WEBVTT 00:00.720 --> 00:06.540 Several years ago, in the middle of, actually it was like April of 2021, I had a sort of 00:06.540 --> 00:08.020 surprising health scare. 00:08.180 --> 00:12.360 I was running all over, talking about COVID, talking about these issues, then I thought 00:12.360 --> 00:18.040 I caught COVID, I was really weak, I was having trouble walking across the room, luckily some 00:18.040 --> 00:22.900 friends of mine, you know, sort of forced me to go to a heart doctor. 00:23.480 --> 00:27.660 I didn't end up having a heart issue, but that heart doctor through blood tests discovered 00:27.660 --> 00:31.240 that my hemoglobin was down to 4.8. 00:31.600 --> 00:34.680 They said to me, I mean, I got an emergency call in the morning, it was a Thursday morning. 00:35.020 --> 00:39.600 I was supposed to be heading to the show in about an hour, I was not feeling very good, 00:39.600 --> 00:43.680 but I'm a guy that's like, the show must go on, I'm going to be there, and this doctor 00:43.680 --> 00:47.680 said, you aren't going to any show, you need to get to an ER right away, you need 00:47.680 --> 00:54.340 emergency blood transfusions, your hemoglobin should be somewhere between 13 and 17, you're 00:54.340 --> 01:02.400 at 4.8, mandatory emergency infusions start if you're below, I think it was 7 at the time. 01:02.820 --> 01:11.020 So I was at 4.8, it was a serious emergency, and I had an issue, I didn't want blood from 01:11.020 --> 01:13.660 people that had been vaccinated with the COVID vaccine. 01:13.760 --> 01:19.560 I don't want that spike protein in my body, that man-made manipulated product that was 01:19.560 --> 01:22.440 never properly tested, don't want it, don't need it. 01:22.440 --> 01:26.900 Even though I was like, you know, really on the verge of death, luckily a friend of mine 01:26.900 --> 01:34.620 called the blood bank here in Austin, and there was only, I think it was seven total 01:34.620 --> 01:38.240 units, I'm B negative, which I guess is pretty rare. 01:38.740 --> 01:43.400 So in all of Austin, only about seven units, and they don't track whether or not there 01:43.400 --> 01:44.240 was a COVID vaccine. 01:44.480 --> 01:49.800 Luckily, the person at blood bank made some calls and found one by the course 01:49.800 --> 01:50.220 of the day. 01:50.820 --> 01:55.880 Meanwhile, I was saying, well, look, I know people that have negative blood, my wife is 01:55.880 --> 02:01.960 O negative, I could get her blood, and here in Austin, Texas, they said we can't process 02:01.960 --> 02:06.200 it fast enough, it would take 10 days to two weeks to process your wife's blood. 02:06.840 --> 02:13.200 I called a friend who has a clinic down in Mexico in Cancun, I said, are they testing 02:13.200 --> 02:13.800 blood there? 02:13.880 --> 02:15.520 Do they know whether there's a COVID vaccine? 02:16.060 --> 02:17.460 He said, let me look into it. 02:17.600 --> 02:19.780 As it turns out, they were testing for it. 02:19.900 --> 02:23.320 Always amazing when they're more thorough than we are in the United States of 02:23.320 --> 02:23.720 America. 02:24.200 --> 02:28.700 And he said, and we can turn your wife's blood around in probably under four 02:28.700 --> 02:29.040 hours. 02:29.420 --> 02:31.980 So I flew to Mexico. 02:32.240 --> 02:35.100 My wife went with me and I went down and started getting transfusions in 02:35.100 --> 02:35.460 Mexico. 02:36.160 --> 02:37.160 Oh, a great headline. 02:37.460 --> 02:42.460 Top anti-vaxxers unhinged quest for unvaccinated blood leads into Mexico. 02:42.460 --> 02:43.820 Look at this. 02:43.940 --> 02:47.400 Dell desperately needed transfusion, but first he had to track down the blood of a 02:47.400 --> 02:48.680 donor who hadn't been vaccinated. 02:49.020 --> 02:53.760 And his doctor friend in Mexico was ready to oblige, so it made headlines. 02:53.920 --> 02:55.600 It's weird the things that make headlines. 02:55.740 --> 02:56.260 But look at that. 02:56.440 --> 03:01.200 I mean, that dude right there didn't know he was dying, totally green, no 03:01.200 --> 03:02.500 oxygen moving through my blood. 03:02.580 --> 03:04.800 I think that's only four transfusions. 