March 22, 2024 • 55 mins
For many farmers in rural 1990s China, it seemed like a godsend: new businesses promised to pay a full month's wage for just a few hours donating plasma. The Plasma Economy campaign swept the nation, making blood brokers and biotech companies tons of cash... and then the reports started arriving: multiple small communitites suddenly had HIV and hepatitis. What went wrong? Tune in to learn more.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of Iheartrading.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Nol.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Paul, mission controlled decads. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. A little bit sleep deprived, we're
on the road, two thirds of us. But we decided
to make good on something we talked about previously. In
(00:49):
an earlier episode, we explored a frightened conspiracy surround in
prison corruption, tainted blood products, and a global network of
blood brokers who, through either net leigence or knowing misconduct,
gave thousands of people incredibly dangerous infections HIV, hepatitis, probably more.
And in that episode, remember we noted that this was
(01:13):
only one blood conspiracy when we'd have to return to
them in the future.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
Right, Yes, So please do go back and check out
Bad Blood Part one for the kind of groundwork of
how blood and plasma donations work. We will go into
some more further detail about that on this episode. We
also in that previous episode go into why transfusions are
so very important, as well as a brief history of
some of the medical breakthroughs that include things like plasma
(01:41):
products and the things that can be used to help
treat very serious diseases. Hence the extra kind of ickiness
when these kind of shortcuts are taken that result in
people who are desperately in need of remedy end up
being infected when all they are trying to do is
(02:02):
cure themselves of an already life threatening condition like hemophilia.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah, and this is a very good thing, just to
get it out in the front, like the idea of blood, transfusions, donations, plasma,
all of that has saved millions and millions of lives.
Every year. People donate over one hundred million units of
blood across the globe. And we talked a little bit
(02:28):
about units in our previous episode. I don't think we
defined it, so just in case, a unit of blood
is about five hundred and twenty five milliliters, roughly the
equivalent of one pint, So for loose cocktail napkin blood math,
that's a one hundred million pints of blood, which sounds
like a lot, and it's a lot. It's a lot
of blood. It's if you saw it in one room,
(02:51):
you would be like, this is too much blood.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yeah. Well yeah, because there are things called blood banks
that came around in the late nineteen thirties nineteen thirty seven,
where it's a.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Vampire to make their deposits.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Oh yeah, but sorry, it is. They make all their deposits.
They also make lots of withdraws. But it is crazy
to think that since then, since the late nineteen thirties,
we have had these things called blood banks. Refrigeration and
storage techniques improved a lot from that time. But one
(03:25):
of the biggest problems with storing this huge amount of
blood that we're talking about here is how quickly that
blood goes bad, right yeah, yeah, which means it means
there has to be a constant basically flow of blood
into the blood banks and out of the blood banks,
or else it's wasted.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yeah, there needs to be a churn there, and not
everyone is. There's like a base expected demand for blood
or plasma, but not everyone in need of a transfusion
needs the same amount of blood obviously, and individual cases
vary on so many There are just so many variables, right.
(04:08):
We know that demand can also vary by region, peak
holiday periods, illnesses like a pandemic, for example, and even
just the time of the year can make a big
difference because there are times when you know, car accidents
might spike and things of that nature. So there's another
issue too, right, you have to have the churn. This
(04:30):
is not stuff that you should legally or ethically just
keep around and roll the dice on. And not everybody
can donate blood.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
I would be interested to know a stat I'm not
sure we have this today of how much blood does
go to waste if waste is maybe the right word there,
because you know, it does have a shelf life. And
I would think that there would be people in charge
of these types of programs that are gauging demand and
you know, keeping that in mind or taking that into account.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah. Well, in part one, one of the major issues
in the Factor eight issue when we were talking about
the Arkansas prison system was that their refrigerant systems went out,
and almost immediately when that occurs, if the blood has
been stored in a non refrigerated unit, it should be
thrown away with all of these blood donation programs like
across the board anywhere. If it if this blood that's
(05:22):
stored is not refrigerated, it should go because it's no
longer viable and safe to use. But I don't know.
I guess my point here is that keeping stuff cold
is very important and that's one of the only reasons
that we can actually, you know, have large amounts of
this stuff. We didn't even talk about blood types right
(05:43):
because of it.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
We did it, but we did just yeah, yeah, just
in terms of like the universal donor and all of
that stuff, and then some of the rarer types, and
it is really quick. We did find the stat eight
point eight seven percent of units donated apparently are discarded
in the UK, so globally, globally, it would seem.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, I guess there are many reasons why you would
have to discard great samples or whatever these leaders of blood.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
If it's contaminated, then that would be ethically and legally
a reason to discard it. We also needed to talk
a little bit about the importance of heating different blood
products as a way of removing infections. That's what we're
saying is is a very important thing. It has saved many,
many lives, and there is a lot of stuff that
(06:30):
can go wrong, like right now, due to the restrictions
on eligibility for blood donors only, like only thirty percent
of the US population is thought to be eligible, and
there are all kinds of reasons for that, you know,
like you are not supposed to donate blood, if you
have used needles to inject drugs or steroids without doctor's
(06:55):
recommendation HIV, if you have ever had actual relations and
return for drugs or money, if you have a couple
of different specific diseases, or if you have if you're pregnant,
So fewer people can give blood that we might assume.
And right now in the US, if you are giving blood,
(07:16):
you are donating your blood. You are voluntarily giving it away.
But if you're donating plasma, which takes longer, then you
you can get compensated. Plasma donations can be compensated in
the US just because the process is more involved, Like
depending on the version of plasma donation, it's at least
(07:36):
ninety minutes to donate, and then you probably are going
to be there for two hours because you have to
hang out.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, and definitely eat the cookies. When they offer you cookies,
because that's you should need to get that sugar back
in your system. But guys, thirty eight percent of people
can donate right are eligible. Then let's really think about
how many people actually donate, because if like think about voting,
everybody that can vote, and then how many people actually
(08:06):
vote and take the time to do it. And in
this case, you know, a somewhat selfless act, unless you're
giving the plasma donation, maybe you can argue that it's
you know, for money, but most of this is a
selfless act to donate blood. I just wonder how many
people actually donate every year. It's got to be pretty low.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
It does seem like the number has also decreased over
the last twenty years. According to a couple of sources
that I found about.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Forty okay, I was looking at a Red Cross as
well too. They have specific demographics of people like the
most the age, an identity or the age, and like
ethnicity or socioeconomic status. To the people most likely to
donate blood, it's college educated males between thirty and fifty
(08:54):
or something like that. And this this means that, yeah,
I think is an appropriate example. A lot of people
can do this do not. And sometimes it's like one
of those things where you think, oh, it's good in theory,
but I won't go out of my way to do it. However,
if I'm like walking by the mall and I see
(09:15):
a blood drive, then I'm happy to do it when
I come across it, right.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, well, I would just have to admit that I
don't man, and I should. I know, I should. The
only people I donate blood to or Lab Corp. And
that's when they're testing me out. You know.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
Yeah, I've got a real aversion to needles and that's
no excuse. And maybe this will be the year that
I put on my big boy pants and do that,
because you know, Ben, I was looking around and I
found a very recent article on NBC News with some
quotes from the Red Cross saying that I didn't think
about this, but because of things like COVID that blood
(09:50):
donation has significantly dropped even further. And it was already
way down, and they said in this article that over
the past twenty years it has decreased by about forty percent,
so they they categorize it as catastrophic levels.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Yeah, they had the first ever I think we mentioned
some of this in part one. But they had the
first ever like blood crisis, they declared it recently, and
it was due to the pandemic. It also we see
that during times of peace of these donations start to
peter down a little bit, because you know, if there's
(10:24):
a war going on, if there's a war effort, then
all the there's patriotism involved. Right now, you're doing your
part for the folks on the front line. But yeah,
for any number of reasons, this donation stuff, even when
it goes well, it is a continual churning process, and
the system is far from perfect. The industry has made
(10:47):
horrific fatal missteps in the past. We talked about Factor eight,
just the quick and dirty on that and the Factor
eight scandal. Prisoners were exploited to donate blood even when
they were known to have HIV and hepatitis, and this
affected innocent people around the world. To this day, we
(11:08):
don't know how many were impacted by these products that
all came from a single prison. All we know is
this is not the only example attained to products. Maybe,
before we move on a little bit further, we should
talk about another documentary we're mentioning this off air Bad Blood,
which is a great compliment to the other documentary Factor eight.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah, you can check it out. You can find it.
I think you've found it on Amazon right ben where
you can actually watch it right now. It's a documentary
that was at least produced or released on behalf of
the creator marilynd Ness and PBS in public broadcasting, and
came out twenty ten. It's like about an hour and
a half. It's a feature length documentary. It's about the
(11:54):
same thing. I would say, at least from everything I've
read about it. I have not watched it yet. According
to the synopsis, it's about the ten thousand people with
hemophilia that were using this Factor eight product who were
infected with either HIV, hepatitis C, or some combination.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Yeah, so check that out to get another angle on
what's happening here. Neither of those films really mention what
we're going to explore today, because it turns out other
countries have plenty of bad blood scandals all their own.
We're going to pause for a word from our sponsors,
(12:34):
and then we'll head east. Here's where it gets crazy.
There is a disturbing, perhaps equally if not more disturbing
example of when the blood trade goes wrong from China,
(12:55):
and it involves something called plasma farese, which is our
unfortunate word for the day. It's the fancy term for
kind of plasma donation where long story short, they take
the plasma out of you, they separate the plasma for
the breast of your stuff that makes up your blood,
and then they put that junk back inside you. Why,
(13:17):
they heist one piece of your blood so that they
don't fully deplete your supplies.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
So like the they okay, they take all the blood out,
they take your plasma, they spin it and they take
your plasma. Then they put your red blood cells, white
blood cells, and platelets all back in. Just shove them
back in you.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Yeah, well slowly with finesse.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Is that is that standard operating procedure or is this
a bad move?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
This is this is in theory, a really good way
to do it.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Yeah, And from nineteen ninety one to nineteen ninety five
in China, the Henan provincial government had this kind of
plasma campaign and they were paying people, mostly farmers, mostly
not very wealthy people in rural areas to participle. Yeah. Well, oh, God,
(14:09):
the life of people lived, the life of people in
these rural towns was often really challenging, and the market
was just becoming liberalized. So this blood plasma economy, that's
what they called the campaign. How nosparatu is that it
seemed like a good idea at first, so they called this.
