First results from our 1 in 23,000 stool donor.
Sitting on a possible panacea and working hard to get the tiny percent who qualify to stop flushing lifesaving medicine down the toilet.
Even though the overall tone of this report may be perceived as pessimistic, I want to start out with a sincere thank you to all of the people who have been willing to be stool donors. This includes dozens of college and professional athletes, including some recent Olympic athletes. We are working hard to get the few people who are the most likely to qualify to apply. Unfortunately, we still haven’t found the precise health & microbiome criteria we’re looking for in a donor. It's extremely unfortunate (and concerning) for everyone involved that high-quality donors are so rare; as it’s a window into the health of the population, and everyone benefits when we find a high-quality donor.
When I first started out searching for a stool donor I figured that people would be happy to give up something that has zero value to them but could possibly save someone's life. Another IBS patient warned me that his experience was the complete opposite. He was ultimately unable to find a donor, and didn’t make it, just like many many others [1][2][3]. Almost a decade later I've suffered brain damage after using a low-quality donor due to desperation & inability to find a better donor, I was very close to death for a period of ~2 years, have suffered through tremendous hardship and physical & mental agony, and I'm still trying and failing to find a high-quality stool donor. Due to these experiences, my view of mankind has been severely tarnished [1][2][3]. These experiences have also expanded my original goal of simply curing myself, to now fixing this incredibly dystopian society [1]. I've lost a decade of my life while a very likely cure for my condition has been in full view, sitting on the other side of a bulletproof glass.
I've seen numerous reports of college athletes struggling to buy food, yet we can't even get them to give up their poop for $4,000/mo. You would think this opportunity would be one of the most popular among college athletes, spreading like wildfire. $4,000+/mo for 30 minutes of "work" each day? Na, sorry, I gotta keep flushing it down the toilet.
We started off offering a $300 referral reward for any donor that qualified and started donating. We were worried about people trying to game the system. Yet it seemed entirely ineffective so we gradually increased it all the way up to $5,000 by allocating all profits made from selling the stool towards paying the person who found the donor, yet still the vast majority of people seem entirely uninterested. Tens of thousands of people were offered $2,000+ per referral and completely ignored it. People from all walks of life - marketing, college students, sales, etc. It seems quite perplexing that no one thinks it's worth it to spend 1 hour socializing with college athletes for the possible reward of $5,000+. Even their teammates. Even with job ads; despite $5,000/mo being above the median income for the US, and the amount of work required to make that $5,000 being minimal.
Luckily, our project was organically mentioned on social media, and that resulted in over a million views and 23,000+ donor applicants. Unfortunately, the vast majority of applicants were extremely unhealthy, despite our website clearly saying "looking for the top 0.1% healthiest people", and showing multiple examples of healthy people.
Some interesting tidbits from the first wave of 6,000 applicants:
It seemed like a lot of nurses were applying.
The vast majority (80%) of applicants in the first wave were women, but that was probably in large part due to the platform and/or person who made the video.
A lot of people are getting parts of their body cut out.
High body fat seemed to correlate with liquid/very soft stool. I found this surprising since I wonder how they're able to absorb enough calories. Possibly the lack of solid stool results in a lack of satiation.
After the first wave of ~6,000 applicants, we had no one promising. I was advised to increase prices in order to attract higher quality donors, so we doubled the prices from a minimum of $80 per stool to $150 per stool, and that increased donor payouts from around $2,000/mo to $4,000+.
After an additional 16,000+ applicants, we still have no one that meets the precise criteria we're looking for. We picked the most promising candidate out of the 23,000+, but they don't seem to be highly effective for everyone.
Here are the first results we have from them: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E9TFLqh9I2ZZhDSvGljyhukU-71fFMmJ/
Only around 40% of recipients have sent in their results. We’ll try our best to increase this rate since results-tracking is very important. Of the ones who sent in their results, it seems like most experienced mild to moderate benefits, while some experienced no benefits. For many recipients in our network, our FMT has been the only treatment that has helped them regain their health.
