Part One: How Tainted Human Blood Became A Major U.S. Export

Summary

Behind the Bastards: Part One – How Tainted Human Blood Became A Major U.S. Export

Release Date: March 25, 2025 | Host: Robert Evans | Guest: Ben Bolin | Production: Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts

---

Introduction

In the premiere episode of Behind the Bastards, host Robert Evans welcomes guest Ben Bolin to delve into the dark underbelly of the U.S. blood industry. The conversation swiftly transitions from light-hearted banter to the unsettling reality of how human blood became a significant export commodity, particularly through exploitative practices within the Arkansas prison system.

The Scale of the U.S. Blood Industry

Robert Evans opens by highlighting the staggering economic footprint of the blood industry in the United States. "Blood is the 9th largest export for the entire United States" (02:55), surpassed only by commodities like coal. The U.S. supplies approximately 70% of the global demand for blood plasma used in medicine, positioning it as the world's leading exporter of blood products (04:09). This export is valued at around $37 billion, constituting 1.8% of all U.S. exports—a significant increase from a decade prior.

Evolution of Blood Transfusions and Blood Products

The discussion traces the history of blood transfusions, noting early, often ineffective attempts in the 17th century. By the mid-19th century, advancements led to more successful transfusions, though challenges like blood type compatibility remained unresolved. "The first successful transfusion is generally listed as 1818... It was done by a British doctor treating a postpartum hemorrhage" (16:00). Over time, the medical community learned to separate blood into components like plasma, which became essential for treatments such as factor VIII for hemophiliacs, significantly increasing their life expectancy (17:36).

Problems with Paid Blood Donations

Despite blood being a cornerstone of modern medicine, the supply has historically been insufficient, leading to a commodification of blood. Evans explains that the scarcity drives companies to seek blood from marginalized populations, including the poor, homeless, IV drug users, and prisoners. "There's never just enough donations. Now, there's some reasons for that... but even if you were to solve for those problems, there's still never going to be enough of this stuff" (23:44).

Exploitation within the Arkansas Prison System

A focal point of the episode is the exploitation of inmates in Arkansas for blood donations. In the late 1960s, companies like Health Education Consultants (later HMA) began leveraging the prison population due to legal loopholes and minimal oversight. "Arkansas prisons don't allow inmates to work for money. So the blood donation program is going to become the only way Arkansas prison inmates can get cash" (41:23). This system was further entrenched by the involvement of Governor Bill Clinton and his associates, who facilitated contracts that allowed for-profit companies to manage prison health services, including plasma donations.

Unethical Practices and Health Risks

Significant misconduct plagued the Arkansas plasma program. Former inmate donor John Schock testified to receiving hepatitis C through the plasma donation process, asserting, "I am damn sure I got it. Hepatitis C in the prison. I didn't have it before I went in" (56:36). The reuse of needles to cut costs not only increased the risk of disease transmission but also compromised the integrity of the blood supply. Additionally, there were allegations of guards trading drugs for plasma donations, pressuring inmates to donate under duress.

Regulatory Failures and Cover-Ups

Despite mounting evidence of malpractice, regulatory bodies exhibited lax oversight. The FDA's non-binding recommendations in the early 1980s did little to curb the unethical practices. When HMA's operations were exposed in 1984 for distributing tainted plasma, the response was insufficient. "An investigation revealed that the program allowed disqualified donors to bleed, altered records, and stored plasma in ways that didn't prevent contamination" (50:58). Instead of dismantling the exploitative systems, associations within the prison system continued to prioritize profits over safety, often shielding offenders and perpetuating the cycle of exploitation.

Involvement of Clinton Associates

The episode underscores the political entanglements that sustained the blood plasma industry in Arkansas. Leonard Dunn, a banker with close ties to Governor Clinton, was appointed to significant positions that allowed him to influence and protect the plasma program. Moreover, Don Smith, HMA's attorney, was appointed to the Board of Corrections, ensuring continued profitability despite the evident risks and ethical breaches.

Consequences and Broader Implications

The exploitation of prison inmates for blood donations had far-reaching consequences, including the spread of infectious diseases both within prisons and globally through exported blood products. "Treating these people like shit causes problems outside of them, even if you don't care about that group of people" (57:57). The episode emphasizes that such systemic abuses not only harm the vulnerable populations directly involved but also compromise public health on a broader scale.

Conclusion and Cliffhanger

As the episode draws to a close, Robert and Ben reflect on the intertwined nature of societal systems and the pervasive impact of greed-driven exploitation. They hint at further revelations in the next part of the series, leaving listeners eager to uncover the full extent of the blood industry's dark history.

"That's going to be in part two. How you feeling, Ben?" (70:28)

---

Notable Quotes

• Robert Evans (02:55): "Blood is the 9th largest export for the entire United States."

• John Schock (56:36): "I am damn sure I got it. Hepatitis C in the prison. I didn't have it before I went in."

• Robert Evans (57:57): "Treating these people like shit causes problems outside of them, even if you don't care about that group of people."