(14:30):
The authorities called this thing the Blood Plasma Economy Initiative,
which sounds straight out of like count Orlock and nosparatu,
but it could have been. It was a win win
because biotech firms had a huge demand for massive supply
of blood. They had so much plasma and they had
so much cash to burn. This was also a great
(14:52):
program for middlemen, for blood brokers. There was a lot
of profit to be made.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
So okay, so these biotech companies are paying every one
of these people to come in and donate their plasma.
That's what we're saying.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
No, not that owing there. What's happening is it's a market,
a markup game like any other middleman game. The the
people in these rural areas are selling their plasma for
something like the equivalent of ten dollars and ninety cents
for six hundred grams. But then the blood stations the
(15:31):
plasma stations are turning around and they're selling that for
a significant markup to the biotech companies.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
It's it sounds exactly like the factory thing, right, because
the prisoners were making like seven dollars per donation. But
there was it. Yeah, their money wasn't real. It was
for inside the system they're existing in, and then the
biotech companies are turning that around for what do we
say it was? It was something insane like one hundred
and something dollars per donation that they made.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
And it was also like a government contract too, like
you know where the prison had kind of made this deal,
this sweetheart deal, and no one would cop to any
of the mouthfeasons ever along the way. And I don't
believe as far as where we left off in the
documentary that we discussed and you know the work of
Kelly Doudah, anyone has really taken the fall in any
(16:24):
kind of big, you know, significant, meaningful way.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
But I get what you're saying, Ben, So if that,
if this structure is in place, you're saying, a middle
person that that can get between those two systems, right,
can make crazy amounts of money. Probably, how does.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
One become said middle person, is this a licensed thing?
Is how do you get into the blood broker biz?
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (16:49):
So, I mean if you just have blood.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Most of the folklore what happens is your master bites you,
but you don't get any of their blood, so you're
imbused with certain abilities.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
It is vampiric, though the whole thing is very I
don't know a great example of taking advantage of a
system that doesn't have enough oversight, it would seem yeah,
and this was.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
A long problem. So one misconception about this I think
that happened when it was initially reported in the West
is the blood plasma economy, which in the beginning was
hailed as this amazing thing, like this kind of thing
economists should study and health professionals should study. It does
not come out of the blue. It is indeed an
(17:37):
escalation an expansion of programs in China dating back to
the nineteen forties where they built out, you know, as
they had more and more people moving into these huge cities,
they had a growing demand for blood and they went
to the urban or they went from the urban to
the rural areas to supply it. So they've been doing
this for decades. The blood plasma economy, which was starting
(18:01):
in you know, nineteen ninety This was the rise of
the well they're called like the sueta or the bloodheads,
and they were already they were already established well enough
that they had a street name for people who made
a living like this.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
And some of these are people who are donating or
the people who were collecting.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
These were people who were doing both, so it could
get yeah, in general, refer to people in the industry
and these middlemen, you know, they might go into a
village and they might organize a group travel to a station, right,
and then they get a viig off that. So by
the time the BP blood plasm economy comes into play,
(18:42):
they're already thousands of public donation centers and commercial private
monetized centers, and those private were commercialized ones those are
owned by the blood brokers often right, So you know,
think about it, though in the nineteen nineties, you're in
(19:04):
a rural, agrarian part of trying, a payment for one
plasma donation could be more than you would make in
a month.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
I mean, there's a lot of parallels here with the
closed system of a prison. I mean not to say
that these farmers are you know, imprisoned per se, but
they are cut off from the rest of society, you know,
at least the more industrialized parts of the country, and
it would seem that they are being incentivized in a
way that's similar to the way the prisoners were being incentivized.
(19:35):
And it can cause some weird, shady math, I believe
somewhere down the line.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
It feels like morals get bent often when there is
that kind of what monetary incentivization. I mean, look at capitalism. Hey,
but yeah, it's just on both.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
Sides though, with the folks donating and with the folks
that maybe would be turning a blind eye because gosh,
it's such a sweetheart deal. We can't you know, pass
up any We need all the blood we can get.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Well, think about right now, if you could double your
monthly wage, like right now, if you can go donate
blood and double your monthly wage. You don't you don't
not do that right.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Right It's and it's also there are a couple of
other things that get twisted here. One of them is,
you know, if you are the authorities who are most
like on paper, the people required to keep this all
on the up and up, on the government side. Then
you also have a quota of the amount of blood
(20:37):
that you are expected to produce with your programs, and
a number of things you have to supply to hospitals.
So which do you prioritize more? You know, it's like
no child left behind? I mean, it isn't it.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
You know what I'm saying. Like, when you have this
mandate that is very unreasonable, you're going to do whatever
it takes to reach it. You know.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
Boeing excuse me, another Boeing panel left work early? Guys,
Are you serious? I just passed.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
John Oliver a bit and that they Wow, how are
they going to come back from that?
Speaker 2 (21:11):
That is wild?
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Because they're too big to fail.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a too big to fail thing
in an industry that has a little bit of what
we call plot armor in the world of fandom in fiction.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Now, not to derail, but I did not quite realize
that those planes are the one with the door got
sucked down off was brand new. I did not realize
that these are like like like systematic design flaws and
or quality control flaws.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
It's wild. Yeah, well, man, well, don't don't talk about
it and go to your car at your hotel. Just
don't go out to your car that's parked at your hotel.
If you're talking about this stuff, that's all.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
And do make sure that if you are worried about that,
you spread the word well at advance and several times
on record, tell people that you will never take your
own life, and you know, let us know, let us
know what goes. There's another twist to this blood plasma
economy program. If you are paying people to donate plasma
(22:14):
and or blood, then you're removing any success for voluntary
donation because now people even and try to tried it
for a while, but even people who voluntary would have
voluntarily donated blood or plasma, they're saying, well, why the
hell would I do that now when I could just
(22:37):
go a town over and get paid to do it.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah, no reason it.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
So we see these economic incentives, if not part of
an active conspiracy, they do coalesce and they have a
cumulative effect. This shows us that, I don't know, it's
important to remember this blood economy thing, blood plasma economy,
it came as a result of earlier stuff. So wouldn't
(23:04):
that mean in theory, lessons learned from the earlier programs
would make it more of a win win, like the brokers,
the biotech still makes a lot of money and then
the people donating stay safe and the people getting the
donations stay safe.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah, like, how stable was that system because it seems
like you could build it to where everybody wins. So
it was right, everything was fine.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Yeah, that's our show. Thanks for tuning in, fans. Yeah. No,
the the absolutely right. The theory could be fine, but
the problem stem from the way the plasma is extracted.
And I think it would be it's smart for us
to walk through what actually happens here. We were not
being facetious where we said, we're not being you know,
(23:51):
we're not doing a bit when we say they would
take stuff from you and then put your blood back
in you. Although I know it sounds like a four
year old trying to describe blood donation, but we're not
medical experts. This is true though. They did take stuff
and put it back in.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Oh yeah, So let's go through the steps. Step one,
insert a syringe into a person's body that goes into
their bloodstream and take out the blood. That's all the blood,
by the way, that's like the whole blood.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Yes, yeah, not all of their blood.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
No, no, to just his whole blood. It's got all
the parts.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Step two we've talked about the spinning part of the process,
where in the plasma is separated from the blood in
a centrifuge. That is a machine that has then used
to extract that plasma. Step three, Oh.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Yes, step three. After the plasma is extracted, like like
you're saying, that takes a while for them to separate
this stuff, then that the same blood minus the plasma
is pumped back into the person's body. So it's a
more involved process. It sounds super weird. We think so too,
(25:02):
but it is completely safe so long as everybody's following
the SOPs of sterilization and safety. That did not happened.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
Real quick aside, is this the same process that was
or is done over here putting the blood back in?
Or is this is there something unique about this particular process.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
I'm not on factor eight and correct is here, folks
on factor eight. I think they were just taking the
plasma and separating it after they extracted it. I don't
know if they were putting it back in the bodies.
I think the main you know, for them, the problem
was they weren't vetting the donors very well, and then
(25:44):
they were also through negligence, they were spreading infections from
donors to other donors.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
And we should also add that, similarly to you know
what what ended up happening with the factor eight. The
advances of biotechnologlogy have led to synthesized versions of this
that don't require the actual plasma. So that's a good
thing moving forward. But we're in the thick of this
part right now that very much aligns with the factor
(26:13):
eight story in terms of this was the only game
in town forgetting that plasma for creating these products. Plasma
itself is still needed, but in terms of using it
to make the hemophilia medications, and.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
I'm stuck on the steps that we just described because
in my mind, if you're going to do this properly
and as you as you state had been, you know,
through sterilization like standards and those kinds of things. Let's
say let's say I donated blood, my blood gets taken out,
it gets spun in a centrifuge that only contains my blood.
(26:47):
That way, when the plasma is left and you've still
got the red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets
that stuff goes directly back into my body, right, because
it's my blood. Get it back in my body. Please.