Despite our price increase, we are still by far the lowest-cost source of stool/FMT, as well as the highest quality. We're also the most transparent, and the only one systematically tracking & publishing results. For the vast majority of individuals and institutions looking for stool/FMT, there is no rational reason to use stool from any other source. Particularly due to the severe deficiencies in virtually every other source, which brought about this project in the first place [1][2].
The rarity of high-quality stool donors
Based on my observations from visiting universities to recruit potential donors, plus one study that qualified 3 out of 700 applicants and still didn't get an effective donor, I was estimating that high-quality donors were fewer than 1 in 1000. We've now learned that they are likely rarer than 1 in 23,000.
That people healthy enough to be stool donors are so rare should be incredibly alarming for everyone. And due to the medical system's irresponsible, non-evidence-based overuse of antibiotics & c-sections, lack of breastfeeding, junk food diets, etc., the amount of people who qualify to be a stool donor is getting progressively fewer. I fear we may be slipping into a permanent Idiocracy [1].
I think one of the first times I started realizing it is worse than I estimated was when I learned that Will Smith's family actually has many health issues. His daughter is someone I would have guessed to be a high-quality donor. Another instance was reading some years ago that even Simone Biles takes one or more prescription drugs. Another was learning that Serena Williams probably wouldn't qualify. And very recently, after getting a handful of professional athletes who I would pick out of a lineup as “likely to qualify”, I am feeling even more worried and defeated about just how rare high-quality donors are.
When I contact people directly who seem more likely to qualify, they usually don't respond. When we do general outreach via ads, social media, etc. we mostly get extremely unhealthy people, along with about 1% who are generally healthy but probably wouldn't be a highly effective stool donor. These one-percenters would be average people in a non-dystopian society, but in ours they are very rare.
There is the possibility that people with eubiotic gut microbiomes are less likely to apply/be willing to be a donor. Maybe inherently and subconsciously they feel protective of their gut microbiome/stool. These would generally also be privileged people blissfully enjoying their lives.
I'm sure that many people are grossed out by the idea of FMT because their own stool is so unhealthy and repugnant, but high-quality stool is not repulsive.
Efforts and opportunities
At this point, I have directly contacted well over 1000 college and professional athletes. As well as hundreds of researchers, and institutions. I've also contacted numerous other people that have a personal reason to get involved. The lack of response feels contrived at this point. It makes absolutely no sense.
I can't do this on my own.
Following are examples of roadblocks and dead ends that I’ve run into.
News outlets - especially science-based ones, should be reporting on this issue of potentially having a currently-existing panacea but being unable to get the tiny percentage of people who qualify to start donating something that they’re flushing down the toilet. But no, it's South Park that covers it... And the science news media is apparently unable to even follow in their footsteps.
Indeed.com - the biggest job website in the US, restricted us from hiring recruiters seemingly purely out of immaturity because "poop" or "I refuse to believe this is real".
The student body of a university newspaper refused to let us purchase advertisements. Again seemingly purely due to immaturity.
A billionaire involved in the microbiome field, who is relatively knowledgeable on FMT, and has extra motivation due to a sick family member. He knows about me and my project, he participates in forums that I do. The amount of money required for him to help me find a high-quality donor should be relatively trivial for him. I'm also set up to bear all the legal liability. And if his mantra of "wanting to make illness optional" was true, he'd be all over the chance to potentially demonstrate a panacea with FMT.
One of the major microbiome research centers in the world is quite nearby. One of their most prominent researchers coauthored an important paper that outlined the catastrophic phenomena of our human microbiome going extinct. Yet instead of focusing on stopping & reversing the trend, they seem to be choosing to do rather trivial research.
A microbiome researcher with a very similar background to me – they had CFS and went from patient to researcher. They co-authored some good reviews on the microbiome and autoimmunity.
Most of the research community looks at a very likely panacea and thinks "na, not worth looking into". Most people doing FMT clinical trials seem to think "donor quality? Na, not important", and subsequently get poor results. It mostly seems due to apathy, ignorance, and incompetence, but others simply try and fail to find one of the rare people who are healthy enough. Then the few research groups who are able to find such people don't bother testing them as an FMT donor. The Church Lab at Harvard Medical School was the first I saw. This example is the second. What's more is that this individual has made critical comments about the lack of access to FMT back in 2019.
