Smelling a Profit

(For fun, let's see if you can count the number of time the word "shit" or a reference to "shit" is used in this post. The answer is at the, uh, bottom.)

I'm going to be a rich man. One of my crack research assistants brought to my attention that doctors are treating bowel infections with fecal transplants. And as full of shit as I am, I can't help but smell an opportunity to squeeze out a little profit.

A drug resistant strain of bacteria known as Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) is causing more frequent and severe intestinal infections in patients being treated with antibiotics for various other maladies. The antibiotics treating the illnesses are also killing good bacteria that reside in the intestines. This collateral damage allows the C. difficile bacteria to attack the patient's digestive system, often causing severe diarrhea and bowel inflamation. This is according to the Mayo Clinic, and how can you doubt any report on intestinal problems when Mayo is involved?

Doctors have found no effective standard therapy to combat this bacteria, so some have opted to try a therapy that is "decidedly non-standard," which is an understatement. They are attempting to restore the patient's intestinal deficiency of good bacteria with microbes excreted by healthy patients. It's called "intestinal microbiome transplantation" - fecal transplants - and the success rate of this bacteriotherapy during studies is encouraging. Basically, doctors take a healthy shit from one person and put it into another. The microbes don't attack the enemy bacteria directly. What they do do is re-establish normal levels of healthy bacteria and allow the body to excrete natural healing defenses. And so far, there are no major side effects with this treatment other than diarrhea, constipation and burping. Burping? I don't know about you, but I can't recall anything that tasted better the second time coming up.

Everyone who donates gets
this neat pin!

So where's the profit in all of this for me? Donor feces. Why not? People who sell their blood can make $200-400 a month. Qualified sperm donors can make $200 a week during a six-month contract. I'm not talking about turning myself into a human soft-serve machine, but a few bucks to fill a Dixie cup every now and then is nothing to turn up your nose at. Of course, there is an element of timing involved with a donation such as this. It's not like a needle in the vein or leafing through a Playboy magazine.

Fecal Run 2013
Run like you gotta go, and
"Give a shit to save a life"

And it's not only about donating. Education is important, too. Events could be held to raise awareness and promote the fight against C. difficile. At fairs and festivals, set up informational kiosks shaped like outhouses. Better yet, use actual porta-potties! Sell brown, rubber "Giveashit" wristbands. Start a Givestrong foundation. Have a marathon to raise funds. The opportunities are endless, so to speak. Let's grease up that good ol' American marketing machine and polish up that golden turd to fund a cure.




So say "No!" to Jamie Lee Curtis and put down that yogurt. Because there's only one true source of natural probiotics!




(Answers: I got 31 - crack, bowel, fecal, shit, squeeze out, diarrhea, bowel, excretes, fecal, shit, do do, excrete, diarrhea, constipation, shit, feces, soft-serve, this*, outhouse, porta-potties, Giveashit, Givestrong, turd, & natural probiotics. In photos: shit, fecal, shit, ass, crappy, fecal, & shit. If you find others, you must justify them to me with the understanding that I will ultimately tell you you're full of shit.)

* "this" used in the context "such as this" is not only a direct reference to shit, it uses the same four letters.