. I would say to a place where
Speaker 2: maybe it shouldn't be it shouldn't be placed there, And
Speaker 2: it's just me having the thought experiment. But oh yeah,
Speaker 2: if you're targeting rural farmers, and you know the the
Speaker 2: groups that are profiting from this are not rural farmers
Speaker 2: by any stretch, right, If you give the families something
Speaker 2: like HIV or AIDS, not only are you infecting anyone
Speaker 2: else in that you know, in that household of down
Speaker 2: the line.
Speaker 4: If the child done purposefuly, this would be a form
Speaker 4: of controlled genocide.
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying it is. I'm just saying this is.
Speaker 4: The mind you could jump there. I will just say
Speaker 4: that if if you're interested in the one Child policy
Speaker 4: stuff and how that really did have horrible ramifications in
Speaker 4: and of itself. There's a documentary called One Child Nation
Speaker 4: that came out in twenty nineteen through PBS's Independent Lens program,
Speaker 4: which is always next level good that I would highly
Speaker 4: recommend checking out.
Speaker 3: And those the results of the One Child Policy itself
Speaker 3: are going to continue well into your lifetime as you
Speaker 3: listen to this Evening show, because it lasted from set
Speaker 3: seventy nine to twenty fifteen. And it's kind of like
Speaker 3: one Child Policy is kind of like experiments with cloud seating, right,
Speaker 3: You're affecting a system that you don't fully control in
Speaker 3: ways you don't fully understand. It's it's tough, man, it's
Speaker 3: tough out there, and we'd love to hear your personal
Speaker 3: experience with it. If you've got any, let us know.
Speaker 3: So we have a terrible situation. We have places where
Speaker 3: there are pluralities of people infected with HIV, with hepatitis,
Speaker 3: and it's just because of the nature of how these
Speaker 3: things spread. And you know you mentioned NOL earlier, the
Speaker 3: idea of an admission of guilts.
Speaker 4: We did get one, didn't we. I was surprised to
Speaker 4: see that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, two thousand and four.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the government did publicly admit, which is in a
Speaker 4: rare show of Again, I'm not trying to dogpile in
Speaker 4: the Chinese government, but they do have a bit of
Speaker 4: a history of opice.
Speaker 3: Let's just say, and we're not we're not, obviously too.
Speaker 3: I'm glad of bringing this up. We're not cenophobes at all.
Speaker 4: No, we.
Speaker 3: Don't, right, We're not using this as like red meat
Speaker 3: for something.
Speaker 4: This is not in the least and I will actually
Speaker 4: something that I said off Mike, I'm just going to
Speaker 4: say the kind of abbreviated version of it. I'm surprised
Speaker 4: that certain more xenophobic types haven't used this for fodder
Speaker 4: for further xenophobia, for trying to convert people to more
Speaker 4: xenophobic ways of thinking, because this could be weaponized in
Speaker 4: a way to be like, see see what they did.
Speaker 4: You know, these horrible people, this horrible government. I'm just
Speaker 4: surprised that hadn't happened, and that we hadn't really heard
Speaker 4: that much about this outside of this investigation. But the
Speaker 4: government of trying to did publicly admit that by its estimation,
Speaker 4: at least twenty four percent of all HIV, all HIV
Speaker 4: cases in China came directly from what we've been talking
Speaker 4: about today, from these this dirty plasma business.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so you would think, just like the case
Speaker 3: of the blood plasma Economy program, you would think the
Speaker 3: lessons learned from the past may have been informing the
Speaker 3: events of the future and the present. Well, we thought
Speaker 3: so too, and we were incorrect. So we're right there
Speaker 3: with you. Fast forward to twenty nineteen, a similar thing
Speaker 3: happens again, this time in Shanghai. A specific company, a
Speaker 3: pharma company named Shanghai sin Keing Medicine Company. They gotten
Speaker 3: hot water on suspicion that they sold twelve thousand units
Speaker 3: of blood plasma product contaminated with HIV. So this is
Speaker 3: still a possibility. It still happens, and hopefully the authorities
Speaker 3: are just a little faster about it now or holding
Speaker 3: people accountable. Right, And then that came on the heels
Speaker 3: of like the month before then, there was this panic
Speaker 3: that the government gave more than one hundred kids expired
Speaker 3: polio vaccines. A few months before that, hundreds of thousands
Speaker 3: of kids got faulty diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough vaccines.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's interesting because we just talked Sorry, not interesting,
Speaker 4: it's horrifying. But we had talked about how China was
Speaker 4: one of the very few places where polio is still
Speaker 4: a thing, right.
Speaker 3: Uh, yeah, Pakistan and Afghanistan have the same. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: it still occurs in China. Sure. Yeah, it's it's tough.
Speaker 3: And you know, the question there is maybe more like
Speaker 3: just negligence and trying to and not downplaying this at all, but.
Speaker 4: It's a very large view.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, have you you guys have had this
Speaker 3: situation in your own home where you know, you're checking
Speaker 3: on maybe it's like a dairy thing or a vegetable
Speaker 3: in your fridge, and you're like, is this on the
Speaker 3: line of expiring? How far over is it?