---

Key Takeaways

1. Economic Impact: The U.S. blood industry is a multi-billion-dollar sector, ranking as the 9th largest exporter globally, predominantly driven by plasma exports essential for medical treatments worldwide.

2. Exploitation and Ethics: The scarcity of blood donations led to the exploitation of vulnerable populations, especially inmates in Arkansas, facilitated by political figures including Governor Clinton and his associates.

3. Health Risks: Unethical practices, such as reusing needles and insufficient screening, resulted in the spread of bloodborne diseases like hepatitis and HIV, compromising both inmates' health and global blood safety.

4. Regulatory Failures: Lax oversight and non-binding regulations allowed exploitative practices to flourish, with significant cover-ups preventing accountability and perpetuating the cycle of abuse.

5. Broader Implications: The systemic mistreatment of marginalized groups for blood donations not only harms the individuals involved but also threatens public health on a global scale, highlighting the interconnectedness of societal injustices.

---

Looking Forward

Behind the Bastards sets the stage for a deeper exploration into the systemic failures and individual malfeasance that allowed the tainted blood industry to flourish. Part Two promises to unravel the consequences and the intricate web of corruption that sustained these unethical practices, ensuring listeners remain engaged and informed about this dark chapter in medical and economic history.

Transcript

[Robert Evans]

Call Zone Media. Oh, my God. Welcome back to behind the Bastards, a podcast where me and my guest for this week, the great Ben Bolan, are about to get targeted and murdered by the Clinton crime family. Ben, how are you doing today?

[Ben Bolin]

Finally.

[Robert Evans]

You know what I mean? Finally. Yes.

[Ben Bolin]

We've been.

[Robert Evans]

We've been living the dream. Dying the dream. Yes.

[Ben Bolin]

Here we go. Yeah, it's great to. It's great to be back. It's great to hang out with you. I was thinking of you and the team recently, because I don't know whether you recall, Robert, but, lo, these many years ago, when you were just beginning a podcast called behind the Bastards, you graced us with an appearance, a cameo, dropped a hot 16 on a show we do called Ridiculous History.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Ben Bolin]

Do you remember that?

[Robert Evans]

I do remember that, yes. About the governor of or one of the founders of Oregon, if I'm not mistaken.

[Ben Bolin]

You're right. Yes. Oregon originated as a supremacist paradise.

[Robert Evans]

Well, today we're not talking about that, although we are talking about something where racism is involved. We're talking about. I wasn't entirely joking about the Clintons. They are intricately involved in this story, or at least Bill is. But, Ben, what do you know about the blood industry?

[Ben Bolin]

Do you mean like Ben Bolan, HOST.

[Robert Evans]

Of Stuff they Don't Want you to Know and Ridiculous History and a bunch of other stuff? You mentioned one of them, yes.

[Ben Bolin]

Like, as a fan or just the industry overall?

[Robert Evans]

So you are a fan of blood. You're a big blood guy.

[Ben Bolin]

Yeah, that's what people say about me.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, who doesn't? I enjoy having roughly 5 liters of blood in my body.

[Ben Bolin]

That's what everybody says about you, bud.

[Robert Evans]

Every time I'm in or adjacent to a shooting, I think, boy, it's great having all of my blood still inside of me. Yeah.

[Ben Bolin]

I also love, you know, like any other dampier, I am a huge supporter of blood donations.

[Robert Evans]

Huge supporter. Yes. And that's what we're kind of talking about today, because there's some problem donating blood. There's this great story that's going around because the fellow just died of this lovely elderly Australian man who found out that he had a rare blood factor that was crucial in making a medicine that millions of babies needed to live. So he just donated blood for, like, decades, saving, like, two and a half million babies. That's great. Donating blood. Great blood as a commodity is what we're talking about here. And there's some deeply problematic aspects of it. And I wanted to start by saying, where do you think blood lies on the list of US Exports by value?

[Ben Bolin]

Ooh, by value. Not by, not by liquid weight. Okay.

[Robert Evans]

No, no. Blood and blood products. How much chunk of the US Economy do you think that would.

[Ben Bolin]

Clever, clever question, Robert, because that would factor in things like plasma, right? Not just whole blood.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Ben Bolin]

Okay. So with that I would. Gosh, it's a difficult question. It's a difficult question. I don't know the answer.

[Robert Evans]

It is the 9th largest export for the entire United States.

[Ben Bolin]

Holy shit.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. It beats like coal. Blood is a massive industry in the United States. It is like, again, it's one of our largest exports. Blood products make up 1.8% of all US exports, which is up about half a percent from where it was 10 years ago. And blood exports are valued at about $37 billion. Like it's, it's, it's much larger. I did not realize when I started how big a, like that's a significant piece of the economy.

[Ben Bolin]

That's top 10.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. That's top 10. Yes.

[Ben Bolin]

Oh, man.

[Robert Evans]

And here's the thing that's like shocking when you just like, I never would have thought of when I, when I, if I had been asked to, like, guess the 10 largest exports, blood wouldn't have been on my list. But here's the thing. The United States provides 70% of the blood plasma used worldwide to make medicine. The plasma. Yes. Yes. 70% of all blood plasma used on the planet in medicine comes from here. We are the largest exporter of blood products on the planet. And no one else comes very close.