03:04.980 --> 03:07.080 I needed 10, about four in. 03:07.240 --> 03:09.020 I was feeling a heck of a lot better. 03:09.740 --> 03:11.240 But this is an issue. 03:11.240 --> 03:15.700 Should I have the right to have blood for my wife and people that I know? 03:16.120 --> 03:16.960 Should it take? 03:17.260 --> 03:23.000 Why is it that concierge medicine is much more available in Mexico than it is 03:23.000 --> 03:24.920 here in the United States of America? 03:25.400 --> 03:28.280 These are questions that are being asked right now, and they're very 03:28.280 --> 03:33.320 important for all of us, whether it's about a vaccine issue or some other 03:33.320 --> 03:34.560 blood issue may have. 03:34.940 --> 03:38.380 This is a recent hearing on a law in Texas. 03:38.620 --> 03:39.280 Take a look at this. 03:39.840 --> 03:42.800 Blood is not something most people think about until they need it. 03:43.080 --> 03:46.660 And yet one in 70 people will require a transfusion each year. 03:46.780 --> 03:51.080 So this is no small thing, especially if you have a chronic disease like 03:51.080 --> 03:54.260 these girls have or a condition that requires transfusions regularly. 03:54.780 --> 03:58.120 In situations where someone has a rare blood type or 03:58.120 --> 04:02.460 particular blood disease, often it can be difficult to find high quality 04:02.460 --> 04:06.180 blood that may be necessary for them to receive a transfusion. 04:06.180 --> 04:08.660 My daughter sitting here next to me were born with a rare blood 04:08.660 --> 04:10.440 disorder called beta thalassemia major. 04:10.700 --> 04:13.000 It's a disease where they do not make any blood of their own and 04:13.000 --> 04:15.960 they require transfusions every month for the rest of their lives. 04:16.180 --> 04:18.560 I was born in China with a disease called thalassemia. 04:18.800 --> 04:21.700 I had to live in an orphanage until my parents could come and bring me home. 04:22.600 --> 04:24.560 When I first got home I was really, really sick. 04:24.800 --> 04:27.580 Every two weeks I had to go to the hospital to get blood. 04:27.940 --> 04:31.260 I still felt awful, but then we found some incredible donors 04:31.260 --> 04:32.920 who matched me exactly. 04:33.480 --> 04:38.380 I started getting super fresh blood. 04:38.760 --> 04:42.480 After I started getting blood from those wonderful people everything got better. 04:42.800 --> 04:45.560 I was adopted from China when I was 30 years old. 04:45.620 --> 04:49.640 Sadly when I got adopted I was very sick because the orphanage I was in 04:49.640 --> 04:51.120 couldn't take me to go get blood. 04:51.600 --> 04:54.880 I was adopted after my sister when I got my first transfusion. 04:55.200 --> 04:57.780 They found out I have harder blood to match than my sister. 04:58.140 --> 05:00.520 One time they gave me bad blood that didn't match exactly 05:00.520 --> 05:02.380 and I had a bad reaction. 05:02.740 --> 05:05.000 I couldn't breathe and I had bumps all over me. 05:05.300 --> 05:09.320 After that happened my mom told the doctors I was gonna get special blood like my sister. 05:09.740 --> 05:13.240 It was hard to find my special blood but my mom finally found enough 05:13.240 --> 05:15.900 and after that I stopped getting sick at the time too. 05:16.120 --> 05:20.520 Direct donation is the collection of blood with the intention of it going 05:20.520 --> 05:22.660 to a specific individual. 05:23.360 --> 05:27.520 Unfortunately many hospitals and blood banks are recently refusing to fulfill 05:28.920 --> 05:34.960 position prescribed and ordered autologous and direct donations despite the fact 05:34.960 --> 05:38.720 that they are legal safe and have a long history of prior use. 05:39.180 --> 05:41.580 Two years ago our lives got turned upside down. 05:41.900 --> 05:45.040 Carter blood care called me out of the blue and told me that our donors could no 05:45.040 --> 05:46.820 longer donate blood to our girls anymore. 05:47.240 --> 05:50.060 Even though for the past 10 years they had agreed to let us do that. 05:50.280 --> 05:53.520 Almost immediately after their first transfusion with anonymous blood 05:53.520 --> 05:55.860 their health rapidly began to decline. 