Thank you were saying that didn't happen.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
We're saying that's what's supposed to happen. And in between
donors and donation instances, then the all the material would
be either cleaned or thrown away. Right, the needle gets
thrown out into a biohazard container, this interfuge gets sterilized,
(27:24):
et cetera, et cetera. That's what is supposed to happen. However,
as Kim Sang puts it right in for the Singtile Daily,
the blood plasma economy was such a booming business. It
was such like a bitcoin. All of a sudden, it
seemed like a huge It was like an oil boom really,
(27:45):
except for blood.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
And you couldn't get the blood out fast enough right
and turn those donation tables basically.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
And so the needles were being recycled, the bags that
held the blood were being recycled. Other instruments, can painters
that had like had direct contact with human blood, we're
getting recycled. And some people, some stations, we still don't
know how many mixed different blood blood from different donors
in the same centrifuge, creating massive possibilities for contamination because
(28:18):
the way it works is, yeah, it doesn't like let's say,
in the course of a day, let's say, you know,
anywhere from twelve to fifty people, their blood got mixed
in with this unknowingly, and then as things get reused
over the course of the day, if let's say the
(28:38):
third person or the fourteenth person who donates plasma has
hepatitis or they have HIV, then everyone in line after
them when that stuff is getting pumped back into them
now they've got it too.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
And guys, I want to apologize. I think I made
sort of a dumb point earlier. At least this stuff
we're talking about here isn't the same as the Arkansas
story because they're not making this serum. They're not making
factor eight or a product to treat hemophilia. This is
exclusively plasma donation for people who need plasma transfusions or
(29:14):
for other medical procedures other than I guess it could
end up in pools of the stuff that is used
for the same kind of medication, right, yeah, but not
specifically for that.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
It goes straight to the biotech companies to make any
number of things with it.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Yeah, yes, it could still you know, hurting people in
the same in a similar way.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Well, and as we're talking, yeah, we're talking about the
cross contamination here. That's for people, the donors who are
getting that blood pumped back into them that's now mixed
with all these other people. It's also for that plasma
that when it gets spun up, it's now spun up
with a bunch of other blood that who knows, you know,
what could be in that one sample that now contains,
(29:57):
as Ben said, the culmination of everybody who donated that
day before the thing got sterilized again.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
I mean, it reminds me of It's like not cleaning
the soda machine.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Oh god, yeah, don't think about it.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
I think its way way way in your body. And
you guys show too, right because you're glad you brought
that up. It's so ichy. But I instantly if I
ever have a fountain drink, I instantly go into that
paranoia if it tastes even slightly off. Oh yeah, I
(30:34):
like a fountain drink at a little different I know.
I was just I was at our our favorite uh
Popeyes Chicken in Atlanta, the place where you know, the
drive through person famously told me, what one time up there? Uh,
(30:55):
I was in there recently, was picking something up and
I asked for, you know, like a common mill thing,
and the lady behind the counter told me, you sure
the soda found has been a bit peppery. Oh, and
I did it was spicy? Yeah, I don't know, but
I was like, I, okay, I appreciate it, thanks for
the you know, thanks for the tip there.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
I have to believe that it was just like spicy,
a hit in a spicy way, and it shouldn't be
that way.
Speaker 5 (31:23):
I like to think it was so Mu's first day
and they said, hold on, you put the spice mix
on the chicken, and they're like, oh, well, what's done
is done?
Speaker 2 (31:34):
I see. I thought it was some kind of mold
that was really kicking things up a notch, you know.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
I think that's what she meant.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
It was spicy mold.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
And so I do think this idea of like the
soda found thing is unfortunately really great comparison because it
got even worse as things escalated. To speed up the
amount of blood that were able to supply number of
units per day, right, some stations cut out crucial steps
of this process we've walked through, Like a donor might
(32:02):
just be given blood from previous donors the same blood type.
So in your example, Matt, it's not you getting you know,
getting that tasty Frederick vintage blood minus the plasma back.
You're getting some Randos. It might even be Jonathan Strickland's.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Oh I could only hope if I got a little
Strickland blood in me. Man, Just I feel like I
would get smarter the same.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
Yeah, i'd like the flowers for algrenon type situation. But
then you get progressively dumber.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Well, that first moment, like I fully understand what a
q LED is versus an OLED, and I can like
break all of that down.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Oh yeah, that's what. Then we just have to keep
little vials of it around with us, I guess refrigerated
inside pockets.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Yeah, I start slurring his words. We got to give
him a dose of the juice, know, yest. Oh God,
Now we're being flippant here because this is so depressing
and heavy, because it's really the only the Gallo's humor
is the only way to deal with the fact that
this happened.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Jeez, Louise, we're whistling in the graveyard here, folks, for real,
because this did happen. People were giving blood from other donors.
They were not informed about this. You would it would
speed up the process. You wouldn't have to wait for
They would put your blood centrifuge to run and then
(33:36):
they would just check on what other centrifuge was done,
and if they had the same blood type as you,
they would put that blood inside you. So there were
also reports that people who tested positive for he B
hepatitis B were allowed to give blood and their blood
plasma was just putting a different pile. Basically, yeah, my
(33:58):
translation with Chinese is not that good. So they love
bigger a speech, but they yeah the hep B pile. Yeah,
which all means that without their knowledge and certainly without
their consent, these financially disadvantaged folks were forced into sharing
needles on a massive scale. What could go wrong? We'll
tell you after a word from our sponsor, and we
(34:27):
have returned.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
Now.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
China has a famously strict approach to the concerns of
its population, right and the country is very sensitive about
certain things, certain events like Tianeman and so on. But
this public outcry is different. The government can tamp down
on political protests pretty easily. But this is not necessarily political.
(34:53):
This is a national medical crisis. Now we don't know
how many people or country maybe carrying HIV, maybe unknowingly
transmitting it to their children, their partners, people they just
hang out with. So the government has to do something.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Because we're saying it started in nineteen ninety and then
this system rolled on for three, four, maybe even five years. Wow,
So I guess that's around the time when they realized
there are big problems.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Yeah, right, that's right. And then in nineteen ninety five
they rolled out something else, which was some new policies
that changed some things around for hopefully the better. The
very least, the blood stations in Hennan were starting to
get shut down. And you know, another thing that the
Chinese government is known for is being a bit opaque,
(35:46):
let's just say, in terms of their acknowledgment of mistakes
that were or were not made. So this is about
the best you're going to get, which was in nineteen
ninety six when the Ministry of Health issued a document
called Administrative Statutes of Blood Products that required plasma paresis
stations only collect plasma from specific areas, but ben I
(36:10):
wouldn't say they exactly admitted to wrongdoing, right, They just
just issued some new declarations that changed things around. And
it wasn't like we're doing this because we fed up. Right.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
Yeah, they're saying they're tightening the restrictions because around this
time there are these reports that start sporadically coming out
that say, hey, why does everybody in this village have
this hepatitis? In particular, why it would look right right
and the damage had been done. They were thinking, they
(36:44):
were hoping, whoeveryone's in charge at the time, that if
they had removed plasma donation stations from those rural areas,
the ones that seem troublesome, then the problem would solve.
It's in a way that could save face for everybody
and let people still make a lot of money off this.
(37:06):
But like you said, the horses left the bar and
the badger's out of the bag. Right now, the best
estimates guess that forty to sixty percent of the more
than three million people who donated plasma in this way
contracted AIDS afterwards, and that means that over one million people,
(37:28):
innocent people died as a direct result of participating in
this initiative. More will die on the way because these
infections were carried by them without their knowledge for so
very long. And it probably, you know, probably authorities knew
about this and just didn't inform them. I think they
had to I think they had to know.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Yeah, it feels so similar to the factor eight issue
because the money was flowing, and how do you You
can't really put a stop to it when it's floil.
You could, you should, but you it's kind of difficult
to do once it's that profitable.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
And you know, I mean in high level officials practice
plausible deniability. But I swear, you know, I think I
mentioned you guys off my that I've never been more
suspicious of the Clintons than I was after discussing that story,
because there are so many indications that this information was
absolutely available at the highest levels.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Yeah, and then how far does plausible the diability go.
I understand that, especially to high level political or corporate positions,
you might not be able to watch every falling sparrow.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
I'm a busy right.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
You know, time for all this. These are below my
pay grade.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
But after a certain point, deniability is no longer plausible,
and you are at the very least, just terrible at.
Speaker 4 (38:49):
Your job, you know what I mean, especially when it
directly impacts people, not even in your state or province
or country.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Right, It's just it's so disappointing, it's heartbreaking.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
You know.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
The investigations go on and over time what they find
is more and more villages are ravaged by AIDS and
hepatitis there. It's almost certainly, it's too generous to say
almost certainly it is definitely because of these plasma stations.
And just for a snapshot example, there was a small
(39:25):
area in Hannan in Kaijan County or Kaijan County. They
had three hundred or three and seventy villagers. Of those,
forty three percent tested positive for AIDS.
Speaker 4 (39:41):
God, that's insane. That average is mind boggling.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
It's terrifying, you know. And in the village of Winlu
when now sixty five percent of the residents tested had HIV.
And imagine your own hometown, you know, more than half
a neighbors had been infected by government and action and
corporate obscenity in this way, you know it Just what
(40:12):
hits me is if you've ever visited Rule China, you
know the people there are wonderful. Just like most people
at most places in the world, their lives are already
very difficult, very very difficult. And adding this, I mean,
I just keep thinking of like a kid having to
learn this.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Guys, I'm stuck on that that town that had sixty
five percent of the residents that contracted HIV. That's just
so devastating and insane, and especially given that this program
started in nineteen ninety correct, right, if you look back
nineteen eighty three to nineteen eighty five is when pretty
(40:52):
effective HIV blood tests existed. I mean, so at least
five years prior to the program even starting, you could
be screening people. If you're running this program, you could
be screening everybody who's donating to see, right, And that alone,
to me is just unconscienable. Yeah, just insane. And then
(41:18):
and then to let it run for so long, God, man,
ben I.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
That's what haunts me. Man, That haunts me because bribery
explains at least part of it, right, which is tremendously
common in these systems. But again, I'm just I am
haunted by the image of a kid who already has
a really tough, challenging life and has all their own,
you know, they have their dreams, their aims, they want
to make their parents happy and all this other stuff,
(41:45):
and then they.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
Learn that.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
The natural progression of their life has been so has
been knocked off kilter.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
And it's dude, can I ask something horrible? And I'm
going to ask this just because I want to talk
about it, and I don't know, and I don't mean
anything by this other than I'm curious, and it is
curious to me. I'm thinking about China's one child policy
that started in nineteen seventy nine in this you know program,
(42:18):
or about eleven years later. It does make me wonder,
if there's God, I get that would be the conspiracy. Right,
was this done purposefully to thin the population even more?