[Ben Bolin]

Go usa.

[Robert Evans]

To an extent. Yes. And this is one of those things where we're talking about how messed up a lot of this industry is. It's not like some messed up industries where it's like, well, maybe we don't all need this product that the US Puts out, or maybe there's alternatives to this product that has harmful consequences. Everyone really, we do really need a lot of blood and blood products. It's very important for medicine, a crucial part of keeping people alive. So you can't deny. It's not like there's no argument to be made that like, we don't need to be producing all of this blood. Somebody fucking has to. The problem is that whenever you've got an industry this big, you're going to find people try to find ways to maximize their profits and minimize their costs. And when you're talking about blood, that's gonna lead you to do some fucked up shit that has some hideous consequences. Right?

[Ben Bolin]

Yes.

[Robert Evans]

And that's the story that we're telling today. This week's episode is going to explain why and how a huge chunk of the global blood economy came to rely specifically on a bunch of prison inmates in Arkansas, watched over by a handful of Clinton associates who saw their job is basically a bribe for political loyalty. And how this ultimately killed multiple 9, 11's worth of Canadians, English people, and other folks around the planet. This is a dark story, and it's all set in the Arkansas prison system. And it all starts with this immutable fact, which is that human beings die without blood. The average adult has about 4 to 5 liters of whole blood in their body at any point in time. And while we've always known that, like, you need blood, medical science has tended to focus throughout most of history on, like, maybe people have too much blood. Maybe they have bad blood and you gotta, like, add in good blood to replace losses. It was a messy process of figuring out, like, how blood works. And. Yeah, the first blood transfusion, as far as we know, was attempted in 1628 by an English physician. And I say attempted because it did not work. And I don't think that's a. Like, it was a messy process, you know, trying to figure out how to do this. And they weren't always using human blood. Right. Cause if you're like an early doctor in this period, it might not make the logical thing. Wouldn't be that, like, well, obviously a lamb's blood and a human's blood are fundamentally different, and we shouldn't be putting lamb's blood into people. You might not make that jump. Right, right. It all just looks like blood to me, you know?

[Ben Bolin]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Just like, if you like blood from somebody and somebody who cannot take a donation from them. If you're dealing with 16, you don't know about blood types. How would you. How would that possibly be. Come to you? Yeah.

[Ben Bolin]

You should already get bonus points for recognizing that blood exists. You know what I mean?

[Robert Evans]

If you're aware that the problem is not too much blood, you're doing very well in the 1600s. You're a great doctor in the 1600s. If your immediate jump isn't just like, well, let's cut them and drain a bunch of that shit out. This guy with a sword wound probably has too much blood left in him.

[Ben Bolin]

Yeah, that's the problem. It's like, not only do you have too much blood, but your humors are off, dog. You know what I mean? That's right.

[Robert Evans]

The balance is wrong. You have to think about it like if we took a bunch of computers back to like 900 BC and we showed them how to use the computers, but didn't explain anything about, like, how they worked, people would probably be able to keep some of those things going for a while, but their theories about why different stuff worked would be wild.

[Ben Bolin]

Right? Like we have to sacrifice a certain amount of people.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, yes. The computers demand blood.

[Ben Bolin]

Sometimes if the computer doesn't work, it's because there's too much blood. There's too much blood.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. There would be a whole religion centered around getting, like, Microsoft Outlook to work. And honestly, they might do a better job than we do because Microsoft Outlook never works. Well, I mean, maybe human sacrifice is the answer, Ben.

[Ben Bolin]

Yeah, yeah, maybe we should look out for the Outlook religion.

[Robert Evans]

You know what? I'm gonna get on that one. I've been meaning to have, like, a sacrificial knife made for me so this could end well for everybody. You don't have that? I have a sacrificial knife, but it's not nice enough to fix Microsoft Outlook. Sophie.

[Ben Bolin]

Or do you just have a knife that has occasionally been used for sacrif.

[Robert Evans]

Well, I mean, yeah, actually, this one right here, folks.

[Ben Bolin]

Robert just did. Pull it up. And while, you know it is to his right. It is to his right.

[Robert Evans]

Keep it near me. You never know. You know my motto, Abs, baby, always be sacrificing. You never know when. Which God? You know, Babylonian deities. There's all sorts of gods out there that need blood. You know, whenever I. When I. When I. When I'm more recovered from surgery and I'm back to filming, I gotta show everyone that knife you got me as a surgery present. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a nice one. Yeah.

[Ben Bolin]

Oh, I like a tease.

[Robert Evans]

Ford Bontemski Bowie. It's a really nice knife. Yeah.

[Ben Bolin]

Oh, wow.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, the Kiwis in the audience will be impressed. All you homeowners have unique needs.

[C]

Some feel the need to leave up.

[Robert Evans]

Holiday decorations year round. Others have the need to use their.

[C]

Garage as practice space for their new metal band. And because each homeowner has unique needs.

[Robert Evans]

GEICO helps you get the right coverage for your home and what's in it.

[C]

That way you get exactly what's right.