05:55.860 --> 05:58.500 It was so awful. I slept all summer long. 05:58.880 --> 06:01.160 I had itches. I itched all the time. 06:01.520 --> 06:05.320 I had terrible sores in my mouth and I even told my mom I couldn't live like this anymore 06:05.320 --> 06:07.620 which made my mom cry every day. 06:08.160 --> 06:11.620 When they took our donors away two years ago I got super scared. 06:11.940 --> 06:15.640 They've got super sick and I just was too tired to do anything. 06:16.040 --> 06:17.840 All I wanted to do was sleep. 06:18.160 --> 06:21.760 I prayed and prayed every day that we would get our special blood again. 06:22.040 --> 06:25.180 There's a growing number of situations where entities within the blood donation 06:25.180 --> 06:29.560 industry have made the business financial decision to override the doctor's order 06:29.560 --> 06:33.600 for the directed donor blood effectively keeping the doctor from practicing medicine 06:33.600 --> 06:35.840 in the best interest of their patient. 06:36.040 --> 06:39.900 We had to change blood banks, hospitals and doctors which was a little scary 06:39.900 --> 06:42.660 but I got my special blood back. Now I feel great. 06:42.940 --> 06:45.480 For the past 18 months the girls have gotten their direct donors back 06:45.480 --> 06:46.840 and they've absolutely thrived. 06:47.280 --> 06:51.320 It's mind-blowing to see the positive changes in them compared to 2023. 06:51.560 --> 06:53.760 I'm in the junior high. I play volleyball and basketball. 06:53.760 --> 06:59.160 I'm a cheerleader and I have enough energy to run track this year. 06:59.680 --> 07:01.580 No one at my school would ever know I have plasma. 07:02.020 --> 07:04.960 I'm so happy and I feel like a normal kid now. 07:05.180 --> 07:09.520 I love gymnastics but probably the best part about getting my special blood back 07:09.520 --> 07:15.320 is having the energy to annoy my family with my constant giggling and goofiness. 07:15.860 --> 07:17.060 I also talk a lot. 07:17.620 --> 07:22.240 The worst part about not getting my special blood was seeing my mom cry and worry so much. 07:22.240 --> 07:24.560 I don't ever want to go through that again. 07:25.800 --> 07:29.700 Well obviously a very important hearing. I am joined now. 07:29.840 --> 07:32.300 It's my honor and pleasure to be joined by Liz James 07:32.300 --> 07:35.460 who is the founder and president of Blessed by His Blood 07:36.100 --> 07:40.240 and Tanya Lair, the mother of the two beautiful kids that we saw there. 07:40.460 --> 07:42.300 Tanya, Liz, thank you for joining me. 07:42.380 --> 07:43.260 Thank you for having us. 07:43.760 --> 07:48.060 Liz, you know, I think about back in the movies, 07:48.060 --> 07:52.580 car accident, you know, television shows, people would be like, oh, you know, 07:52.700 --> 07:56.560 find neighbors and friends that had the right blood type so that you could donate 07:57.160 --> 08:01.140 blood and help the person out. The system seems to have changed. 08:01.300 --> 08:07.100 But tell me a little bit about, before we get started, your company blessed by His Blood. 08:07.560 --> 08:08.440 What is it? 08:08.700 --> 08:11.600 So we are, we, and first of all, thank you for having us today. 08:12.080 --> 08:14.740 We are a hundred percent not for profit cooperative. 08:14.740 --> 08:19.100 Meaning, we know there are no, there's nobody that gets a salary or, 08:19.220 --> 08:23.000 or any benefit from this other than we know we're doing the right thing. 08:23.340 --> 08:28.400 And what we do is we match donors and recipients for people who have chosen to 08:28.400 --> 08:32.740 abstain from mRNA technology. And we are nationwide. 08:33.360 --> 08:36.800 So nationwide, if you want, if you need a blood transmission, 08:37.000 --> 08:39.240 you match people that have the same blood type? 08:39.300 --> 08:39.880 Is that essentially what works? 08:39.880 --> 08:43.260 Correct. We work within our cooperative membership. 08:43.260 --> 08:50.660 And we're, we're a faith based, although you don't have to be of Christian faith to be a member. 