A non-profit organization on the east coast is paying healthy people up to $13,000 a year for their feces.
OpenBiome, which is based in Medford, Mass., administers frozen stool to patients infected with C. difficile. The bacteria can cause severe gastrointestinal distress that can leave some house ridden.
The organization has been processing and shipping human poop throughout the country since 2013. Through introducing healthy fecal matter into a patient’s gut – either through nasal tubes, endoscopy or swallowed capsules – doctors can permanently eliminate C. difficile in infected individuals.
So far, OpenBiome has sent approximately 2,000 treatments to 185 hospitals in America.
While it might be easy for people to donate feces, it is not as easy to find qualified donors. Those who donate their poop must be very healthy.
“It’s harder to become a donor than it is to get into MIT,” co-founder Mark Smith joked, according to The Washington Post.
In the past two years, only about 4 percent of the 1,000 people who have expressed interest online in donating to OpenBiome passed the extensive medical questioning and stool testing, the Post reported.
Screening potential donors can cost up to $5,000, so Smith and his coworkers make sure to hold onto those who successfully pass the tests. The organization pays $40 per sample of feces, with an added $50 for those who visit the Medford lab five days per week.
Since donors must come into the office to provide their waste, most are students at Tufts University, which is located in the same city. Many are also recruited from the nearby gym.
Smith told the Post that most donors come into the lab three to four times each week.
“You’re usually helping three or four patients out with each sample, and we keep track of that and let you know,” he told the newspaper.
Co-founder Carolyn Edelstein told the Post that donors are usually in it for more than the money.
“Everyone thinks it’s great that they’re making money doing such an easy thing,” Edelstein said, according to the newspaper. “But they also love to hear us say, ‘Look, your poop just helped this lady who’s been sick for nine years go to her daughter’s graduation.’”
At the moment, fecal matter is used only to treat those with recurring C. difficile, but OpenBiome is also providing its samples to other trials to find further uses.
For instance, those with autism and inflammatory bowel disease have different gut microbiomes from people who don’t have these. However, this does not mean fecal matter will solve the problems the way it does for C. difficile.
“There’s a lot of promise in other conditions,” Smith told the Post. “But also a lot of hype. Treating C. difficile is a bit less sexy, but that’s the one area where we know this works.”
(With reports from The Washington Post)