A professional athlete with a kid with diabetes HumanMicrobiome.info/Diabetes. This is someone with little excuse. They’re retired so they’re not preoccupied, they have a massive reach (millions of social media followers), connections with the exact type of top athletes we need to recruit, vast resources - they could hire anyone they want - researchers, doctors, lawyers, etc. They even visited Congress to advocate for more medical research for diabetes. I contacted them, told them about what I was doing - working on a potential treatment/cure for diabetes and more, and explained that they could be massively helpful by helping to acquire high-quality stool donors for FMT. No response.
Also, the fact that even someone as healthy and capable as this top athlete has a sick kid is yet another example of the exponentially worsening problem. If we don't start to reverse this trend now, we may never be able to dig ourselves out of this hole.
A celebrity famous for their longstanding, personal poor health condition. Another person with tremendous resources, reach, and time. Along with a personal motivating factor of course. This person has even founded organizations to address their condition. Unfortunately, they seem to have no interest in FMT despite large scientific support for their own condition and many more: HumanMicrobiome.info/intro
A well-known educator that has Ulcerative Colitis. HumanMicrobiome.info/intro#ibd
A microbiologist featured on The Knowledge Society https://tks.world/
Numerous college and professional athletes with a "social justice" and/or "do-gooder" persona.
Numerous current/former athletes majoring in medicine and biology.
A professional athlete that had cancer. HumanMicrobiome.info/Cancer
A college athlete whose dad's kidney is failing. I informed this person that most organ transplants will likely soon be seen in a similar manner to other historically barbaric medical practices, and could probably be replaced by FMT. And I linked them to scientific support for this: HumanMicrobiome.info/intro#kidney. I told them about what I was doing, explained that stool donors can make $2k+/mo, and that I'm paying $2.5k commission per donor, and that as a college athlete they're in a great position to recruit likely candidates even if they don't qualify themselves. The result? Silence & blocked.
The hundreds (probably close to 1000) of college students who were offered $2,000-$5,000 per donor recruited. 0% of college students are interested in spending 1 hour to go talk to athletes at their school, and hand out some flyers, for a possible reward of many thousands of dollars? Seriously?!
The hundreds (probably close to 1000) of people we attempted to hire via job ads. We’re paying more than the median US income, and it’s only part-time work.
In 2019 I contacted everyone who seemed like they may qualify on the Los Angeles Chargers, LA Rams, Los Angeles FC, LA Galaxy, LA Clippers, LA Lakers, Los Angeles Sparks, US women's and men's soccer teams, UCLA Bruins men's basketball, USC Trojans football, USC women and men's Track & Field; Riverside City College basketball, track and field, cross country; University of California Riverside soccer, basketball, track and field, cross country; and almost everyone at the 2019 IAAF World Athletics Championships.
At the end of 2021, I contacted hundreds more professional athletes. Most of whom were specifically asking for monetary support. I did finally get a dozen or so applicants from this, and I'm very grateful to them.
A multiple-time gold medalist Olympic athlete. I've seen them remark on the worrisome rise in chronic disease and general poor health, with comments like "people need to exercise more". And they even serve in advisory positions in this regard. Yet here is a way that they could make a massive difference themselves with very little effort, and apparently they are unwilling.
Another champion Olympic athlete with an MPH (Master of Public Health degree). It seems that given their degree they would recognize and value the importance of what we're trying to do, as well as have the background to understand the science behind using stool as a therapeutic. This person seems to be in outstanding health. Yet even if they didn’t qualify for some reason they’re still in an excellent position to assist via recruiting and more.
We need people like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Russell Westbrook, Stephen Curry, Virgil Van Dijk, Mohamed Salah, Kylian Mbappé, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Erling Haaland. But if we can't even get an athlete with a public health degree to sign up to be a stool donor, what hope is there?
