WEBVTT - Part One: How Tainted Human Blood Became A Major U.S. Export 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:04.240 Also media. 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:07.680 Oh my god, welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:11.720 podcast where me and my guests for this week, the 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:15.520 great Ben Bolan, are about to get targeted and murdered 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:22.799 by the Clinton crime family. Ben, how are you doing today? Finally, finally, Yes, 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:26.440 we've been we've lived in the dream dream. 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:29.960 Yes, here we go. Yeah, it's great to uh, it's 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:31.960 great to be back. It's great to hang out with you. 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:35.040 I was thinking of you and the team recently because 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:38.680 I don't know whether you were cold, Robert, but lo 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:42.680 these many years ago, when you were just beginning a 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:47.680 podcast called Behind the Bastards, you graced us with an 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:51.800 appearance a cameo dropped a hot sixteen on a show 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:55.000 we do called Ridiculous History. Yes, do you remember that? 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:59.000 I do remember that? Yes, about the governor of or 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:01.160 the founding the found one of the founders of Oregon. 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:05.040 If I'm not mistaken, you're right, Yes, how Oregon originated 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:07.479 as a supremacist. Yeah. 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:12.000 Yeah, well today we're not talking about that, although we 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:15.559 are talking about something where racism is involved. We're talking 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:19.119 about I wasn't entirely joking about the Clintons. They are 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:22.600 they are intricately involved in this story, or at least 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:25.520 Bill is. But Ben, what do you know about the 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:30.760 blood industry? Do you mean, like Ben Bowley, host of 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:32.960 stuff they don't want you to know, and ridiculous history 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:36.440 and a bunch of other stuff you mentioned one of them, Yes, 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:38.320 like as. 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:40.800 A fan or just the industry overall? 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:43.200 Are you're so? You are a fan of blood? You're 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:43.960 a big blood guy. 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:46.600 Yeah, that's what people say about Yeah. 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:50.480 Yeah, I mean who doesn't. I enjoy having roughly five 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:51.880 leaders of blood in my body. 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:54.400 That's what everybody says about you. 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:58.160 Every every time I'm in or adjacent to a shooting, 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:00.320 I think, boy, it's great having all of my blood 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:01.280 still inside of me. 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:06.120 Yeah. I also love you know like any other any 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:09.639 other damn peer. I am a huge supporter of blood donations, 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:11.440 huge supporter. 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:15.760 Yes, uh. And that's what we're kind of talking about today, 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:18.800 because there's some there's some problem donating blood. There's this 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:21.520 great story that's going around because the fellow just died 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:24.560 of this, this lovely elderly Australian man who found out 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:27.640 that he had a rare blood factor that was crucial 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:30.440 in making a medicine that millions of babies needed to live, 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:34.840 so he just donated blood for like decades. Yeah, saving 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:38.400 like two and a half million babies. That's great. Donating blood. 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:44.160 Great blood as a commodity is what we're talking about here, 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:46.920 and there's some deeply problematic aspects of it. And I 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.760 wanted to start by saying, where do you think blood 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:54.560 lies on the list of US exports by value? 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:59.400 Ooh, by value, not by liquid weight? 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:03.960 Okay, our blood and blood products. How much chunk of 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:06.880 the US economy? Do you think that would be clever? 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:13.079 Clever question, Robert, because that would factor in things like plasma, right, yes, 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:18.800 of course, yes, okay, yes, so with that I would gosh, 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:23.280 it's a difficult question. It's a difficult question. I don't 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:24.000 know the answer. 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:28.080 It is the ninth largest export for the entire United States. 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:33.799 Holy shit, Yes, it beats. It beats like coal. Blood 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:40.000 is a massive industry in the United States. It is, 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:43.840 like again, it's one of our largest exports. Blood products 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:47.600 make up one point eight percent of all US exports, 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:49.400 which is up about half a percent from where it 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:52.440 was ten years ago. And blood exports are valued at 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:58.480 about thirty seven billion dollars. Like it's it's it's much larger. 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:02.000 I did not realize when I started how big A like, 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:04.880 that's a significant piece of the economy. 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:06.080 That's top ten. 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:11.480 Yes, yes, yes. And here's the thing that's like shocking 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:13.160 when you just like I never would have thought of 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:15.880 if I had been asked to, like guess the ten 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:19.520 largest exports, blood wouldn't have been on my list. But 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:23.800 here's the thing. The United States provides seventy percent of 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:29.680 the blood plasma used worldwide to make medicine. That means, yes, yes, 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:34.360 seventy percent of all blood plasma used on the planet 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:38.719 in medicine comes from here. We are the largest exporter 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:42.400 of blood products on the planet, and no one else 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:43.520 comes very close. 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:46.440 Go USA to an extent. 