08:51.180 --> 08:56.060 But we are modeled after John 1513, which is no man has greater love than to give his life for 08:56.060 --> 08:59.940 his friend. And we jokingly say, you're not giving your life or just giving a pint of blood 08:59.940 --> 09:05.640 in a couple hours of your time. And we just had some really beautiful stories 09:06.280 --> 09:12.020 come out in the last two and a half years since we've, since we've been doing this. 09:12.560 --> 09:16.920 You know, I never would have thought I would need a, you know, a company like yours or a 09:16.920 --> 09:20.600 nonprofit like yours until, you know, I went through the health crisis that I did. 09:20.980 --> 09:25.140 Tanya, what was this debate that's taking place about? 09:25.620 --> 09:32.180 So basically when we adopted our two daughters, we found directed donors who had been donating 09:32.180 --> 09:36.680 blood for our girls for 10 years. And there was zero issues. The girls were thriving. 09:36.860 --> 09:40.300 They were healthy. They were doing great. They were actually healthier than other 09:40.300 --> 09:44.820 patients who have the same blood disorder in the YDFW area because of what we were doing. 09:45.620 --> 09:49.500 And without reason, suddenly one day they called me up and said, hey, 09:50.000 --> 09:53.160 sorry, your direct donors can no longer donate blood for your daughters. 09:53.640 --> 09:59.120 There was no explanation as to why. No, nothing, just you're cut off into sorry. 09:59.680 --> 10:04.300 And so this bill that we were created that Liz actually went to, 10:04.380 --> 10:06.240 we hadn't even met each other. I didn't even know there was a bill. 10:07.040 --> 10:13.760 She was fighting for this right to, you know, something that we've had in this country since 10:13.760 --> 10:19.940 1980. She was fighting for this bill and for all people who need chronic transfusions or 10:19.940 --> 10:24.860 if anyone needs a transfusion from, you know, an operation or if they have cancer or anything, 10:25.200 --> 10:28.640 that they would be allowed to choose their donor, which we have been doing since the 80s 10:28.640 --> 10:33.060 in this country. Are there states where, you know, like here in Texas, what are you 10:33.060 --> 10:39.080 actually fighting for? It's really not a state by state problem. It's a, it tends to be a blood 10:39.080 --> 10:46.840 center by blood center problem. And what we have is, is even a corporate entity making 10:46.840 --> 10:53.140 medical decisions in a blanket way. And so one size fits all, which is what I'm completely 10:53.140 --> 11:00.420 against. This is, this is exactly right. And not just that, but taking away the right 11:00.420 --> 11:08.460 for the doctor to practice medicine as they best see fit, as well as the patient's own rights. 11:09.220 --> 11:14.900 I mean, if you're, if you're saying you have, you do not have the right to choose and you're 11:14.900 --> 11:20.600 stuck between a rock and a hard place, the hard place and the rock being if you don't receive 11:20.600 --> 11:27.360 a transfusion, you will die. That's, that is quite a conundrum. And, and it's also not, 11:27.360 --> 11:33.600 not a great time to have to make that decision. I mean, you're under stress already. And one of the, 11:33.680 --> 11:39.480 one of the things that, that doctors should be doing and any, anybody in healthcare should be 11:39.480 --> 11:45.720 doing is creating less stress in a patient, not more stress. If you're in a car wreck and you're 11:45.720 --> 11:50.720 bleeding out, you're going to get whatever you're going to get, you know, unless you have 11:50.720 --> 11:54.320 something on that says you're a Jehovah's Witness or something like that, which the 11:54.320 --> 11:58.860 Jehovah's Witness, and there's a, there's a protocol called the Jehovah's Witness Protocol. 