Because we know that's the purpose of the one child
policy is to slow down population growth? Right, this is
the right. This is the program in China that ran
(42:39):
from nineteen seventy nine to pretty recently, right like twenty
sixteen or something twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
Applying prime to the applying to the ha and ethnicity,
which is oh really the mainstream ethnicity. So like the
thing about the one child policy is yet it had
terrible ramification in terms of femicide and things like that.
The femicide being discovering the biological sex of a child
(43:11):
in vitro and then having it awarded as a result
because you would want a male. Yeah, so there was
this huge distortion between between like male and female birth
rates or survival rates, if we really want to be
honest about it. In terms of this, I find that
(43:31):
a fascinating and intriguing branch of speculation. The only issue
is there faster, more efficient ways to do it that
could still give you that plausible deniability.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Oh yeah, no, I completely agree, I think, and this
is describing evil. I would say to a place where
maybe it shouldn't be it shouldn't be placed there, And
it's just me having the thought experiment. But oh yeah,
if you're targeting rural farmers, and you know the the
groups that are profiting from this are not rural farmers
(44:04):
by any stretch, right, If you give the families something
like HIV or AIDS, not only are you infecting anyone
else in that you know, in that household of down
the line.
Speaker 4 (44:20):
If the child done purposefuly, this would be a form
of controlled genocide.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
And I'm not saying it is. I'm just saying this is.
Speaker 4 (44:28):
The mind you could jump there. I will just say
that if if you're interested in the one Child policy
stuff and how that really did have horrible ramifications in
and of itself. There's a documentary called One Child Nation
that came out in twenty nineteen through PBS's Independent Lens program,
which is always next level good that I would highly
recommend checking out.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
And those the results of the One Child Policy itself
are going to continue well into your lifetime as you
listen to this Evening show, because it lasted from set
seventy nine to twenty fifteen. And it's kind of like
one Child Policy is kind of like experiments with cloud seating, right,
(45:11):
You're affecting a system that you don't fully control in
ways you don't fully understand. It's it's tough, man, it's
tough out there, and we'd love to hear your personal
experience with it. If you've got any, let us know.
So we have a terrible situation. We have places where
there are pluralities of people infected with HIV, with hepatitis,
(45:36):
and it's just because of the nature of how these
things spread. And you know you mentioned NOL earlier, the
idea of an admission of guilts.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
We did get one, didn't we. I was surprised to
see that.
Speaker 3 (45:48):
Yeah, two thousand and four.
Speaker 4 (45:49):
Yeah, the government did publicly admit, which is in a
rare show of Again, I'm not trying to dogpile in
the Chinese government, but they do have a bit of
a history of opice.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Let's just say, and we're not we're not, obviously too.
I'm glad of bringing this up. We're not cenophobes at all.
Speaker 4 (46:06):
No, we.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
Don't, right, We're not using this as like red meat
for something.
Speaker 4 (46:13):
This is not in the least and I will actually
something that I said off Mike, I'm just going to
say the kind of abbreviated version of it. I'm surprised
that certain more xenophobic types haven't used this for fodder
for further xenophobia, for trying to convert people to more
xenophobic ways of thinking, because this could be weaponized in
(46:34):
a way to be like, see see what they did.
You know, these horrible people, this horrible government. I'm just
surprised that hadn't happened, and that we hadn't really heard
that much about this outside of this investigation. But the
government of trying to did publicly admit that by its estimation,
at least twenty four percent of all HIV, all HIV
cases in China came directly from what we've been talking
(46:57):
about today, from these this dirty plasma business.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
Yeah, and so you would think, just like the case
of the blood plasma Economy program, you would think the
lessons learned from the past may have been informing the
events of the future and the present. Well, we thought
so too, and we were incorrect. So we're right there
with you. Fast forward to twenty nineteen, a similar thing
(47:25):
happens again, this time in Shanghai. A specific company, a
pharma company named Shanghai sin Keing Medicine Company. They gotten
hot water on suspicion that they sold twelve thousand units
of blood plasma product contaminated with HIV. So this is
(47:47):
still a possibility. It still happens, and hopefully the authorities
are just a little faster about it now or holding
people accountable. Right, And then that came on the heels
of like the month before then, there was this panic
that the government gave more than one hundred kids expired
polio vaccines. A few months before that, hundreds of thousands
(48:12):
of kids got faulty diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough vaccines.
Speaker 4 (48:16):
Yeah, that's interesting because we just talked Sorry, not interesting,
it's horrifying. But we had talked about how China was
one of the very few places where polio is still
a thing, right.
Speaker 3 (48:27):
Uh, yeah, Pakistan and Afghanistan have the same. Yeah, and
it still occurs in China. Sure. Yeah, it's it's tough.
And you know, the question there is maybe more like
just negligence and trying to and not downplaying this at all, but.
Speaker 4 (48:46):
It's a very large view.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
Well, I mean, have you you guys have had this
situation in your own home where you know, you're checking
on maybe it's like a dairy thing or a vegetable
in your fridge, and you're like, is this on the
line of expiring? How far over is it?
Speaker 4 (49:02):
You know, it's sell By, it's fine, sell By.
Speaker 3 (49:05):
So maybe that's what they did, you know. And so
members of the media for this twenty nineteen event with
the tainted blood products, members of the Chinese media spoke
up and said, hey, this there's going to be a
cover up pretty soon. They'll say, injecting this is good
for your health. Don't panic. And that appears to be
(49:30):
part of what happens. So we have to follow up
on the twenty nineteen story to learn more as the
investigations continue. But one thing's for sure. Like we said
at the top, when the money gets too tempting, the
demand gets too high, people will cut quarters. They will
attempt to bleed every last cent from a broken system
before it collapses. That, I argue is the stuff they
(49:51):
don't want you to know. Also, you should donate blood
please if you can. You are saving lives.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
Couldn't agree more.
Speaker 4 (49:58):
All of this stuff that we've discussed has really got
me the I really am. I can barely keep from
passing out when I get blood taken for you know,
medical purposes. But I'm gonna have to steal myself and
uh and and do that because I didn't realize how
how desperate the situation was in terms of the blood supply,
you know, in the United States.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
But is there is there a way to, like, I
don't know, train yourself to not be freaked out by
needles anymore.
Speaker 4 (50:25):
It would have to be some sort of self hypnosis
or some like like quitting smoking or getting over fear
of heights or something. I don't know how you would
do that mindfulness transcendental meditation.
Speaker 3 (50:37):
There's a way, yeah, different avenues to it if you
want to disassociation of things, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
Yeah, I just remember I used to be really freaked
out by it for a long time and something changed
and I didn't do it actively, but I definitely just started.
Speaker 3 (50:57):
Were you getting on a medical test because will change it?
Speaker 4 (51:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Yeah, yeah, it's when I started doing like physicals, right, So,
like as you get older, it's recommended if you have
a general practitioner, like a doctor that you go see regularly,
that you get blood drawn basically at least once a year.
I think when that started happening, it just changed. Like
I look at the needle. I used to have to
look away and like you do all that stuff, but
now I just look at it. I'm like, wow, look
at that.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
Go.
Speaker 4 (51:23):
I think I've mentioned that I have an underactive thyroid,
so I have to give blood a lot, like to
check on the numbers, and it's more than just a
physical and I still can't look at it, and it
still freaks me out just as much every single time.
So I think some people are the different. Some people
grow out of it. I guess I used to hate
tomatoes now, but needles still freak me out big time.
Speaker 3 (51:44):
You can contact. The best way to get involved going
to donate blood is again because there's regional variation and
demand and type of stuff they're looking for. Your best
next steps are to contact the local blood banks in
your area. It's also so possible if you want some
extra credit. It's also possible to organize a blood drive.
(52:05):
You know, if you have, if you like work at
a big company or something, they'll probably support you in
doing this, just like if you were to organize a
clothing drive or a book drive.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
Didn't we do that with when we were owned by Discovery?
I feel like I remember doing that in the old
I did.
Speaker 3 (52:20):
I did not participate. I'm just gonna be absolutely clear.
I did not trust them.
Speaker 2 (52:26):
Oh I have problem with.
Speaker 3 (52:27):
Red Cross, But I was like, nice, try because this
was still before you know, the widespread rollout of genetic testing,
and they.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
Were just trying to find the next honey boo boo,
and they were gonna get all the blood.
Speaker 3 (52:40):
And getting right to your blood. Yeah. So I was
somewhat prescient in that, I guess. But anyway, Uh, we
would love to hear from you, fellow conspiracy realists, especially
if you are involved or employed in something that touches
upon the blood industry. One question about do certain countries,
(53:01):
companies or products are they Are there certain countries, companies
or products that you and your colleagues consider no goes?
You know what I mean? And if so, why, what
do more people need to know about bad blood? And
what have your experience has been again with stuff like
the one child policy, traveling in China, interacting with the
(53:23):
Chinese government. This is stuff that maybe that may be
really helpful to us in the future. So please let
us know what's on your mind. We try to be
easy to find online. Oh oh my god, donate your
ideas to us.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
That's what it was.