[Robert Evans]

For you, even if your needs are unique. Get more with Geico.

[C]

If you're anything like me, you probably think of TikTok as a place for cute pet videos, get ready with me's and viral dance trends. But a few years ago, a group of teenage girls used TikTok for an entirely different reason to track down their friend Daisy's killer. I'm Paris Hilton, executive producer of My Friend Daisy, a gripping new true crime podcast that uncovers the shocking murder of 19 year old Daisy De La O. Listen to my friend daisy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts beginning on March 26th.

[D]

Hey, kids, it's me, Kevin Smith.

[Robert Evans]

And it's me, Harley Quinn Smith.

[D]

That's my daughter, man. Who my wife has always said is just a beardless d Ckless version of me. And that's the name of podcast Beardless Me.

[Robert Evans]

I'm the old one, I'm the young one.

[D]

And every week we try to make each other laugh really hard. Sounds innocent, doesn't it? A lot of cussing, a lot of bad language. It's for adults only. Or listen to it with your kid. Could be a family show. We're not quite sure. We're still figuring it out.

[Robert Evans]

It's a work in progress.

[D]

Listen to Beardless me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[E]

Do you remember what you said the first night I came over here?

[Ben Bolin]

Ow. Go slower.

[E]

From Blumhouse TV, iHeart podcasts and Ember 20 comes an all new fictional comedy podcast. Join the flighty Damien Hirst as he unravels the mystery of his vanished boyfriend. I've been spending all my time looking for answers about what happened to Santi and what's the way to find a missing person. Sleep with everyone he knew, obviously. Listen to the hookup on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Robert Evans]

So we didn't get blood transfusion right the first time.

[Ben Bolin]

Not for a bit.

[Robert Evans]

Not for a bit. But by 1655, a physician named Richard Lower had carried out the first successful blood transfusion. Not in humans, but on dogs. He is one of these, like, rare. Much better than that, where he's like, maybe we should just start by trying to replace people's blood. I'm gonna work with dogs, see if I can get that down, you know? And two years later, a French physician and Richard Lower separately carried out successful blood transfusions from lambs to human beings. And I know I just mentioned that that isn't a great idea, and it's not. But it does sort of work sometimes. And it's the kind of thing you will occasionally hear. You know, you can use coconut water for blood transfusions because it's like sterile. And the electrolyte content, it's one of those things, if you look up like Snopes will say, no, this isn't true. I found a scientific study where they did this. They used it for an emergency transfusion. What's going on here when using lambs or coconuts does work, it's not because again, these are good replacements for blood. It's because sometimes when people lose enough blood, the biggest thing is getting enough mass of something that's close enough in there so that their body keeps working. There are, if you use coconut water for transfusions because of, I think the amount of potassium is one problem, there are horrible additional health conflicts it can cause. And the same is true of lamb's blood. But if someone is going to immediately die because they don't have enough blood, sometimes this has been done in order to save them. Right. But it's not a good idea if there's other options. And in fact, once they started using lamb's blood, it became very quickly clear that like people also die because of the consequences of shooting them full of lamb's blood.

[Ben Bolin]

Well, it's also like, you know, a modern comparison, Robert, might be the idea of heart transplants. Right. With non human organs.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Ben Bolin]

Not right not to get too far ahead, but like that's, that's, that's, that's a situation where a current human technology can sort of band aid you, you might make it, you know, a year or so. Yeah, it's not a, it's not a actual facts human heart just like it reminds me of. And I don't, I don't know enough to speak off expertise here, but it reminds me of like that old trick with, with elderly cars, I'll call them vintage cars where if the radiator is fucking up, you can put a couple things in to just keep the radiator going until you get to the gas station. So maybe the lamb's blood thing is like that.

[Robert Evans]

It is a little. And it's also this thing in emergency medicine where there's certain things you're never supposed to do, like use an AED on an infant. That also people do because in the instance in which you would be doing it, the infant is dead. So you can't make it worse. Right. And when we're talking about where the origin of this, of the coconut water thing is, at least one of the stories you'll hear is that it was during World War II and they didn't have enough blood and they just kind of tried something. And so occasionally stuff that's not blood or not human blood can be used in a way that will deal with the immediate problem, but again, always causes a bunch of additional problems because it's not supposed to be in there. Right, right, right.

[Ben Bolin]

Quick question, though. Quick question. Robert, if you're imagining it and Sophie as well, this World War II doctor who stumbled upon coconut water band aiding blood or the circular.

[Robert Evans]

If that's how it happened. It is a little unclear, but yeah.

[Ben Bolin]

If that is how it happened, what do you imagine? Like, if their hand is going over a table with all sorts of other shit on it, what else did they look at first? What do you think?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, given the state of things at the time. Street liquor. What if we just put some Jim Bean in there? Will that save their lives?