11:59.380 --> 12:04.120 But if you're Jehovah's Witness... What is that protocol? I'm curious how do they survive a 12:04.120 --> 12:09.700 situation like that? Well, in some cases they don't, but they're at, they absolutely do not 12:09.700 --> 12:17.900 take tissue or blood. But as anybody else in the public can also opt into the Jehovah's 12:17.900 --> 12:23.860 Witness Protocol and the Jehovah's Witness Protocol is, is a little bit different depending 12:23.860 --> 12:30.280 on the situation is, because the question is why do you need blood? So for somebody like Faith or 12:30.280 --> 12:39.320 Mele, who don't make red blood cells, it's not, it would not behoove them to receive an erythropoietin 12:39.320 --> 12:44.260 promoting product that would, that would promote the production of red blood cells because their 12:44.260 --> 12:49.620 body doesn't make it. But there are other things that they might be able to do, not for the 12:49.620 --> 12:54.620 girls because they have a very specific problem going on. But for somebody who's going through 12:54.620 --> 13:02.760 chemotherapy or who has anemia, there's trans-examic acid, there's platelet producing drugs, 13:03.480 --> 13:08.160 there's iron infusions, there's, there are lots of other things that can be done 13:08.160 --> 13:15.440 depending on the individual. So, and you can ask for those things too. There's 13:15.440 --> 13:23.620 a radial embolization which, which, where they can embolize certain vessels. There's also something 13:23.620 --> 13:30.440 called cell saver technology where you can, if you know that you're going into a surgery, they can 13:30.440 --> 13:36.680 actually harvest the blood as you're bleeding out, clean it in like kind of a dialysis cleaning 13:36.680 --> 13:42.480 situation through a perfusionist, and then put it back in. That's actually the safest way 13:42.480 --> 13:47.500 you can receive a transfusion is for them to clean your own blood and just put it right back in again. 13:47.540 --> 13:51.520 Interesting. What is the argument that's being made? I mean, your daughters are giving this 13:51.520 --> 13:57.620 incredible testimony. What argument's being made? No, sorry, you know, young ladies. 13:59.000 --> 14:05.460 So, if you watch the rest of the hearing, you can hear, because all of the politicians asked 14:05.460 --> 14:12.100 these people from that particular blood bank, why? And their biggest thing that they said is 14:12.480 --> 14:18.520 well, people lie. And the people that are, people lie. Directed donor blood is not safer 14:18.520 --> 14:26.060 than the voluntary blood donors that we have. They have a two to seven times higher risk of 14:26.060 --> 14:30.640 infectious diseases. And the critical elements when you donate blood is to fill out a donor 14:30.640 --> 14:37.160 questionnaire and also the testing that we do. But directed donors are incentivized to donate 14:37.160 --> 14:44.880 and they have been found to be more likely to not be truthful on that donor questionnaire. 14:45.760 --> 14:51.000 Now we do test all blood for infectious diseases, but there are window periods for each infectious 14:51.000 --> 14:58.440 disease. HIV and hepatitis C, 10 days, hepatitis B up to 24 days. So it's possible for donor to 14:58.440 --> 15:03.100 be infected with these viruses and not test positive. That's where this donor questionnaire 15:03.100 --> 15:10.220 becomes very, very important because we're evaluating the risk. So if a donor is incentivized 15:10.220 --> 15:15.500 to donate, they may not be truthful. And this is why you see the increased risk of directed 15:15.500 --> 15:22.940 donor blood. And so the people that are closest to you are motivated to donate for you. 15:23.380 --> 15:29.800 And so they're going to lie about their extracurricular habits. And that is just wild to 15:29.800 --> 15:35.320 me because let me just tell you who our donors are. Whenever we brought the girls home and they 15:35.320 --> 15:41.620 were not thriving, our hematologist at the time actually came to us and said, listen, your girls 15:41.620 --> 15:46.480 have rare antigens on their blood. They're difficult to match. And we don't always have a bag sitting 15:46.480 --> 15:51.000 on the shelf ready to give one of your girls. And if we do, sometimes the bag that they have 15:51.000 --> 15:56.560 is going to expire the next day. So if you give a patient a bag of blood that is fixed 15:56.560 --> 16:00.400 and to expire, you're giving them empty red blood cells that do them absolutely no good. 16:00.860 --> 16:05.140 And all you do is create iron overload, which is a big problem for