Speaker 4 (53:38):
We drink your milkshake of ideas. You can provide us
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(54:03):
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(54:28):
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Speaker 3 (54:32):
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Speaker 2 (54:54):
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Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Nol.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Paul, mission controlled decads. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. A little bit sleep deprived, we're
on the road, two thirds of us. But we decided
to make good on something we talked about previously. In
(00:49):
an earlier episode, we explored a frightened conspiracy surround in
prison corruption, tainted blood products, and a global network of
blood brokers who, through either net leigence or knowing misconduct,
gave thousands of people incredibly dangerous infections HIV, hepatitis, probably more.
And in that episode, remember we noted that this was
(01:13):
only one blood conspiracy when we'd have to return to
them in the future.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
Right, Yes, So please do go back and check out
Bad Blood Part one for the kind of groundwork of
how blood and plasma donations work. We will go into
some more further detail about that on this episode. We
also in that previous episode go into why transfusions are
so very important, as well as a brief history of
some of the medical breakthroughs that include things like plasma
(01:41):
products and the things that can be used to help
treat very serious diseases. Hence the extra kind of ickiness
when these kind of shortcuts are taken that result in
people who are desperately in need of remedy end up
being infected when all they are trying to do is
(02:02):
cure themselves of an already life threatening condition like hemophilia.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah, and this is a very good thing, just to
get it out in the front, like the idea of blood, transfusions, donations, plasma,
all of that has saved millions and millions of lives.
Every year. People donate over one hundred million units of
blood across the globe. And we talked a little bit
(02:28):
about units in our previous episode. I don't think we
defined it, so just in case, a unit of blood
is about five hundred and twenty five milliliters, roughly the
equivalent of one pint, So for loose cocktail napkin blood math,
that's a one hundred million pints of blood, which sounds
like a lot, and it's a lot. It's a lot
of blood. It's if you saw it in one room,
(02:51):
you would be like, this is too much blood.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yeah. Well yeah, because there are things called blood banks
that came around in the late nineteen thirties nineteen thirty seven,
where it's a.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Vampire to make their deposits.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Oh yeah, but sorry, it is. They make all their deposits.
They also make lots of withdraws. But it is crazy
to think that since then, since the late nineteen thirties,
we have had these things called blood banks. Refrigeration and
storage techniques improved a lot from that time. But one
(03:25):
of the biggest problems with storing this huge amount of
blood that we're talking about here is how quickly that
blood goes bad, right yeah, yeah, which means it means
there has to be a constant basically flow of blood
into the blood banks and out of the blood banks,
or else it's wasted.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yeah, there needs to be a churn there, and not
everyone is. There's like a base expected demand for blood
or plasma, but not everyone in need of a transfusion
needs the same amount of blood obviously, and individual cases
vary on so many There are just so many variables, right.
(04:08):
We know that demand can also vary by region, peak
holiday periods, illnesses like a pandemic, for example, and even
just the time of the year can make a big
difference because there are times when you know, car accidents
might spike and things of that nature. So there's another
issue too, right, you have to have the churn. This
(04:30):
is not stuff that you should legally or ethically just
keep around and roll the dice on. And not everybody
can donate blood.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
I would be interested to know a stat I'm not
sure we have this today of how much blood does
go to waste if waste is maybe the right word there,
because you know, it does have a shelf life. And
I would think that there would be people in charge
of these types of programs that are gauging demand and
you know, keeping that in mind or taking that into account.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah. Well, in part one, one of the major issues
in the Factor eight issue when we were talking about
the Arkansas prison system was that their refrigerant systems went out,
and almost immediately when that occurs, if the blood has
been stored in a non refrigerated unit, it should be
thrown away with all of these blood donation programs like
across the board anywhere. If it if this blood that's
(05:22):
stored is not refrigerated, it should go because it's no
longer viable and safe to use. But I don't know.
I guess my point here is that keeping stuff cold
is very important and that's one of the only reasons
that we can actually, you know, have large amounts of
this stuff. We didn't even talk about blood types right
(05:43):
because of it.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
We did it, but we did just yeah, yeah, just
in terms of like the universal donor and all of
that stuff, and then some of the rarer types, and
it is really quick. We did find the stat eight
point eight seven percent of units donated apparently are discarded
in the UK, so globally, globally, it would seem.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, I guess there are many reasons why you would
have to discard great samples or whatever these leaders of blood.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
If it's contaminated, then that would be ethically and legally
a reason to discard it. We also needed to talk
a little bit about the importance of heating different blood
products as a way of removing infections. That's what we're
saying is is a very important thing. It has saved many,
many lives, and there is a lot of stuff that
(06:30):
can go wrong, like right now, due to the restrictions
on eligibility for blood donors only, like only thirty percent
of the US population is thought to be eligible, and
there are all kinds of reasons for that, you know,
like you are not supposed to donate blood, if you
have used needles to inject drugs or steroids without doctor's
(06:55):
recommendation HIV, if you have ever had actual relations and
return for drugs or money, if you have a couple
of different specific diseases, or if you have if you're pregnant,
So fewer people can give blood that we might assume.
And right now in the US, if you are giving blood,
(07:16):
you are donating your blood. You are voluntarily giving it away.
But if you're donating plasma, which takes longer, then you
you can get compensated. Plasma donations can be compensated in
the US just because the process is more involved, Like
depending on the version of plasma donation, it's at least
(07:36):
ninety minutes to donate, and then you probably are going
to be there for two hours because you have to
hang out.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, and definitely eat the cookies. When they offer you cookies,
because that's you should need to get that sugar back
in your system. But guys, thirty eight percent of people
can donate right are eligible. Then let's really think about
how many people actually donate, because if like think about voting,
everybody that can vote, and then how many people actually
(08:06):
vote and take the time to do it. And in
this case, you know, a somewhat selfless act, unless you're
giving the plasma donation, maybe you can argue that it's
you know, for money, but most of this is a
selfless act to donate blood. I just wonder how many
people actually donate every year. It's got to be pretty low.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
It does seem like the number has also decreased over
the last twenty years. According to a couple of sources
that I found about.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Forty okay, I was looking at a Red Cross as
well too. They have specific demographics of people like the
most the age, an identity or the age, and like
ethnicity or socioeconomic status. To the people most likely to
donate blood, it's college educated males between thirty and fifty
(08:54):
or something like that. And this this means that, yeah,
I think is an appropriate example. A lot of people
can do this do not. And sometimes it's like one
of those things where you think, oh, it's good in theory,
but I won't go out of my way to do it. However,
if I'm like walking by the mall and I see
(09:15):
a blood drive, then I'm happy to do it when
I come across it, right.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, well, I would just have to admit that I
don't man, and I should. I know, I should. The
only people I donate blood to or Lab Corp. And
that's when they're testing me out. You know.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
Yeah, I've got a real aversion to needles and that's
no excuse. And maybe this will be the year that
I put on my big boy pants and do that,
because you know, Ben, I was looking around and I
found a very recent article on NBC News with some
quotes from the Red Cross saying that I didn't think
about this, but because of things like COVID that blood
(09:50):
donation has significantly dropped even further. And it was already
way down, and they said in this article that over
the past twenty years it has decreased by about forty percent,
so they they categorize it as catastrophic levels.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Yeah, they had the first ever I think we mentioned
some of this in part one. But they had the
first ever like blood crisis, they declared it recently, and
it was due to the pandemic. It also we see
that during times of peace of these donations start to
peter down a little bit, because you know, if there's
(10:24):
a war going on, if there's a war effort, then
all the there's patriotism involved. Right now, you're doing your
part for the folks on the front line. But yeah,
for any number of reasons, this donation stuff, even when
it goes well, it is a continual churning process, and
the system is far from perfect. The industry has made
(10:47):
horrific fatal missteps in the past. We talked about Factor eight,
just the quick and dirty on that and the Factor
eight scandal. Prisoners were exploited to donate blood even when
they were known to have HIV and hepatitis, and this
affected innocent people around the world. To this day, we
(11:08):
don't know how many were impacted by these products that
all came from a single prison. All we know is
this is not the only example attained to products. Maybe,
before we move on a little bit further, we should
talk about another documentary we're mentioning this off air Bad Blood,
which is a great compliment to the other documentary Factor eight.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah, you can check it out. You can find it.
I think you've found it on Amazon right ben where
you can actually watch it right now. It's a documentary
that was at least produced or released on behalf of
the creator marilynd Ness and PBS in public broadcasting, and
came out twenty ten. It's like about an hour and
a half. It's a feature length documentary. It's about the
(11:54):
same thing. I would say, at least from everything I've
read about it. I have not watched it yet. According
to the synopsis, it's about the ten thousand people with
hemophilia that were using this Factor eight product who were
infected with either HIV, hepatitis C, or some combination.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Yeah, so check that out to get another angle on
what's happening here. Neither of those films really mention what
we're going to explore today, because it turns out other
countries have plenty of bad blood scandals all their own.
We're going to pause for a word from our sponsors,
(12:34):
and then we'll head east. Here's where it gets crazy.
There is a disturbing, perhaps equally if not more disturbing
example of when the blood trade goes wrong from China,
(12:55):
and it involves something called plasma farese, which is our
unfortunate word for the day. It's the fancy term for
kind of plasma donation where long story short, they take
the plasma out of you, they separate the plasma for
the breast of your stuff that makes up your blood,
and then they put that junk back inside you. Why,
(13:17):
they heist one piece of your blood so that they
don't fully deplete your supplies.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
So like the they okay, they take all the blood out,
they take your plasma, they spin it and they take
your plasma. Then they put your red blood cells, white
blood cells, and platelets all back in. Just shove them
back in you.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Yeah, well slowly with finesse.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Is that is that standard operating procedure or is this
a bad move?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
This is this is in theory, a really good way
to do it.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Yeah, And from nineteen ninety one to nineteen ninety five
in China, the Henan provincial government had this kind of
plasma campaign and they were paying people, mostly farmers, mostly
not very wealthy people in rural areas to participle. Yeah. Well, oh, God,
(14:09):
the life of people lived, the life of people in
these rural towns was often really challenging, and the market
was just becoming liberalized. So this blood plasma economy, that's
what they called the campaign. How nosparatu is that it
seemed like a good idea at first, so they called this.