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:49.360 Yes, And this is one of those things where we're 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:51.400 talking about how messed up a lot of this industry is. 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:55.480 It's not like some messed up industries where it's like, well, 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:58.400 maybe we don't all need this product that the US 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:01.039 puts out, or maybe there's alternative to this product that 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:04.760 has harmful consequences. Everyone. Really, we do really need a 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:08.480 lot of blood and blood products. It's very important for medicine, 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:13.080 a crucial part of keeping people alive. So you can't deny. 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:16.359 It's not like there's no argument to be made that 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:19.039 we don't need to be producing all of this blood. 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.800 Somebody fucking has to the problem is that whenever you've 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:25.360 got an industry this big, you're going to find people 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:29.240 try to find ways to maximize their profits and minimize 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:32.880 their costs. And when you're talking about blood, that's going 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:35.040 to lead you to do some fucked up shit that 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:39.359 has some hideous consequences, right, yes, And that's that's the 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:42.600 story that we're telling today. This week's episode is going 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:44.560 to explain why and how a huge chunk of the 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:48.640 global blood economy came to rely, specifically on a bunch 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.080 of prison inmates in Arkansas, watched over by a handful 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:54.960 of Clinton associates who saw their job as basically a 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:58.760 bribe for political loyalty, and how this ultimately killed multiple 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:01.880 nine elephns worth of Kenans, English people, and other folks 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:06.280 around the planet. This is a dark story, and it's 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:10.080 all set in the Arkansas prison system, and it all 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:12.880 starts with this immutable fact, which is that human beings 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:15.840 die without blood. The average adult has about four to 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:18.800 five leaders of whole blood in their body at any 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:21.479 point in time, and while we've always known that like 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:25.000 you need blood, medical science has tended to focus throughout 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:27.760 most of history on like maybe people have too much blood, 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:30.120 maybe they have bad blood, and you got to like 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:33.760 add in good blood to replaced losses. It was a 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:37.400 messy process of figuring out like how blood works. And 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:44.120 the first blood transfusion as far as we know, was 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:47.760 attempted in sixteen twenty eight by an English physician. And 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:50.440 I say attempted because it did not work. And I 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:53.720 don't think that's a like it's it was a messy process, 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:55.360 you know, trying to figure out how to do this, 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:58.400 and they weren't always using human blood, right, because if 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:01.960 you're like an early in this period, it might not 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:06.000 make the logical thing, wouldn't be that like, well, obviously 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:09.760 a lamb's blood and a human's blood are fundamentally different 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:11.880 and we shouldn't be putting lambs blood into people. You 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:14.640 might not make that jump, right, It's just it all 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:18.720 just looks like blood to me, you know, just like 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:21.400 if you put like blood from somebody in somebody who 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:24.520 cannot take a donation from them, if you're dealing with sixteen, 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:28.160 you don't know about blood types, how would you, How 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:30.920 would that possibly be come to you? 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:33.960 Yeah, you should already get bonus points for recognizing the 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:34.720 blood exist. 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:38.320 Right. If you're aware that the problem is not too 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:42.040 much blood, you're doing very well in the sixteen hundreds. 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:46.840 You're a great doctor in the sixteen hundreds. If your 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:49.120 immediate jump isn't just like, well, let's cut them and 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:52.640 drain a bunch of that shit out. This guy with 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:55.640 a sword wound probably has too much blood left at him. 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:59.080 Yeah, that's the problem. It's like, not only do you 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:02.040 have too much blood, but your humors are off dog 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:04.360 and you know what I mean. That's like the. 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:07.880 Balance is wrong. Yeah, you have to think about it. 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:10.920 Like if we took a bunch of computers back to 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:13.600 like nine hundred BC, and we showed them how to 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:16.880 use the computers but didn't explain anything about like how 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:20.240 they worked. People would probably be able to keep some 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:23.360 of those things going for a while, but their theories 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:26.720 about why different stuff worked would be wild. 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:29.880 Right, Like we have to we have to sacrifice a 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:31.360 certain amount of people. 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:34.800 Yes, yes, wait, the computer's demand blood. 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:39.520 Sometimes if the computer doesn't work, it's because there's too 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:40.880 much Blood's. 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:43.880 Yes, there would be a whole religion centered around getting 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:48.720 like Microsoft Outlook to work, and honestly, they might, they 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:50.640 might do a better job than we do because Microsoft 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:53.240 Outlook never works. Well, I mean, maybe human sacrifice is 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:53.800 the answer. 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:56.560 Pit Yeah, yeah, maybe we should look out for the 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:57.480 Outlook religion. 