[Ben Bolin]

And they're like, no, we're saving the. We're saving the liquor for the guys who aren't bleeding out.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, we need all of that Jim Bean. We are fighting. We are island hopping, fighting the empire of Japan. Nobody wants to sleep sober at night. Give him some coconut water or some shit. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. So the first human to human blood transfusion occurs in Philadelphia, 1795. Although the doctor who does it doesn't publish. And so the first successful transfusion is like, generally listed as 1818. It was by a British doctor treating a postpartum hemorrhage. And the science kind of develops from there. One of the things that becomes clear is that in a lot of instances when people need a transfusion, they don't need whole blood. Right. Initially, they're starting out with whole blood. And people find out over decades and stuff that actually you can take different elements of blood and kind of add in a substitute. I think saline is usually used and do infusions of that for certain problems. Milk is actually one of the infusion substitutes. But this is, again, horrible for people. Don't shoot milk into people. Milk does not belong in your blood.

[Ben Bolin]

Sounds like big dairy to me, bro.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sure the fucking dairy companies were like, fighting for. Fighting like hell to have that be the case. It's what first, it's what's in your blood.

[Ben Bolin]

There it is.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So over the next decades, we figure out shit like blood types and we start messing around a lot with plasma, which is a component of blood that can be used to make a whole bunch of different medications that will save your life. One of the best known uses of blood plasma is the manufacture of clotting agents in order to save and improve the lives of hemophiliacs. These are people who like if they start bleeding, they just kind of keep bleeding. Their blood doesn't have the thing that is like, all right, we've bled enough, time to scab, you know, all gas, no breaks, all gas, no breaks with the bleeding. And the first of these medications hits in like the 1960s and they more than double the life expectancy of hemophiliacs. As far as like single medical interventions go, this is like one of the big ones in terms of stopping, like improving quality of life and length of life. Obviously I'm not an MD or a scientist, but here's how. An article in the William and Mary Business Law Review by Sophia Chase describes the process of making this life saving medication using plasma. After blood is collected, it is spun off through plasmapheresis and its component parts are used for different purposes. The plasma of thousands of donors is pooled together to create factor concentrates that form a blood product known as factor viii, used to medicate hemophiliacs. Depending on the severity of the disease, a hemophiliac might need to use factor VIII seven times or several times a week. This means essentially that people who are already ill with a life threatening disease and a compromised immune system have no alternative but to inject themselves with plasma hundreds of times a year. There's a degree to which this is a little like a diabetic who needs insulin. Right. This is a medication that you need constantly. Right. In order to not die. That said, the fact that this is available is great, but without blood transfusions and all of the medicines, you know, it's one of those things where like, because we developed this, there's a shitload of people, you know, who are alive today. Whether it's because they, they bled out, because they were a soldier who got shot, or like a random person who was in like a car accident or got shot, or whether there's somebody with hemophilia or one of a number of diseases and disorders or one of their parents, you know, people who are alive because of this branch of science. Right. It's incredibly important stuff that we figured out largely. The problem is that while I don't think a single doctor would argue that access to blood and blood products is a cornerstone of modern medicine. There is never enough of the shit. Absolutely never. At no point have we ever had a sufficient supply of blood and blood products. Yeah. And capitalism being what it is, the market has responded by making blood and blood products wildly valuable. In 1998, a barrel of crude oil was worth about $13. A similar quantity of human blood was worth $20,000. But that's whole blood. If you took that drawn blood, that as whole blood is worth about 20 grand for a barrel and separated it into plasma and the other different blood products that are used in medicine, you could get more like $67,000 in $1998 off of that barrel.

[Ben Bolin]

Oh, like if you steal a Honda civic, you make more money selling it up.

[Robert Evans]

Exactly. But you know, Ben, that gets into our very successful business taking catalytic converters, which, by the way, folks, if you need rare earth minerals, Ben and I are selling them wholesale. You just get a sack of cats delivered to your door, you know, which.

[Ben Bolin]

Is the new up and coming. We call it kiddo currency. It is Evans and boland's.

[Robert Evans]

That's right.

[Ben Bolin]

Sophie Ray production. We're limited liability companies, so don't try to come at us. Don't even try.

[Robert Evans]

Once the dollar crashes and once crypto crashes, the only currency is gonna be catalytic converters. You'll be walking around with a wallet full of them. And you know what? We're all gonna get very strong. Cause they are not light.

[Ben Bolin]

They are not light. This is gonna be great for our lats.

[Robert Evans]

You need to start doing the holes thing and carrying like a baby cow up a mountain now or a pig or whatever it was in that book so that you can be strong enough to bring grocery money with you.

[Ben Bolin]

You know what's amazing about this is somebo us is listening right now and has is doing the fireman carry with a goat. And they're like, I'm fucking ahead of the game. I'm ready.

