You’ve probably heard of blood bank, although not necessary have donated it. But have you heard of stool bank, or sh*t bank? As disgusting as it may sound, you can actually make good money by just selling your poop. And if you’re under 50 years old and don’t mind making daily trips to Medford, MA, you can be richer by US$40 a day – just for pooping. The company that is crazy enough to pay for your sh*t daily is OpenBiome.

Launched in 2012, OpenBiome is the only independent non-profit “stool bank” in the United States. Apparently, OpenBiome collects, tests, and provides fecal samples to 122 hospitals in 33 states for one of the most interesting medical treatment innovations today – Fecal Microbiota Transplantation, or simply FMT, in short. While OpenBiome pays you US$40 per poop, they charge US$250 per 250mL FMT sample to hospital.

 

The human body contains 10 bacterial cells for every human cell, and 100 unique bacterial genes for every human gene. To keep your digestive and immune systems functioning properly, your body needs to maintain a natural balance of bacteria in your gut. But antibiotics taken to treat infections kill both “good” and “bad” bacteria indiscriminately. Hence, it upset the balance and making the gastrointestinal tract susceptible to “C. difficile”, a “bad” bacteria.

As a result, it affects more than 500,000 Americans per year, causing fever, nausea, abdominal pain, and serious diarrhea—and kills 14,000 Americans per year. Although patients can subscribe to antibiotics that treat C. difficile, as many as 20% of the infections return. Interestingly, our stool, it turns out, is a plentiful source of this good bacteria, and to get one person’s good-bacteria-filled poop into an ailing person is through FMT

 

However, to become a professional pooper (that’s you, dude) is not as easy as walking into a McDonald’s and order your meal. You have to undergo thorough screenings, from a 120-question health history with a physician to a travel history analysis and, of course, recent use of antibiotics. After your sample dump is reviewed by the lab for any infectious agents and the health of the bacteria, our blood is tested for standard blood borne diseases as well as hepatitis A, B, C, syphilis, and HIV/AIDS.

All the screening costs, which is more than US$1,000, are covered by OpenBiome. The company prefers younger adults between 20 to 30 years of age. Once your sample passes the medical exam, you are enrolled and scheduled to visit the Medford facility every day. Each visit takes about 30 minutes, during which the donor produces a sample into a hat-shaped bowl that rests over an ordinary toilet. And you walk away US$40 richer (*grin*).

 

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October 17th, 2014 by financetwitter

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