What We Have Here is a Success to Eliminate

The shiznit hit the internet today.

I read that the cure for a severe intestinal infection caused by Clostridium difficile bacteria can be most successfully treated by a feces transplant! Can you imagine? The doctor comes in holding his clipboard, wearing his best white coat, and says, "We have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that we can cure the infection that is causing you acute intestinal pain, recurrent diarrhea, and impending death. The bad news is, the cure is not antibiotics...it's a feces transplant. Yes. That's right. We take feces out of a donor's gut, and put them into your gut. Uh huh. That's right. Somebody else's crap in your large intestine."

The thought of a feces transplant must be hard for some folks to swallow. But not for others! Feces can be put into the patient's intestines by colonoscope, enema, or a tube through the nose, down the hatch, into the stomach, past the duodenum, through the small intestine (the lesser, chocolate babka of the digestive system), and into the descending colon. Kind of like going around your elbow to get to your thumb. Oh, and if you prefer, you can do this treatment at home! No mention of whose feces you get, or if you pick them up at the pharmacy, or somebody comes to your door to present you with the specimen in a little Chinese take-out-food cardboard container with the cute metal handle, or if, perhaps, you can pick the poop of a family member or loved one.

All right. I fibbed. That info is in the article at the link. Patients pick their own poop-givers. That's kind of a sticky issue. How do you ask somebody to give you their excrement? And make it seem like they're doing you a favor. And assure them that you're not a freak. Once you snare your pooper, their gift that stops you from giving is tested, then run through a blender! I know! Maybe you can do that part at home with a Magic Bullet. Just don't ask me over for smoothies.

Also, imagine the pride of the donor. "Yep. Doc says I'm the perfect donor for this feces transplant. Apparently, I'm full of it."

To think, all the money spent on pharmaceuticals and invasive surgeries, only to find this low-tech feces cure right under our noses.

Scientific research. A process of elimination.