[Robert Evans]

I'm ready. And several other people are listening on their earbuds as they saw someone's cat from the bottom of a prius. Yeah, so anyway, I bring that up just to say that, like, there's a lot of money in this. And wherever there's a lot of money in the raw amount of blood, There will be an incentive for people to do unethical things to get that blood because there's never just enough donations. Now, there's some reasons for that, Some of which is the problem of the different organizations responsible for drawing blood. We could talk about the fact that queer people are still generally forbidden in many cases from donating blood because of the aids scare or the aids epidemic. We could talk. You know, there's a number of critiques, but even if you were to solve for those problems, there's still never going to be enough of this stuff. I don't know how we fix it until we can start, like, just growing Functional blood in a lab, which is a thing people are trying to figure out. But from the beginning, the main problem with blood for transfusions in medicine has been that you can only really get it. I know there's those crabs that we can use for some things, but as a general rule, you only get it from people. And people are very attached to their blood and they're not always able to donate. There's a cost as an. It's not that bad. Right. Donating. If you've donated. I've donated. I'm sure you have. It's not like horrible, but, like, it's not nothing donating. Like, it has a. You were aware that you gave up some of your very important blood after.

[Ben Bolin]

Yeah, the orange juice and the crackers don't quite get you back to 100%, I think it was something like pre pandemic, I wanna say. Still, a very small amount of people in the US Donated blood.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. And it's great to donate. But there's also another problem that has nothing to do with this, which is that people, the kind of people who you need to donate blood, have bloodborne illnesses sometimes. And often they're aware of it, but often they aren't. And bloodborne illnesses travel extremely easily through donated blood products. Remember what I said, when you are making factor VIII to give to hemophiliacs, you are taking thousands of people's blood plasma and mixing it together.

[Ben Bolin]

Group project.

[Robert Evans]

It's a group project. And if, say there's. I'm throwing the number out of my ass here. We'll get more exact. But say there's 20,000 different people's plasma comes into making a batch of Factor 8. If one of those people has a bloodborne illness, that whole batch can get tainted. It just takes one. That doesn't mean everyone who gets medicated from it, but it means that anyone could potentially. Right. It's kind of the same with fentanyl. You've got a shitload of whatever powdered drug and a little bit of fentanyl gets in there. Everyone who does that drug might not get enough for it to matter, but someone could get a hot dose and then they're dead. Right. That's kind of how tainted blood works. And so this is a problem in part because, again, there's not enough blood. So if one person gets through because they weren't screened properly, you can ruin a bunch of that incredibly precious blood. And it was an even bigger problem back before where our methods of testing for shit like hepatitis were as good as they are because you didn't know what the fuck was getting into the blood supply. Right. And so the odds of recipients getting sick from infected blood in the past was a lot higher. And the other issue here is that whole blood donations, if those are tainted, are still less likely to get you sick than blood product donations. So plasma that is tainted is likelier to get you sick than whole blood that's tainted. Oh, I don't know why, but that's the way it works. Yeah.

[Ben Bolin]

Okay, so it's like maybe a concentration of those vectors, something like that. The further I say this, the dumber I'll sound.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I don't know why, but this is what the medical paperwork says is that blood products that you, when those are used on you, it is if they're tainted, they're likelier to spread disease than whole blood.

[Ben Bolin]

And this exists in a profit seeking environment.

[Robert Evans]

And this exists in a profit where there's a fuckle of billions on the table. Now you're probably aware of how HIV would really cause some problems for the blood donation industry, right? Because first off, they didn't initially know it was a thing. So no one was checking for this stuff during the early days when it was spreading. And in that initial outbreak, a bunch of hemophiliacs caught HIV through their transfusions and got sick and died. But before and during HIV it was still never the most common illness spread through blood donations. The most common illnesses spread through blood and blood product donations are hepatitis A, B and C. And we have been aware that hepatitis was a danger for this kind of stuff for a long time. But hepatitis C, we couldn't detect it until 1998 and we couldn't detect in people and we couldn't detect it in blood products until 1992. So we've only very recently been able to actually monitor people's blood to see if they had it, and even more recently than that, be able to check blood products to see if they were clean from it. So what you got, if we're Talking about the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, is a supply of something crucial that is inherently limited. And part of the issue here is that when we're talking about the international blood trade, if you've got a country with endemic hepatitis, right, of some sort, they're going to need to bring in blood from other countries because their ability to get enough clean blood on their own before you can test for all of the stuffed property is going to be effectively nil. And they're going to need, as a general rule, our blood Right. And because people don't like giving blood, you're gonna have to pay donors. And because corporations like to maximize profits, they want to pay as little as possible. And I think we're starting to see where the problems come in here right now. The first wave of blood products hits the United states in the 60s, and oversight and regulation of the blood industry is basically non existent at this point. Many, if not most paid donors are IV drug users, the homeless, and prisoners. All groups of people with a much higher rate of bloodborne illnesses than the general population or the volunteer donor population. Because the need is inelastic, different states start experimenting with blood shield laws which exempt blood suppliers from what is called strict liability. As Sophia Chase explains, this meant that despite providing an incredibly risky product, the business did not need to worry about the possibility of many expensive lawsuits. The large donor population, the lax supervision, and the diminished threat of litigation resulted in the United States becoming the premier producer of blood and plasma products. So we become the largest world producer of blood and plasma in part because we're like, hey, if somebody gets sick because you didn't do your due diligence to make sure this stuff's safe, that ain't on you. We need the blood this badly. Get it? However, you know.

[Ben Bolin]

Yeah, like our ongoing, quite successful bag of catalytic converters business.

[Robert Evans]

Exactly.

[Ben Bolin]

Limited liability.