chronically transfused patients 16:05.140 --> 16:08.880 because iron collects in every major organ that you have. And there's absolutely no way to get 16:08.880 --> 16:14.060 the iron out except to bleed or take really dangerous key later major medications. So she said, 16:14.160 --> 16:19.320 if you find some donors that match your daughters exactly, then we can solve this problem 16:19.320 --> 16:23.220 because they can go in and donate the week before. We'll always have the blood on hand. 16:23.220 --> 16:29.300 It'll be fresh and they'll do great. And so I had a mission and I did it. So I didn't ask 16:29.300 --> 16:34.660 close friends and family. I did a Facebook poll that was public. And I asked people if they 16:34.660 --> 16:38.760 had any kind of calling to come do something good for these little girls who were not thriving 16:38.760 --> 16:43.680 to help us. People came out of the woodwork because at the core of every human being, 16:44.120 --> 16:50.600 we all are created to do good. And so people genuinely, I feel, want to be good people 16:50.600 --> 16:54.800 deep down, everybody. And so these strangers came out of the... 16:54.800 --> 16:59.380 You believe in humanity too. It's got the whole point of my perspective today. 16:59.840 --> 17:04.700 And so these people came out of the woodworks to help us. And we tested hundreds of donors 17:05.240 --> 17:09.980 and we didn't find hundreds of donors, but we did test that many. And we found a few that 17:09.980 --> 17:13.800 matched exactly, which was really, really hard to do. And it didn't happen overnight. 17:14.040 --> 17:17.400 It took us a while to find these donors. But these donors faithfully, 17:17.400 --> 17:21.120 some of them I have yet to this day to meet them face to face. 17:21.500 --> 17:28.000 And I don't have any money. I have seven children. We don't have gifts to give people. 17:28.440 --> 17:32.920 So I just thank you so much for everything that you're doing for us. That is the text 17:32.920 --> 17:37.980 message I send and it's genuine and they know it and that is it. They've never met my girls 17:37.980 --> 17:42.840 and they don't care. They genuinely want to help our kids and that's it. But this 17:42.840 --> 17:47.840 blood bank says that, oh, well, they're going to lie. What's interesting and I'm just going to add 17:47.840 --> 17:54.840 this is that I was writing up here with Liz and she got a phone call from a blood bank and 17:55.640 --> 18:01.100 they said, hey, we know you donated a couple of weeks ago, but we need some platelets. 18:01.260 --> 18:05.440 There is a shortage of platelets. We'll give you two $30 gift cards if you'll come do it 18:05.440 --> 18:09.800 right now, right now. We need it right now. And if you do that, we're also going to put 18:09.800 --> 18:14.500 your name in a hat. We're all expense paid vacation trip to for two to the Super Bowl. 18:15.000 --> 18:20.760 Yep. Come on. Come on. Let's do it. And she said, you know, she couldn't and why not? 18:21.420 --> 18:27.600 But you need to. And so like they were pretty pushy. Yeah. And I actually get that call 18:27.600 --> 18:31.980 about every three or four weeks. But what's crazy is that they're incentivizing 18:32.520 --> 18:37.200 anonymous donors. They're incentivizing everybody. The entire process is anonymous. 18:37.200 --> 18:42.320 The fact that you'd lie is though somehow that lie is going to permeate the blood that's going to 18:42.320 --> 18:48.120 be tested for all the issues. Anyway, it's going to go through the same blood test as anyone 18:48.120 --> 18:54.100 else. And why is why is anyone that knows you or doesn't have any greater propensity to lie 18:54.100 --> 18:59.340 than someone that's trying to pick up some a ticket. But that says to me, there's huge 18:59.340 --> 19:03.080 funding behind it. There's something bigger than what we're seeing. This isn't just about, 19:03.080 --> 19:10.160 oh, we're a blood company. We want to help people donate blood. Where's the cash cow that I'm not 19:10.160 --> 19:17.480 seeing? So this is very important. This is what people don't understand. I think blood is maybe 19:17.480 --> 19:24.200 the only industry where somebody is giving something away altruistically and it is turned 19:24.200 --> 19:31.580 and sold. And the United States supplies 70% of the world's blood products. 