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:00.520 Mmmm, you know what I'm gonna get on that one? Uh, 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:03.840 I'm gonna need I've been meaning they have like a 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:07.280 sacrificial knife made for me, So this this could in 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:08.160 well for everybody. 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:11.880 You don't You don't have that, Huh. 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:14.720 I have a sacrificial knife, but it's not nice enough 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:16.560 to fix Microsoft Outlook, Sophie. 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:19.920 Or do you just have a knife that has occasionally 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:21.719 been used for sacrifice? 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:23.680 Well, I mean, yeah, actually this one right. 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:30.520 Folks, Folks, Robert just did pull it up and why 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:34.160 you know it is to his right? 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:36.400 Keep it near me. You never know, you know my 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:39.920 motto a bs maybe always be sacrificing. You never you 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:44.200 never know when which god you know, Babylonian deities. There's 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:46.320 all sorts of gods out there that need blood. 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:47.679 You know. 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.600 When I when I when I'm more recovered from surgery 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:53.160 and I'm back to filming, I gotta show everyone that 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:55.440 knife you got me as a surgery present. 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:01.640 Yeah. Yeah, it's a nice one. Yeah Ford bontempsky booie, 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:03.600 it's a really nice nice yeah. 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:04.480 Yeah. Wow. 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:04.920 Yeah. 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:11.760 The kiwi's in the audience will be impressed. So we 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:16.080 didn't get blood transfusion right the first time, not for 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:19.360 a bit, not for a bit. But by sixteen fifty five, 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:22.520 a physician named Richard Lower had carried out the first 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:26.120 successful blood transfusion, not in humans but on dogs. He 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:29.160 is one of these like rare, much better than that, 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:31.440 where he's like, maybe we should just start by trying 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:35.480 to replace people's blood. I'm gonna work with ducks. See 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:37.880 if I can get that down. 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:38.080 You know. 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:42.520 And two years later, a French physician and Richard Lower 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:46.959 separately carried out successful blood transfusions from lambs to human beings. 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.000 And I know, I just mentioned that that like isn't 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:52.760 a great idea, and it's not, but it does sort 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:55.320 of work sometimes, and it's the kind of thing you 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:58.440 will occasionally hear. You know, you can use coconut water 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:02.000 for blood transfusions because it's like sterile and it's the 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:05.319 electrolyte content. It's one of those things if you look 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:09.080 up like Snopes will say, no, this isn't true. I 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:11.920 found a scientific study where they did this. They used 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:15.920 it for an emergency transfusion. What's going on here? When 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:19.439 when using lambs or coconuts does work, It's not because again, 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:24.760 these are good replacements for blood. It's because sometimes when 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:27.959 people lose enough blood, the biggest thing is getting enough 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:31.000 like mass of something that's close enough in there so 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:34.720 that their body keeps working. There are like if you 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:37.160 use coconut water for transfusions because of like I think 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:39.360 the amount of potassite is one problem, there are a 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:42.640 horrible additional health conflicts it can cause. And the same 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:44.800 is true of lambs blood. But if someone is like 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:47.600 going to immediately die because they don't have enough blood, 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:51.040 sometimes this has been done in order to save them, right, 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:54.920 But it's not a good idea if there's other options. 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:57.679 And in fact, once they started using lamb's blood, it 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:01.280 became very quickly clear that like people also die because 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:03.760 of the consequences of shooting them full of lamb's blood. 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:07.640 Well, it's also like you know, a modern comparison, Robert 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:12.960 might be uh, the idea of heart transplants right with 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:15.600 non human organs, right, not right, not to get too 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:19.520 far ahead, but like that's that's that's uh, that's a 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:24.400 situation where a current human technology can sort of band 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:27.360 aid you. You might make it, you know, a year 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:32.319 or so. It's not a it's not an actual facts 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:36.360 human heart. Just like it reminds me of and I 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:40.240 don't I don't know enough to speak off expertise here, 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:43.559 but it reminds me of like that old trick with uh, 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:47.920 with elderly cars, I'll call them vintage cars, where if 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:51.440 the radiator is fucking up, you can put you can 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:53.960 put a couple things in to just keep the radiator 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:57.120 going until you get to the gas station. So maybe 0:12:57.160 --> 0:12:58.760 the lambs blood thing is like that. 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:01.439 It is a little and it's it's also this thing 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:04.840 in like emergency medicine, where like there's certain things you're 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:08.240 never supposed to do, like use an AED on an 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:12.760 infant that also like people do because in the instance 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:15.280 in which you would be doing it, the infant is dead, 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:18.080 so you can't make it worse. Right, And like when 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:20.600 we're talking about like where the origin of this of 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:23.200 the coconut water thing is, it was at least one 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:24.560 of the stories you'll here is that it was like 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:28.080 during like World War two, and like they had they 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:30.720 didn't have enough blood, and they just kind of tried something. 