[Robert Evans]

Limited liability. Because you. Yeah, exactly. You know, why would we be liable for what happens to people's cars? They're not our cars. Speaking of cars.

[Ben Bolin]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

You know what you should buy is if a car is advertised next that otherwise, whatever else.

[F]

Is this a good time? It's me, Dylan Mulvaney and my dear friend Joe Locke from Heartstopper. And Agatha all along is my very first guest on my brand new podcast, the Dylan Hour. It's musical mayhem and it is going to be so much fun.

[Robert Evans]

I like a man.

[F]

You like a man. What do I like, Joe?

[Robert Evans]

You like a man too.

[F]

We often. There's quite similar. There's some cross pollination happening in here.

[Robert Evans]

Not like. No. Have we? No.

[F]

No, not yet. Never say never. I cannot wait for all you girls gays and they's to join me on this extremely special pink confection of a podcast. There is so much darkness in this world and what I think we could all use more of is a little joy. Listen to the Dylan hour on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Love ya.

[D]

Hey, kids, it's me, Kevin Smith.

[Robert Evans]

And it's me, Harley Quinn Smith.

[D]

That's my daughter man, who my wife has always said is just a beardless d? Ckless version of me. And that's the name of our podcast. Beardless Me.

[Robert Evans]

I'm the old one, I'm the young one.

[D]

And every week we try to make each other laugh really hard. Sounds innocent, doesn't it? A lot of cussing, a lot of bad language. It's for adults only. Or listen to it with your kid. Could be a family show. We're not quite sure. We're still figuring it out.

[Robert Evans]

It's a work in progress.

[D]

Listen to Beardless me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[E]

Do you remember what you said the first night I came over here?

[Ben Bolin]

Ow. Go slower.

[E]

From Blumhouse TV, iHeart podcasts and Ember 20 comes an all new fictional comedy podcast series. Join the flighty Damien Hirst as he unravels the mystery of his vanished boyfriend and Santi was gone. I've been spending all my time looking for answers about what happened to Santi and what's the way to find a missing person. Sleep with everyone he knew, obviously. Mmm. Pillow talk. The most unwelcome window into the human psyche. Follow our out of his element hero as he engages in a series of ill conceived investigative hookups. Mama always used to say God gave me gumption in place of a gag reflex. And as I was about to learn, no amount of showering can wash your hands of a bag hookup.

[Robert Evans]

Now take a big whiff, my bruh.

[E]

Listen to the hookup on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[C]

We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey.

[Robert Evans]

We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family.

[Ben Bolin]

They showcased a sense of love that I never had before.

[E]

I mean, he's not only my parent.

[Ben Bolin]

Like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change thing about our lives.

[C]

Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit adoptuskids.org to learn more. Brought to you by Adopt Us Kids, the U.S. department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council.

[Robert Evans]

And we're back. So in the late 1960s, a researcher named Richard Titmus concluded that paying donors made people likelier to lie about their medical history right from the beginning because there's not enough volunteers. You are paying for most of this stuff. And research shows that people will pretend they don't have the risk factors or just lie about outright having a bloodborne illness. Because they're desperate for money. Right. Because people need money to live. He wrote that ultimately, quote this paid donations results in situations in which proportionally more and more blood is supplied by the poor, the unskilled, the unemployed and other low income groups and categories of exploited human populations of high blood yielders. Redistribution of blood and blood products from the poor to the rich appears to be one of the dominant effects of the American blood banking systems. So not only is this our 9th largest export, tens of billions of dollars, it is an industry where the blood comes from poor people. And an overwhelming amount of it goes to people who are more affluent because obviously they're able to pay for better medical care. We are mining. This is a vampiric system where the poor are having their blood taken and given often to people who are more affluent to them. Right. That's a big part of the blood industry, especially in this period. And another big part of it is that that because those exploited people desperately need the money, they may not tell you if they just shot up heroin. Right. You know.

[Ben Bolin]

Right. Or if someone had previously donated to one institution.

[Robert Evans]

Right, yes, yes. And there's a lot of in these companies. Well, we'll just destroy some records or whatever right now following the advice that Titmus gave. Cause he's again, like, like this is a really deeply problematic system and maybe we shouldn't be paying for blood donations because it inherently causes problems. If this advice had been followed, it would have destroyed the blood plasma industry in particular. So they just ignored it, the blood money industry, right, the blood money, yes, yes. So they don't, they just ignore what this guy says. And in fact, they do worse than ignore him. They continue to explore more and more exploited segments of the populace to buy blood from, of course, homeless people, street level sex workers, people who are using IV drugs. Those are all people who are desperate for cash and will do anything to get it. But you know what group of people are hardest up? The incarcerated.