19:32.300 --> 19:37.840 Around the rest of the world. 70% of the world's blood products. In terms of commodity, 19:38.140 --> 19:44.400 it's ahead of gold and coal. Really? That is correct. And in addition to that, 19:45.320 --> 19:50.540 only about 20% of blood total that's collected in a community actually stays in the community. 19:51.000 --> 19:58.460 But it's not just sold overseas. It's sold to Big Pharma and it's sold for research. And the 19:58.460 --> 20:04.640 Big Pharma component is really interesting. And I have quite a lot of experience in it. I'm a pharmacist. 20:05.480 --> 20:16.320 I realized back in about 2012, the biologics, which is a class of pharmaceuticals that is 20:16.320 --> 20:24.800 the fastest growing, most profitable aspect of pharmaceuticals that we have now, 20:25.630 --> 20:33.480 about 10 to 20% of those biologics are actually made from human blood. And that in itself is 20:33.480 --> 20:40.460 concerning because it's not just, if I give blood, it's not just my blood going into one person's 20:40.460 --> 20:49.740 pharmaceuticals. It's batched in vats. And so it's literally untrackable. And that creates 20:49.740 --> 20:57.980 a whole other set of problems. So when people donate blood, how much value can that have? 20:58.100 --> 21:03.900 They're giving away football tickets. Do we have a sense of overseas? Is blood worth more 21:03.900 --> 21:11.900 than it is here? That is very interesting. So contract prices and the blood industry is very 21:11.900 --> 21:20.200 tight-lipped on pricing. I have been able to acquire some pricing from various hospitals. 21:21.160 --> 21:29.360 And on average, a contract pricing runs about $700 a bag. But if I'm donating to you and it's a direct 21:29.360 --> 21:37.900 donor situation, that barcode bag belongs to you. If it's an anonymous donor bag, they can look 21:37.900 --> 21:45.080 at my bag and say, oh, there's something unique about this bag. I have, like all of these antigens, 21:45.300 --> 21:54.280 perhaps I'm unvaccinated, whatever. I know I will only get $700 by giving it to you, Dell, 21:54.620 --> 22:03.100 or I can make $4,000 because of these unique properties by donating to this pharmaceutical 22:03.660 --> 22:09.060 company who is looking for those particular things or somebody overseas or whatever. 22:09.500 --> 22:16.260 On top of that, I will say I was at an event a few months ago talking to a doctor and one of 22:16.260 --> 22:22.120 her patients had gone overseas to have her procedure done. She said that she wanted unvaccinated 22:22.120 --> 22:29.040 blood on standby. And they said, well, that will be an additional $70,000. So I don't know, 22:29.040 --> 22:36.940 that's an anecdotal story, but she came back with that information. So that, if true, and I 22:36.940 --> 22:44.360 believe it probably is, if true, that says that, of course, all blood is different. I mean, and 22:44.360 --> 22:48.960 there are... So when you go and donate blood, they're studying it and it starts getting categorized 22:48.960 --> 22:52.940 into having different sexual needs. That's exactly right. I'm curious with your daughters, 22:52.940 --> 22:59.440 you said that once they went on to sort of the pooled blood, if you will, like not direct donor, 22:59.660 --> 23:05.660 that they started having health issues. What is wrong? Why is that blood not as good? Do you 23:05.660 --> 23:12.280 know where it's coming from or why they would be having health issues? According to where they 23:12.280 --> 23:17.140 were going, they said that they matched it down to the last antigen. So I hope that they 23:17.140 --> 23:23.660 did, but I did read the expiration dates of the bags because I was very curious at that time what it 23:23.660 --> 23:28.120 was. And the expiration date on one of the bags was two days from the day we got it, even though they 23:28.120 --> 23:32.540 assured me that they were going to have the freshest blood available and they didn't. And so 23:32.540 --> 23:37.520 for a person who gets