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:35.600 And so like occasionally stuff that's not blood or not 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:38.199 human blood can be used in a way that we'll 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.080 deal with the immediate problem, but again always causes a 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:43.520 bunch of additional problems because it's not supposed to be 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:44.400 in there, right. 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:48.000 Right, right, Quick question though, quick question, Yeah, what Robert, 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:52.800 if you're imagining it and Sophie as well, this World 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:58.400 War two doctor who stumbled upon coconut water bandating blood 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:00.000 or the circular, if that's. 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:02.839 How it happened, it is a little unclear, but yeah. 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:06.800 If that is how it happened, Yeah, what do you imagine, 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.600 Like if their hand is going over a table with 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:13.200 all sorts of other shit on it, what else did 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:14.240 they look at first? 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:18.120 What do you think, Yeah, given the state of things 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:21.480 at the time, straight liquor, what if we just put 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:24.400 some jim bean in there? Well, that saved their lives. 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:27.720 And they're like, no, we're saving the No, we're saving 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:30.640 the liquor for the guys who aren't bleeding out. 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:33.840 Yeah, we need all of that jim bean. We are fighting, 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:37.760 We are island topping fighting the Empire of Japan. Nobody 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:40.480 wants to sleep sober at night. Give him some coconut 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:44.760 water or some shit. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. So. 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:48.280 The first human to human blood transfusion occurs in Philadelphia 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:52.360 seventeen ninety five, although the doctor who does it doesn't publish, 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:56.800 and so the first successful transfusion is like generally listed 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:59.920 as eighteen eighteen. It was by a British doctor treating 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:04.480 a postpartum hemorrhage, and the science kind of develops from there. 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:07.080 One of the things that becomes clear is that in 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:10.560 a lot of instances when people need a transfusion, they 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:14.080 don't need whole blood. Right Initially, they're starting out with 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:18.120 whole blood, and people find out over decades and stuff 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:21.800 that actually you can take different elements of blood and 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:24.880 kind of add in a substitute, and exaline is usually 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:29.200 used and do infusions of that for certain problems. Milk 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.160 is actually one of the infusion substitutes. But this is 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:35.480 again horrible for people. Don't shoot milk. It to people, 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:38.800 milk does not belong in your blood sounds like big 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:41.560 day to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure the 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:44.800 fucking dairy companies were like fighting for fighting like hell 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:48.480 to have that be the case. So it's what for, 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:53.320 it's what's in your blood there it is. Yeah. So 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:55.840 over the next decades we figure out shit like blood 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:58.440 types and we start messing around a lot with plasma, 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:00.400 which is a component of blood that can used to 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:02.840 make a whole bunch of different medications that will save 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:05.840 your life. One of the best known uses of blood 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:10.280 plasma is the manufacture of clotting agents in order to 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:13.160 save and improve the lives of hemophiliacs. These are people 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.000 who like, if they start bleeding, they just kind of 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:18.280 keep bleeding. Their blood doesn't have the thing that is 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:20.520 like all right, we've bled enough time to scab, you know, 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:25.080 no breaks all gas, no breaks with the bleeding. And 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:28.960 the first of these medications hits in like the nineteen sixties, 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:32.240 and they more than double the life expectancy of hemophiliacs. 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:34.920 As far as like single medical interventions go, this is 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:38.400 like one of the big ones in terms of stopping 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:42.320 like improving quality of life and length of life. Obviously, 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:44.720 I'm not an MD or a scientist, but here's how 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:47.280 An article in the William and Mary Business Law Review 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:50.680 by Sophia Chase describes the process of making this life 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:54.200 saving medication using plasma. After blood is collected, it is 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:58.240 spun off through plasma pheresis, and its component parts are 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.400 used for different purposes. The plast of thousands of donors 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:04.639 is pulled together to create factor concentrates that form a 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:08.880 blood product known as factor eight used to medicate hemophiliacs. 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:11.760 Depending on the severity of the disease, ahemophiliac might need 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:14.760 to use factor eight seven times or several times a week. 