(14:30):
The authorities called this thing the Blood Plasma Economy Initiative,
which sounds straight out of like count Orlock and nosparatu,
but it could have been. It was a win win
because biotech firms had a huge demand for massive supply
of blood. They had so much plasma and they had
so much cash to burn. This was also a great
(14:52):
program for middlemen, for blood brokers. There was a lot
of profit to be made.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
So okay, so these biotech companies are paying every one
of these people to come in and donate their plasma.
That's what we're saying.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
No, not that owing there. What's happening is it's a market,
a markup game like any other middleman game. The the
people in these rural areas are selling their plasma for
something like the equivalent of ten dollars and ninety cents
for six hundred grams. But then the blood stations the
(15:31):
plasma stations are turning around and they're selling that for
a significant markup to the biotech companies.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
It's it sounds exactly like the factory thing, right, because
the prisoners were making like seven dollars per donation. But
there was it. Yeah, their money wasn't real. It was
for inside the system they're existing in, and then the
biotech companies are turning that around for what do we
say it was? It was something insane like one hundred
and something dollars per donation that they made.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
And it was also like a government contract too, like
you know where the prison had kind of made this deal,
this sweetheart deal, and no one would cop to any
of the mouthfeasons ever along the way. And I don't
believe as far as where we left off in the
documentary that we discussed and you know the work of
Kelly Doudah, anyone has really taken the fall in any
(16:24):
kind of big, you know, significant, meaningful way.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
But I get what you're saying, Ben, So if that,
if this structure is in place, you're saying, a middle
person that that can get between those two systems, right,
can make crazy amounts of money. Probably, how does.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
One become said middle person, is this a licensed thing?
Is how do you get into the blood broker biz?
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (16:49):
So, I mean if you just have blood.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Most of the folklore what happens is your master bites you,
but you don't get any of their blood, so you're
imbused with certain abilities.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
It is vampiric, though the whole thing is very I
don't know a great example of taking advantage of a
system that doesn't have enough oversight, it would seem yeah,
and this was.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
A long problem. So one misconception about this I think
that happened when it was initially reported in the West
is the blood plasma economy, which in the beginning was
hailed as this amazing thing, like this kind of thing
economists should study and health professionals should study. It does
not come out of the blue. It is indeed an
(17:37):
escalation an expansion of programs in China dating back to
the nineteen forties where they built out, you know, as
they had more and more people moving into these huge cities,
they had a growing demand for blood and they went
to the urban or they went from the urban to
the rural areas to supply it. So they've been doing
this for decades. The blood plasma economy, which was starting
(18:01):
in you know, nineteen ninety This was the rise of
the well they're called like the sueta or the bloodheads,
and they were already they were already established well enough
that they had a street name for people who made
a living like this.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
And some of these are people who are donating or
the people who were collecting.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
These were people who were doing both, so it could
get yeah, in general, refer to people in the industry
and these middlemen, you know, they might go into a
village and they might organize a group travel to a station, right,
and then they get a viig off that. So by
the time the BP blood plasm economy comes into play,
(18:42):
they're already thousands of public donation centers and commercial private
monetized centers, and those private were commercialized ones those are
owned by the blood brokers often right, So you know,
think about it, though in the nineteen nineties, you're in
(19:04):
a rural, agrarian part of trying, a payment for one
plasma donation could be more than you would make in
a month.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
I mean, there's a lot of parallels here with the
closed system of a prison. I mean not to say
that these farmers are you know, imprisoned per se, but
they are cut off from the rest of society, you know,
at least the more industrialized parts of the country, and
it would seem that they are being incentivized in a
way that's similar to the way the prisoners were being incentivized.
(19:35):
And it can cause some weird, shady math, I believe
somewhere down the line.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
It feels like morals get bent often when there is
that kind of what monetary incentivization. I mean, look at capitalism. Hey,
but yeah, it's just on both.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
Sides though, with the folks donating and with the folks
that maybe would be turning a blind eye because gosh,
it's such a sweetheart deal. We can't you know, pass
up any We need all the blood we can get.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Well, think about right now, if you could double your
monthly wage, like right now, if you can go donate
blood and double your monthly wage. You don't you don't
not do that right.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Right It's and it's also there are a couple of
other things that get twisted here. One of them is,
you know, if you are the authorities who are most
like on paper, the people required to keep this all
on the up and up, on the government side. Then
you also have a quota of the amount of blood
(20:37):
that you are expected to produce with your programs, and
a number of things you have to supply to hospitals.
So which do you prioritize more? You know, it's like
no child left behind? I mean, it isn't it.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
You know what I'm saying. Like, when you have this
mandate that is very unreasonable, you're going to do whatever
it takes to reach it. You know.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
Boeing excuse me, another Boeing panel left work early? Guys,
Are you serious? I just passed.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
John Oliver a bit and that they Wow, how are
they going to come back from that?
Speaker 2 (21:11):
That is wild?
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Because they're too big to fail.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a too big to fail thing
in an industry that has a little bit of what
we call plot armor in the world of fandom in fiction.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Now, not to derail, but I did not quite realize
that those planes are the one with the door got
sucked down off was brand new. I did not realize
that these are like like like systematic design flaws and
or quality control flaws.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
It's wild. Yeah, well, man, well, don't don't talk about
it and go to your car at your hotel. Just
don't go out to your car that's parked at your hotel.
If you're talking about this stuff, that's all.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
And do make sure that if you are worried about that,
you spread the word well at advance and several times
on record, tell people that you will never take your
own life, and you know, let us know, let us
know what goes. There's another twist to this blood plasma
economy program. If you are paying people to donate plasma
(22:14):
and or blood, then you're removing any success for voluntary
donation because now people even and try to tried it
for a while, but even people who voluntary would have
voluntarily donated blood or plasma, they're saying, well, why the
hell would I do that now when I could just
(22:37):
go a town over and get paid to do it.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah, no reason it.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
So we see these economic incentives, if not part of
an active conspiracy, they do coalesce and they have a
cumulative effect. This shows us that, I don't know, it's
important to remember this blood economy thing, blood plasma economy,
it came as a result of earlier stuff. So wouldn't
(23:04):
that mean in theory, lessons learned from the earlier programs
would make it more of a win win, like the brokers,
the biotech still makes a lot of money and then
the people donating stay safe and the people getting the
donations stay safe.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah, like, how stable was that system because it seems
like you could build it to where everybody wins. So
it was right, everything was fine.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Yeah, that's our show. Thanks for tuning in, fans. Yeah. No,
the the absolutely right. The theory could be fine, but
the problem stem from the way the plasma is extracted.
And I think it would be it's smart for us
to walk through what actually happens here. We were not
being facetious where we said, we're not being you know,
(23:51):
we're not doing a bit when we say they would
take stuff from you and then put your blood back
in you. Although I know it sounds like a four
year old trying to describe blood donation, but we're not
medical experts. This is true though. They did take stuff
and put it back in.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Oh yeah, So let's go through the steps. Step one,
insert a syringe into a person's body that goes into
their bloodstream and take out the blood. That's all the blood,
by the way, that's like the whole blood.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Yes, yeah, not all of their blood.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
No, no, to just his whole blood. It's got all
the parts.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Step two we've talked about the spinning part of the process,
where in the plasma is separated from the blood in
a centrifuge. That is a machine that has then used
to extract that plasma. Step three, Oh.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Yes, step three. After the plasma is extracted, like like
you're saying, that takes a while for them to separate
this stuff, then that the same blood minus the plasma
is pumped back into the person's body. So it's a
more involved process. It sounds super weird. We think so too,
(25:02):
but it is completely safe so long as everybody's following
the SOPs of sterilization and safety. That did not happened.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
Real quick aside, is this the same process that was
or is done over here putting the blood back in?
Or is this is there something unique about this particular process.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
I'm not on factor eight and correct is here, folks
on factor eight. I think they were just taking the
plasma and separating it after they extracted it. I don't
know if they were putting it back in the bodies.
I think the main you know, for them, the problem
was they weren't vetting the donors very well, and then
(25:44):
they were also through negligence, they were spreading infections from
donors to other donors.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
And we should also add that, similarly to you know
what what ended up happening with the factor eight. The
advances of biotechnologlogy have led to synthesized versions of this
that don't require the actual plasma. So that's a good
thing moving forward. But we're in the thick of this
part right now that very much aligns with the factor
(26:13):
eight story in terms of this was the only game
in town forgetting that plasma for creating these products. Plasma
itself is still needed, but in terms of using it
to make the hemophilia medications, and.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
I'm stuck on the steps that we just described because
in my mind, if you're going to do this properly
and as you as you state had been, you know,
through sterilization like standards and those kinds of things. Let's
say let's say I donated blood, my blood gets taken out,
it gets spun in a centrifuge that only contains my blood.
(26:47):
That way, when the plasma is left and you've still
got the red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets
that stuff goes directly back into my body, right, because
it's my blood. Get it back in my body. Please.