Most of these top young athletes should probably be making more money from their stool than any of their other activities. Just look at the massive crowds of extremely unhealthy people watching them play. Then compare that to the costs of healthcare.
Most of society was shut down for almost two years, with devastating impacts globally, when something as simple as FMT could likely have been used as both a preventative and treatment.
Bizarrely, I see the same thing in the various patient communities, such as CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome), IBS, IBD, etc. To be clear, I am also a patient and long-time member of these communities. I've been on disability from CFS, IBS, and other issues for over a decade. I've been reaching out to them for years, sharing new research and trying to get them involved in striving for a viable treatment/cure. Yet they seem entirely apathetic, and instead opt to wallow in their misery, and/or focus on very unpromising interventions that mostly address symptoms, and have very little potential of being a cure/treatment.
Even among the FMT communities where people are actively seeking out a high-quality source of FMT, the vast majority of people are perfectly content with sitting around and passively benefitting from the efforts of the few people doing anything at all. Unwilling to even do simple things like put up flyers at their local universities. Many of them instead spend many thousands of dollars sourcing FMT from extremely sketchy, disreputable, opaque, low-quality sources [1].
It's incredibly frustrating to observe the community and the advocacy organizations (Eg: solvecfs.org, and others) spending their time and support on some of the least promising areas and actions, despite my spending years trying to educate them on the microbiome and FMT as the interventions that get to the root of the problem. They're constantly (rightfully so to some extent) moaning about their terrible condition and lack of treatments, then I point out to them that there's likely a currently-available treatment/cure which they can help obtain if we all work together, and I'm met with either silence, downvotes, or worse - misinformation, anti-scientific attitudes, wilful ignorance, etc. I see them continually asking the same questions over and over (which I've already answered for them - Eg: question, answers), and adding useless noise instead of helpful information & actions.
It got to the point where I don't even try to share information anymore, since in my experience it's almost a complete waste of time to try to educate people who fundamentally, biologically, lack the ability and/or interest to learn. Being learning-impaired myself, it's alarming to see how much more so most other people are. My hope is that FMT can fix this. If it can’t, I worry for mankind’s future.
I see people blaming "big pharma", yet when I point out projects like this one that they could get involved in and take things into their own hands there is nothing but silence. Big pharma isn't doing anything; it's your own inaction. FMT is something that has been within our reach for many years. It's merely general laziness, ignorance, and worse, that has kept it out of our grasp. I have shared this information with hundreds of thousands of people, yet almost all of them are perfectly willing to continue to sit around and do nothing. After 6+ years of spending every day trying to inform people and get them involved, one single IBS patient started assisting me with helpful advice. Thank you Jordan Chan! Even more recently, another, Daniel Xia, has provided helpful tips on ways to directly contact top young athletes, and has been someone I can get some feedback from since Daniel has also used numerous donors and reached similar conclusions (about stool type, etc.) as I have.
It's common to see comments on the general slow progress of research. And in my opinion, FMT in particular has really shown a light on the reasons why – we are living in an incredibly dystopian society where the vast majority of the population is extremely poorly functioning, and this extends into virtually all professions and institutions. FMT is something that is currently existing, trivial to perform, requires something (feces) that has no value as of yet, has a very large body of research supporting it, and intuitively makes sense, yet 20+ years into its research by a population of billions of people, there's been very little progress, and mostly failures.
Some years ago I saw a very healthy top UFC athlete bring on an especially unhealthy fan and remark about how terrible the situation was. That kind of thing is so frustrating to see, knowing that the healthy UFC athlete could probably "save" the kid by donating something that has 0 value to him. The same thing happened to a Starcraft personality, who ended up dying after I tried to inform them & the community that FMT was something they should try as a last resort.
There should be massive pressure, from the 99.9% of the population who is unhealthy, put on the fewer than 0.1% of people who qualify to be high-quality stool donors, to donate their stool. Yet there is next to none. That they are flushing lifesaving medicine down the toilet each day should be looked upon with horror by society. But that doesn’t happen due to the ignorance, apathy, and worse, of the 99.9%.