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:17.720 This means essentially that people who are already ill with 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:20.800 a life threatening disease and a compromised immune system have 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:23.800 no alternative but to inject themselves with plasma hundreds of 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:25.840 times a year. There's a degree to which this is 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:29.280 a little like a diabetic who needs insulin, right. This 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:33.600 is a medication that you need constantly, right, in order 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:37.720 to not die. That's it. You know, the fact that 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:42.640 this is available is great, but without blood transfusions and 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:45.720 all of the medicines. You know, it's one of those 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:48.600 things where like, because we developed this, there's a shitload 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:51.200 of people you know who are alive today, whether it's 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:54.199 because they bled out, because they were a soldier who 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:56.560 got shot, or like a random person who was in 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:59.679 like a car accident, got shot, or whether there's somebody 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:03.600 with myphelia or one of a number of diseases and disorder, 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:06.960 or one of their parents. You know, people who are 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:09.960 alive because of this branch of science. Right, It's incredibly 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:15.320 important stuff that we figured out. Largely the problem is 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:18.119 that while I don't think a single doctor would argue 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:22.119 that access to blood and blood products is a cornerstone 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:25.280 of modern medicine, there is never enough of the shit. 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:28.359 Absolutely never, at no point have we ever had a 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:34.159 sufficient supply of blood and blood products. Yeah, and capitalism 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:36.960 being what it is, the market has responded by making 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:40.880 blood and blood products wildly valuable. In nineteen ninety eight, 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:43.960 a barrel of crude oil was worth about thirteen dollars. 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:47.680 A similar quantity of human blood was worth twenty thousand dollars. 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:51.560 But that's whole blood. If you took that drawn blood, 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:54.000 that as whole blood is worth about twenty grand for 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:56.920 a barrel, and separated it into plasma and the other 0:18:57.000 --> 0:18:59.520 different blood products that are used in medicine, you could 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:02.320 get more like sixty seven thousand dollars in nineteen ninety 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:03.679 eight dollars off of that barrel. 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:06.760 Oh like if you if you steal a Honda Civic, 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:08.240 you make money. 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:12.320 Sully exactly exactly. But you know Ben that that gets 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:16.520 into our very successful business, uh taking catalytic converters, which, 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:18.880 by the way, folks, if you need rare earth minerals, 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:21.639 Ben and I are selling them whole fail. You just 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:24.439 get a sack of cats delivered to your door. You 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:26.560 know which is. 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:29.840 The new up and coming We call it kiddo currency. 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:36.200 It is Evans and Bowlin's. That's right, Sophie Raye Production. 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:40.720 We're limited liability companies, so don't try to come at us. 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:41.520 Don't even try. 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:45.800 Once the dollar crashes and once crypto crashes, the only 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:48.560 currency is going to be catalytic converters. You'll be walking 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:50.560 around with a wallet full of them. And you know what, 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:52.560 we're all going to get very strong because they are 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:53.080 not light. 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:55.680 They are not light. You should this is going to 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:56.879 be great for our lats. 0:19:57.640 --> 0:19:59.879 You need to start doing the wholes thing and carry 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:02.560 like a baby cow up a mountain now or a 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:05.360 pin or whatever it was in that book, so that 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:08.920 you can be strong enough to bring grocery money with you. 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:13.359 You know what's amazing about this is somebody one of 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:17.120 us is listening right now and is doing the fireman 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:20.720 carry down the goat, and they're like, I'm fucking ahead, I'm. 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:23.879 Ready, I'm ready, And several other people are listening on 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:26.520 their earbuds as they saw someone's cat from the bottom 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:27.160 of a prians. 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:29.080 Yeah. 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:32.639 So, anyway, I bring that up just to say that, like, 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:35.160 there's a lot of money in this, and wherever there's 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:37.040 a lot of money in the raw amount of blood, 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:38.919 there will be an incentive for people to do one 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:41.560 ethical things to get that blood because there's never just 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:45.480 enough donations. Now, there's some reasons for that, some of 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:49.040 which is the problem of the different organizations responsible for 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:52.119 drawing blood. We could talk about the fact that queer 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:55.280 people are still generally forbidden in many cases from donating 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:59.199 blood because of the AID scare or the AIDS epidemic. 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:01.679 We could talk you know, there's a number of like critiques. 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:04.080 But even if you were to solve for those problems, 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:06.720 there's still never going to be enough of this stuff. 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:09.040 I don't know how we fix it until we can 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:12.399 start like just growing, you know, functional blood in a lab, 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:14.560 which is a thing people are trying to figure out. 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.320 But from the beginning, the main problem with blood for 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:22.159 transfusions in medicine has been that you can only really 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:24.199 get it. I know, there's those crabs that we can 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:26.359 use for some things, but as general rule, you only 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:29.560 get it from people, and people are very attached to 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:32.240 their blood and they're not always able to donate. There's 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:35.159