Thank you were saying that didn't happen.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
We're saying that's what's supposed to happen. And in between
donors and donation instances, then the all the material would
be either cleaned or thrown away. Right, the needle gets
thrown out into a biohazard container, this interfuge gets sterilized,
(27:24):
et cetera, et cetera. That's what is supposed to happen. However,
as Kim Sang puts it right in for the Singtile Daily,
the blood plasma economy was such a booming business. It
was such like a bitcoin. All of a sudden, it
seemed like a huge It was like an oil boom really,
(27:45):
except for blood.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
And you couldn't get the blood out fast enough right
and turn those donation tables basically.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
And so the needles were being recycled, the bags that
held the blood were being recycled. Other instruments, can painters
that had like had direct contact with human blood, we're
getting recycled. And some people, some stations, we still don't
know how many mixed different blood blood from different donors
in the same centrifuge, creating massive possibilities for contamination because
(28:18):
the way it works is, yeah, it doesn't like let's say,
in the course of a day, let's say, you know,
anywhere from twelve to fifty people, their blood got mixed
in with this unknowingly, and then as things get reused
over the course of the day, if let's say the
(28:38):
third person or the fourteenth person who donates plasma has
hepatitis or they have HIV, then everyone in line after
them when that stuff is getting pumped back into them
now they've got it too.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
And guys, I want to apologize. I think I made
sort of a dumb point earlier. At least this stuff
we're talking about here isn't the same as the Arkansas
story because they're not making this serum. They're not making
factor eight or a product to treat hemophilia. This is
exclusively plasma donation for people who need plasma transfusions or
(29:14):
for other medical procedures other than I guess it could
end up in pools of the stuff that is used
for the same kind of medication, right, yeah, but not
specifically for that.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
It goes straight to the biotech companies to make any
number of things with it.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Yeah, yes, it could still you know, hurting people in
the same in a similar way.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Well, and as we're talking, yeah, we're talking about the
cross contamination here. That's for people, the donors who are
getting that blood pumped back into them that's now mixed
with all these other people. It's also for that plasma
that when it gets spun up, it's now spun up
with a bunch of other blood that who knows, you know,
what could be in that one sample that now contains,
(29:57):
as Ben said, the culmination of everybody who donated that
day before the thing got sterilized again.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
I mean, it reminds me of It's like not cleaning
the soda machine.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Oh god, yeah, don't think about it.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
I think its way way way in your body. And
you guys show too, right because you're glad you brought
that up. It's so ichy. But I instantly if I
ever have a fountain drink, I instantly go into that
paranoia if it tastes even slightly off. Oh yeah, I
(30:34):
like a fountain drink at a little different I know.
I was just I was at our our favorite uh
Popeyes Chicken in Atlanta, the place where you know, the
drive through person famously told me, what one time up there? Uh,
(30:55):
I was in there recently, was picking something up and
I asked for, you know, like a common mill thing,
and the lady behind the counter told me, you sure
the soda found has been a bit peppery. Oh, and
I did it was spicy? Yeah, I don't know, but
I was like, I, okay, I appreciate it, thanks for
the you know, thanks for the tip there.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
I have to believe that it was just like spicy,
a hit in a spicy way, and it shouldn't be
that way.
Speaker 5 (31:23):
I like to think it was so Mu's first day
and they said, hold on, you put the spice mix
on the chicken, and they're like, oh, well, what's done
is done?
Speaker 2 (31:34):
I see. I thought it was some kind of mold
that was really kicking things up a notch, you know.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
I think that's what she meant.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
It was spicy mold.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
And so I do think this idea of like the
soda found thing is unfortunately really great comparison because it
got even worse as things escalated. To speed up the
amount of blood that were able to supply number of
units per day, right, some stations cut out crucial steps
of this process we've walked through, Like a donor might
(32:02):
just be given blood from previous donors the same blood type.
So in your example, Matt, it's not you getting you know,
getting that tasty Frederick vintage blood minus the plasma back.
You're getting some Randos. It might even be Jonathan Strickland's.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Oh I could only hope if I got a little
Strickland blood in me. Man, Just I feel like I
would get smarter the same.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
Yeah, i'd like the flowers for algrenon type situation. But
then you get progressively dumber.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Well, that first moment, like I fully understand what a
q LED is versus an OLED, and I can like
break all of that down.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Oh yeah, that's what. Then we just have to keep
little vials of it around with us, I guess refrigerated
inside pockets.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Yeah, I start slurring his words. We got to give
him a dose of the juice, know, yest. Oh God,
Now we're being flippant here because this is so depressing
and heavy, because it's really the only the Gallo's humor
is the only way to deal with the fact that
this happened.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Jeez, Louise, we're whistling in the graveyard here, folks, for real,
because this did happen. People were giving blood from other donors.
They were not informed about this. You would it would
speed up the process. You wouldn't have to wait for
They would put your blood centrifuge to run and then
(33:36):
they would just check on what other centrifuge was done,
and if they had the same blood type as you,
they would put that blood inside you. So there were
also reports that people who tested positive for he B
hepatitis B were allowed to give blood and their blood
plasma was just putting a different pile. Basically, yeah, my
(33:58):
translation with Chinese is not that good. So they love
bigger a speech, but they yeah the hep B pile. Yeah,
which all means that without their knowledge and certainly without
their consent, these financially disadvantaged folks were forced into sharing
needles on a massive scale. What could go wrong? We'll
tell you after a word from our sponsor, and we
(34:27):
have returned.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
Now.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
China has a famously strict approach to the concerns of
its population, right and the country is very sensitive about
certain things, certain events like Tianeman and so on. But
this public outcry is different. The government can tamp down
on political protests pretty easily. But this is not necessarily political.
(34:53):
This is a national medical crisis. Now we don't know
how many people or country maybe carrying HIV, maybe unknowingly
transmitting it to their children, their partners, people they just
hang out with. So the government has to do something.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Because we're saying it started in nineteen ninety and then
this system rolled on for three, four, maybe even five years. Wow,
So I guess that's around the time when they realized
there are big problems.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Yeah, right, that's right. And then in nineteen ninety five
they rolled out something else, which was some new policies
that changed some things around for hopefully the better. The
very least, the blood stations in Hennan were starting to
get shut down. And you know, another thing that the
Chinese government is known for is being a bit opaque,
(35:46):
let's just say, in terms of their acknowledgment of mistakes
that were or were not made. So this is about
the best you're going to get, which was in nineteen
ninety six when the Ministry of Health issued a document
called Administrative Statutes of Blood Products that required plasma paresis
stations only collect plasma from specific areas, but ben I
(36:10):
wouldn't say they exactly admitted to wrongdoing, right, They just
just issued some new declarations that changed things around. And
it wasn't like we're doing this because we fed up. Right.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
Yeah, they're saying they're tightening the restrictions because around this
time there are these reports that start sporadically coming out
that say, hey, why does everybody in this village have
this hepatitis? In particular, why it would look right right
and the damage had been done. They were thinking, they
(36:44):
were hoping, whoeveryone's in charge at the time, that if
they had removed plasma donation stations from those rural areas,
the ones that seem troublesome, then the problem would solve.
It's in a way that could save face for everybody
and let people still make a lot of money off this.
(37:06):
But like you said, the horses left the bar and
the badger's out of the bag. Right now, the best
estimates guess that forty to sixty percent of the more
than three million people who donated plasma in this way
contracted AIDS afterwards, and that means that over one million people,
(37:28):
innocent people died as a direct result of participating in
this initiative. More will die on the way because these
infections were carried by them without their knowledge for so
very long. And it probably, you know, probably authorities knew
about this and just didn't inform them. I think they
had to I think they had to know.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Yeah, it feels so similar to the factor eight issue
because the money was flowing, and how do you You
can't really put a stop to it when it's floil.
You could, you should, but you it's kind of difficult
to do once it's that profitable.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
And you know, I mean in high level officials practice
plausible deniability. But I swear, you know, I think I
mentioned you guys off my that I've never been more
suspicious of the Clintons than I was after discussing that story,
because there are so many indications that this information was
absolutely available at the highest levels.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Yeah, and then how far does plausible the diability go.
I understand that, especially to high level political or corporate positions,
you might not be able to watch every falling sparrow.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
I'm a busy right.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
You know, time for all this. These are below my
pay grade.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
But after a certain point, deniability is no longer plausible,
and you are at the very least, just terrible at.
Speaker 4 (38:49):
Your job, you know what I mean, especially when it
directly impacts people, not even in your state or province
or country.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Right, It's just it's so disappointing, it's heartbreaking.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
You know.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
The investigations go on and over time what they find
is more and more villages are ravaged by AIDS and
hepatitis there. It's almost certainly, it's too generous to say
almost certainly it is definitely because of these plasma stations.
And just for a snapshot example, there was a small
(39:25):
area in Hannan in Kaijan County or Kaijan County. They
had three hundred or three and seventy villagers. Of those,
forty three percent tested positive for AIDS.
Speaker 4 (39:41):
God, that's insane. That average is mind boggling.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
It's terrifying, you know. And in the village of Winlu
when now sixty five percent of the residents tested had HIV.
And imagine your own hometown, you know, more than half
a neighbors had been infected by government and action and
corporate obscenity in this way, you know it Just what
(40:12):
hits me is if you've ever visited Rule China, you
know the people there are wonderful. Just like most people
at most places in the world, their lives are already
very difficult, very very difficult. And adding this, I mean,
I just keep thinking of like a kid having to
learn this.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Guys, I'm stuck on that that town that had sixty
five percent of the residents that contracted HIV. That's just
so devastating and insane, and especially given that this program
started in nineteen ninety correct, right, if you look back
nineteen eighty three to nineteen eighty five is when pretty
(40:52):
effective HIV blood tests existed. I mean, so at least
five years prior to the program even starting, you could
be screening people. If you're running this program, you could
be screening everybody who's donating to see, right, And that alone,
to me is just unconscienable. Yeah, just insane. And then
(41:18):
and then to let it run for so long, God, man,
ben I.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
That's what haunts me. Man, That haunts me because bribery
explains at least part of it, right, which is tremendously
common in these systems. But again, I'm just I am
haunted by the image of a kid who already has
a really tough, challenging life and has all their own,
you know, they have their dreams, their aims, they want
to make their parents happy and all this other stuff,
(41:45):
and then they.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
Learn that.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
The natural progression of their life has been so has
been knocked off kilter.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
And it's dude, can I ask something horrible? And I'm
going to ask this just because I want to talk
about it, and I don't know, and I don't mean
anything by this other than I'm curious, and it is
curious to me. I'm thinking about China's one child policy
that started in nineteen seventy nine in this you know program,
(42:18):
or about eleven years later. It does make me wonder,
if there's God, I get that would be the conspiracy. Right,
was this done purposefully to thin the population even more?