chronically transfused, you need the freshest blood. You also need 23:37.520 --> 23:41.960 blood from a healthy donor. So another thing we have in our population is the most people 23:41.960 --> 23:47.020 that donate blood are usually over the age of 65. And why is that? It's because you're retired and 23:47.020 --> 23:51.280 you're like, you know what? I got nothing better to do. I want to give back, okay? But the 20, 23:51.400 --> 23:56.060 30 and 40 year olds don't typically go donate. Why? Because they're busy. They're working. They 23:56.060 --> 24:00.360 don't want to take two hours out of their day to drive and then sit there and then have to drink 24:00.360 --> 24:04.500 some juice and do all the things you have to donate. It's just not convenient. And so 24:05.420 --> 24:11.080 those are the people that don't donate. So basically when we got a bag of blood that was 24:11.080 --> 24:15.420 anonymous, I don't know who it came from, you know, but the girls hemoglobin was tanking. 24:15.840 --> 24:20.620 And so a pre-transfusion hemoglobin for my girls, for them to actually be able to thrive, 24:20.780 --> 24:25.820 needs to be above 10. Those was coming in at seven. That's not compatible with any quality 24:25.820 --> 24:29.820 of life whatsoever. A normal hemoglobin for a person who does not have a blood disease 24:29.820 --> 24:35.920 for a female is about 13. For a male is 14 or higher. So they had no quality of life. 24:35.920 --> 24:40.620 So they laid around all of it all summer long. One of my daughters got fever blisters. Well, 24:40.640 --> 24:44.840 that comes from a particular virus. That virus is not one of the viruses that's 24:44.840 --> 24:49.900 true. Somebody lied. Yeah. It's not one that's tested. It's not one that's tested. So there's, 24:49.900 --> 24:53.880 you know, there's certain diseases that they test for in the blood, but there's a lot of 24:53.880 --> 25:00.360 them that they don't. And the CEO of this particular blood bank that we were having issues 25:00.360 --> 25:07.440 with went on stage and said there is a 10-day window for HIV that we don't know if someone 25:07.440 --> 25:14.400 donates. There is a 12 to 14 day for hepatitis C and there's a 24-day window for hepatitis B. 25:15.040 --> 25:19.060 And that is a random donor off the street who decides, I want to go do a good thing today 25:19.060 --> 25:23.840 and donate. My donors have been doing this for 10 years. So if they had one of those problems, 25:23.840 --> 25:28.300 they would have been screened out by now. So their arguments are completely invalid. 25:28.300 --> 25:34.420 They make absolutely no sense. They also argued that it was so expensive, like this is so much 25:34.420 --> 25:40.040 more expensive to do this. And, you know, basically they're tagging with a special little tag 25:40.040 --> 25:46.220 and they're putting it on a shelf. And the blood that goes to the hospitals, blood goes to 25:46.220 --> 25:50.680 hospitals all the time. So you're not hiring an extra courier or paying those fees or anything. 25:51.020 --> 25:55.960 So there's no extra cost. The only extra cost that I had in that particular situation is 25:55.960 --> 26:04.780 they made me pay $111 to donate my own blood with a money order. I could not do a credit card, 26:05.100 --> 26:10.180 a check, or anything. How to be a money order? Well, obviously this is something that I think 26:10.180 --> 26:15.360 we all need to be focused on. Again, this is just about, I think, sort of corporate capture 26:15.360 --> 26:19.800 of things that we think should just be wide open and free, especially here in the United States 26:19.800 --> 26:26.880 of America. How do people follow the work that they just go to? It's www.blessedbyhisblood.com. 26:27.220 --> 26:30.820 Okay, awesome. Look, if you guys will stick around, I'd love to have an off the record. 26:30.960 --> 26:35.420 I'd love to know what it's like to adopt out of China. That's got to be quite a ride in sort of 26:35.420 --> 26:38.860 what inspired you to start. Thank you. Blessed by His Blood. I want to thank you for joining 26:38.860 --> 26:40.920 us today. Thank you for having us. Thank you very much. Absolutely.