I have a 💩 obsession. This isn’t new to anyone who has followed my picks over the past 10 years, some of which have been compiled in reading lists (“Really Good Shit,” “Braindump: A Reading List on the Future of Sanitation, Toilets, and Bathrooms“). In this Slate story, Luke Winkie reports on the black market for poop—specifically the HumanMicrobes website, which matches fecal donors with people looking to buy healthy, premium poop for a fecal microbiota transplant (FMT). Winkie’s piece has the context on why anyone would want to do this, and the first reading list linked above includes stories that go deeper into this unconventional method that treats C. diff, a bacterial infection affecting the gut. The story might make you squeamish, but it’s still a fascinating addition to our collection of 💩 reads.
Harrop refers to the website as a business and his primary commercial enterprise. The poop he sells costs around $1,000 per “dose,” and is distributed in either capsule form (for the “upper route”) or split into pieces packed in dry ice (for the “lower route”). The resulting revenue is split evenly between Harrop and whoever the stool previously belonged to. Unlike the FMT treatments you might receive at the Mayo Clinic, there is not a specialist prepping the poop for you. Harrop never handles the feces directly. This is an ad hoc, online-only operation, delivered peer-to-peer, with Harrop functioning as something like an international middleman for poop. (Yes, they ship worldwide.)
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