Because we know that's the purpose of the one child
policy is to slow down population growth? Right, this is
the right. This is the program in China that ran
(42:39):
from nineteen seventy nine to pretty recently, right like twenty
sixteen or something twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
Applying prime to the applying to the ha and ethnicity,
which is oh really the mainstream ethnicity. So like the
thing about the one child policy is yet it had
terrible ramification in terms of femicide and things like that.
The femicide being discovering the biological sex of a child
(43:11):
in vitro and then having it awarded as a result
because you would want a male. Yeah, so there was
this huge distortion between between like male and female birth
rates or survival rates, if we really want to be
honest about it. In terms of this, I find that
(43:31):
a fascinating and intriguing branch of speculation. The only issue
is there faster, more efficient ways to do it that
could still give you that plausible deniability.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Oh yeah, no, I completely agree, I think, and this
is describing evil. I would say to a place where
maybe it shouldn't be it shouldn't be placed there, And
it's just me having the thought experiment. But oh yeah,
if you're targeting rural farmers, and you know the the
groups that are profiting from this are not rural farmers
(44:04):
by any stretch, right, If you give the families something
like HIV or AIDS, not only are you infecting anyone
else in that you know, in that household of down
the line.
Speaker 4 (44:20):
If the child done purposefuly, this would be a form
of controlled genocide.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
And I'm not saying it is. I'm just saying this is.
Speaker 4 (44:28):
The mind you could jump there. I will just say
that if if you're interested in the one Child policy
stuff and how that really did have horrible ramifications in
and of itself. There's a documentary called One Child Nation
that came out in twenty nineteen through PBS's Independent Lens program,
which is always next level good that I would highly
recommend checking out.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
And those the results of the One Child Policy itself
are going to continue well into your lifetime as you
listen to this Evening show, because it lasted from set
seventy nine to twenty fifteen. And it's kind of like
one Child Policy is kind of like experiments with cloud seating, right,
(45:11):
You're affecting a system that you don't fully control in
ways you don't fully understand. It's it's tough, man, it's
tough out there, and we'd love to hear your personal
experience with it. If you've got any, let us know.
So we have a terrible situation. We have places where
there are pluralities of people infected with HIV, with hepatitis,
(45:36):
and it's just because of the nature of how these
things spread. And you know you mentioned NOL earlier, the
idea of an admission of guilts.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
We did get one, didn't we. I was surprised to
see that.
Speaker 3 (45:48):
Yeah, two thousand and four.
Speaker 4 (45:49):
Yeah, the government did publicly admit, which is in a
rare show of Again, I'm not trying to dogpile in
the Chinese government, but they do have a bit of
a history of opice.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Let's just say, and we're not we're not, obviously too.
I'm glad of bringing this up. We're not cenophobes at all.
Speaker 4 (46:06):
No, we.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
Don't, right, We're not using this as like red meat
for something.
Speaker 4 (46:13):
This is not in the least and I will actually
something that I said off Mike, I'm just going to
say the kind of abbreviated version of it. I'm surprised
that certain more xenophobic types haven't used this for fodder
for further xenophobia, for trying to convert people to more
xenophobic ways of thinking, because this could be weaponized in
(46:34):
a way to be like, see see what they did.
You know, these horrible people, this horrible government. I'm just
surprised that hadn't happened, and that we hadn't really heard
that much about this outside of this investigation. But the
government of trying to did publicly admit that by its estimation,
at least twenty four percent of all HIV, all HIV
cases in China came directly from what we've been talking
(46:57):
about today, from these this dirty plasma business.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
Yeah, and so you would think, just like the case
of the blood plasma Economy program, you would think the
lessons learned from the past may have been informing the
events of the future and the present. Well, we thought
so too, and we were incorrect. So we're right there
with you. Fast forward to twenty nineteen, a similar thing
(47:25):
happens again, this time in Shanghai. A specific company, a
pharma company named Shanghai sin Keing Medicine Company. They gotten
hot water on suspicion that they sold twelve thousand units
of blood plasma product contaminated with HIV. So this is
(47:47):
still a possibility. It still happens, and hopefully the authorities
are just a little faster about it now or holding
people accountable. Right, And then that came on the heels
of like the month before then, there was this panic
that the government gave more than one hundred kids expired
polio vaccines. A few months before that, hundreds of thousands
(48:12):
of kids got faulty diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough vaccines.
Speaker 4 (48:16):
Yeah, that's interesting because we just talked Sorry, not interesting,
it's horrifying. But we had talked about how China was
one of the very few places where polio is still
a thing, right.
Speaker 3 (48:27):
Uh, yeah, Pakistan and Afghanistan have the same. Yeah, and
it still occurs in China. Sure. Yeah, it's it's tough.
And you know, the question there is maybe more like
just negligence and trying to and not downplaying this at all, but.
Speaker 4 (48:46):
It's a very large view.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
Well, I mean, have you you guys have had this
situation in your own home where you know, you're checking
on maybe it's like a dairy thing or a vegetable
in your fridge, and you're like, is this on the
line of expiring? How far over is it?
Speaker 4 (49:02):
You know, it's sell By, it's fine, sell By.
Speaker 3 (49:05):
So maybe that's what they did, you know. And so
members of the media for this twenty nineteen event with
the tainted blood products, members of the Chinese media spoke
up and said, hey, this there's going to be a
cover up pretty soon. They'll say, injecting this is good
for your health. Don't panic. And that appears to be
(49:30):
part of what happens. So we have to follow up
on the twenty nineteen story to learn more as the
investigations continue. But one thing's for sure. Like we said
at the top, when the money gets too tempting, the
demand gets too high, people will cut quarters. They will
attempt to bleed every last cent from a broken system
before it collapses. That, I argue is the stuff they
(49:51):
don't want you to know. Also, you should donate blood
please if you can. You are saving lives.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
Couldn't agree more.
Speaker 4 (49:58):
All of this stuff that we've discussed has really got
me the I really am. I can barely keep from
passing out when I get blood taken for you know,
medical purposes. But I'm gonna have to steal myself and
uh and and do that because I didn't realize how
how desperate the situation was in terms of the blood supply,
you know, in the United States.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
But is there is there a way to, like, I
don't know, train yourself to not be freaked out by
needles anymore.
Speaker 4 (50:25):
It would have to be some sort of self hypnosis
or some like like quitting smoking or getting over fear
of heights or something. I don't know how you would
do that mindfulness transcendental meditation.
Speaker 3 (50:37):
There's a way, yeah, different avenues to it if you
want to disassociation of things, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
Yeah, I just remember I used to be really freaked
out by it for a long time and something changed
and I didn't do it actively, but I definitely just started.
Speaker 3 (50:57):
Were you getting on a medical test because will change it?
Speaker 4 (51:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Yeah, yeah, it's when I started doing like physicals, right, So,
like as you get older, it's recommended if you have
a general practitioner, like a doctor that you go see regularly,
that you get blood drawn basically at least once a year.
I think when that started happening, it just changed. Like
I look at the needle. I used to have to
look away and like you do all that stuff, but
now I just look at it. I'm like, wow, look
at that.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
Go.
Speaker 4 (51:23):
I think I've mentioned that I have an underactive thyroid,
so I have to give blood a lot, like to
check on the numbers, and it's more than just a
physical and I still can't look at it, and it
still freaks me out just as much every single time.
So I think some people are the different. Some people
grow out of it. I guess I used to hate
tomatoes now, but needles still freak me out big time.
Speaker 3 (51:44):
You can contact. The best way to get involved going
to donate blood is again because there's regional variation and
demand and type of stuff they're looking for. Your best
next steps are to contact the local blood banks in
your area. It's also so possible if you want some
extra credit. It's also possible to organize a blood drive.
(52:05):
You know, if you have, if you like work at
a big company or something, they'll probably support you in
doing this, just like if you were to organize a
clothing drive or a book drive.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
Didn't we do that with when we were owned by Discovery?
I feel like I remember doing that in the old
I did.
Speaker 3 (52:20):
I did not participate. I'm just gonna be absolutely clear.
I did not trust them.
Speaker 2 (52:26):
Oh I have problem with.
Speaker 3 (52:27):
Red Cross, But I was like, nice, try because this
was still before you know, the widespread rollout of genetic testing,
and they.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
Were just trying to find the next honey boo boo,
and they were gonna get all the blood.
Speaker 3 (52:40):
And getting right to your blood. Yeah. So I was
somewhat prescient in that, I guess. But anyway, Uh, we
would love to hear from you, fellow conspiracy realists, especially
if you are involved or employed in something that touches
upon the blood industry. One question about do certain countries,
(53:01):
companies or products are they Are there certain countries, companies
or products that you and your colleagues consider no goes?
You know what I mean? And if so, why, what
do more people need to know about bad blood? And
what have your experience has been again with stuff like
the one child policy, traveling in China, interacting with the
(53:23):
Chinese government. This is stuff that maybe that may be
really helpful to us in the future. So please let
us know what's on your mind. We try to be
easy to find online. Oh oh my god, donate your
ideas to us.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
That's what it was.
Speaker 4 (53:38):
We drink your milkshake of ideas. You can provide us
said ideas on the usual social media channels of note,
we are Conspiracy Stuff Show. On Facebook where we also
have our Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy. On
x FKA, Twitter, and on YouTube where we roll out delightful,
we think and we hope you video content every single week.
(54:03):
On Instagram and TikTok, we are Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
Hey do you like calling people? Why not call us
one eight three three st d WYTK. That's our number.
When you call in, you'll hear our voicemail system. You'll
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(54:28):
you got more to say they could fit in that message,
why not instead shoot us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (54:32):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (54:54):
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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