Speaker 4: You know, it's sell By, it's fine, sell By.
Speaker 3: So maybe that's what they did, you know. And so
Speaker 3: members of the media for this twenty nineteen event with
Speaker 3: the tainted blood products, members of the Chinese media spoke
Speaker 3: up and said, hey, this there's going to be a
Speaker 3: cover up pretty soon. They'll say, injecting this is good
Speaker 3: for your health. Don't panic. And that appears to be
Speaker 3: part of what happens. So we have to follow up
Speaker 3: on the twenty nineteen story to learn more as the
Speaker 3: investigations continue. But one thing's for sure. Like we said
Speaker 3: at the top, when the money gets too tempting, the
Speaker 3: demand gets too high, people will cut quarters. They will
Speaker 3: attempt to bleed every last cent from a broken system
Speaker 3: before it collapses. That, I argue is the stuff they
Speaker 3: don't want you to know. Also, you should donate blood
Speaker 3: please if you can. You are saving lives.
Speaker 2: Couldn't agree more.
Speaker 4: All of this stuff that we've discussed has really got
Speaker 4: me the I really am. I can barely keep from
Speaker 4: passing out when I get blood taken for you know,
Speaker 4: medical purposes. But I'm gonna have to steal myself and
Speaker 4: uh and and do that because I didn't realize how
Speaker 4: how desperate the situation was in terms of the blood supply,
Speaker 4: you know, in the United States.
Speaker 2: But is there is there a way to, like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, train yourself to not be freaked out by
Speaker 2: needles anymore.
Speaker 4: It would have to be some sort of self hypnosis
Speaker 4: or some like like quitting smoking or getting over fear
Speaker 4: of heights or something. I don't know how you would
Speaker 4: do that mindfulness transcendental meditation.
Speaker 3: There's a way, yeah, different avenues to it if you
Speaker 3: want to disassociation of things, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just remember I used to be really freaked
Speaker 2: out by it for a long time and something changed
Speaker 2: and I didn't do it actively, but I definitely just started.
Speaker 3: Were you getting on a medical test because will change it?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's when I started doing like physicals, right, So,
Speaker 2: like as you get older, it's recommended if you have
Speaker 2: a general practitioner, like a doctor that you go see regularly,
Speaker 2: that you get blood drawn basically at least once a year.
Speaker 2: I think when that started happening, it just changed. Like
Speaker 2: I look at the needle. I used to have to
Speaker 2: look away and like you do all that stuff, but
Speaker 2: now I just look at it. I'm like, wow, look
Speaker 2: at that.
Speaker 1: Go.
Speaker 4: I think I've mentioned that I have an underactive thyroid,
Speaker 4: so I have to give blood a lot, like to
Speaker 4: check on the numbers, and it's more than just a
Speaker 4: physical and I still can't look at it, and it
Speaker 4: still freaks me out just as much every single time.
Speaker 4: So I think some people are the different. Some people
Speaker 4: grow out of it. I guess I used to hate
Speaker 4: tomatoes now, but needles still freak me out big time.
Speaker 3: You can contact. The best way to get involved going
Speaker 3: to donate blood is again because there's regional variation and
Speaker 3: demand and type of stuff they're looking for. Your best
Speaker 3: next steps are to contact the local blood banks in
Speaker 3: your area. It's also so possible if you want some
Speaker 3: extra credit. It's also possible to organize a blood drive.
Speaker 3: You know, if you have, if you like work at
Speaker 3: a big company or something, they'll probably support you in
Speaker 3: doing this, just like if you were to organize a
Speaker 3: clothing drive or a book drive.
Speaker 2: Didn't we do that with when we were owned by Discovery?
Speaker 2: I feel like I remember doing that in the old
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 3: I did not participate. I'm just gonna be absolutely clear.
Speaker 3: I did not trust them.
Speaker 2: Oh I have problem with.
Speaker 3: Red Cross, But I was like, nice, try because this
Speaker 3: was still before you know, the widespread rollout of genetic testing,
Speaker 3: and they.
Speaker 2: Were just trying to find the next honey boo boo,
Speaker 2: and they were gonna get all the blood.
Speaker 3: And getting right to your blood. Yeah. So I was
Speaker 3: somewhat prescient in that, I guess. But anyway, Uh, we
Speaker 3: would love to hear from you, fellow conspiracy realists, especially
Speaker 3: if you are involved or employed in something that touches
Speaker 3: upon the blood industry. One question about do certain countries,
Speaker 3: companies or products are they Are there certain countries, companies
Speaker 3: or products that you and your colleagues consider no goes?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean? And if so, why, what
Speaker 3: do more people need to know about bad blood? And
Speaker 3: what have your experience has been again with stuff like
Speaker 3: the one child policy, traveling in China, interacting with the
Speaker 3: Chinese government. This is stuff that maybe that may be
Speaker 3: really helpful to us in the future. So please let
Speaker 3: us know what's on your mind. We try to be
Speaker 3: easy to find online. Oh oh my god, donate your
Speaker 3: ideas to us.
Speaker 2: That's what it was.
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