[Ben Bolin]

Ah, the people who are loophole enslaved in this country.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, yes, yes. And you know, there are several things, including the 13th Amendment as you stated, that make incarcerated people the ideal source of raw blood for America's blood merchants. The US has by this point designated blood a vital, which means the government has streamlined regulations to ensure a sufficient supply. This meant that if you set up a plasma donation center, a collection point in a prison, there is no mandated oversight. Right. The FDA is basically not involving themselves. Right. Or at least not initially. Which means that and as long as this stays a scarce product Drug companies are allowed to buy their blood from, quote, unlicensed, uninspected vendors. In other words, the drug companies who are buying. Because it's not the drug companies making these collection points, it's other companies. And because this is so scarce, if you're buying blood, you don't have to like, say, and I got it from these people who have a license to get blood and proving that they follow all these. You can just buy it from whomever guy comes to your door with a sack of blood. You can just purchase that the days.

[Ben Bolin]

Of stray blood are over.

[Robert Evans]

That's right.

[Ben Bolin]

That's what we're aspiring toward. I hate that we have to. We have to bring this up. Another thing going into this. If we are counting something, we being human, civilization as a vital resource, such that we're going to cut some corners.

[Robert Evans]

Corners to get enough of it. Sure.

[Ben Bolin]

Yeah. Due diligence. Then we're also going to. Oh, we already did it. We already cut the corners on liability or responsibility. I don't know, man. Robert, you know, I'm a fan of the show. I don't want to spoil it, but it doesn't sound like this ends well. I thought maybe this would be the one happy episode.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I mean, I will say the system doesn't work in this way in every extent now, like, there's still a lot of issues with the blood system, but a lot like things do get better as a result of all of the people who are going to die. Right. I'm talking about the way it was in like the 70s and stuff here. Now that said, it's still. There's a lot of issues and also a lot of problems with like, the way in which blood donation is conducted. I'm not saying that there's not, but this is when it. We're talking about this program at its worst.

[Ben Bolin]

Yeah. Because these people have. The incarcerated in the US penal system have very little recourse toward any alternative. Right. These are also the days of benighted experiments on human beings.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. And all of that is going down. And the fact that like, in terms of the companies who need blood, they're looking at prison pop. This is the ideal donor base because, number one, the prison population is fairly stable. A lot of these guys are in there for years or decades. You can rely on them. And the prisoner's need for cash is also stable. This makes for an extremely predictable flow of product. And businesses thrive when things are predictable. From the early days of experimentation in this field, there had been data that doing this was dangerous. In 1969, the New York Times published a story about several deaths tied to prison derived plasma products. In 1970, they followed it up with an article describing prison plasma donation as transfusion roulette. In 1970, after 74, after several more well publicized blood disasters, the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare published our first national blood policy. It recommended that only volunteers be allowed to give blood because again, there's so many problems with paying people. In 1982, the FDA made a non binding request that blood donated by prison inmates not be purchased or sold for domestic consumption. So in 1982, the FDA is like, we shouldn't use domestically any of the blood that we pay inmates for. Now, crucially, they're not saying don't pay inmates for blood. They're saying, don't use it here.

[Ben Bolin]

Right, right. And further. Come on, let's spend a little time just scratching behind the ears of statements like non binding.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, come on.

[Ben Bolin]

Pinky swear me. You guys, let's pinky swear. Just not here. Right. Just somewhere else.

[Robert Evans]

Somewhere else. So it's not our problem.

[Ben Bolin]

The earlier laws regarding us produced propaganda, for instance. Right, Right. Geez. Well, this.

[Robert Evans]

Just don't do it on your. Don't.

[Ben Bolin]

Don't do it here. Don't. You know, it's like a. It's like the shitty stepdad.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Ben Bolin]

About smoking cigarettes. Yeah. Just don't do it without, you know, I can see it. All right. I don't want to tell your mom I smelled it.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Yes, yes. The FDA is, is definitely in its shitty stepdad era here. So the industry doesn't stop taking incarcerated people's blood. And in fact, the FDA keeps issuing licenses to export blood to prison plasma centers in several states. These included Nevada, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arizona, Missouri, and the focus of our episodes this Week, Arkansas. In 1970, an Arkansas district court had ruled that several practices at Cummins Prison in Grady, Arkansas, were cruel and unusual Violations of the 8th and 14amendments. 11969 description of conditions in Cummins said this. Many of the inmates are psychopathic and sociopathic. Some of them, Again, this is 1969. Some of them are aggressive homosexuals. Many of the inmates are hardened criminals. And some of them are extremely dangerous to society in general, to their keepers and to fellow inmates. Many of them are malingerers and will go to any lengths to avoid work. Many are prone to destroy state property, even items designed for their welfare and comfort. So this is how they're writing about these people who are going to become the core of this blood donation system. For one very Good reason, which is that Arkansas prisons don't allow inmates to work for money. So the blood donation program is going to become the only way Arkansas prison inmates can get cash.

[Ben Bolin]

Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun Dun.

[Robert Evans]

Right. In 1978, the U.S. supreme Court had found that Arkansas solitary confinement tradition was unconstitutional. Justice John Paul Stevens described the prison system in Arkansas as quote, a dark and evil world. And another federal judge described the people who ran Arkansas's prison system as evil men. These are federal judges. One of them is a Supreme Court justice looking at it and be like, wow, this is like Mordor. This is fucked. I'm a federal judge in the 60s and this is bad. Or 70s.

[Ben Bolin]

Well still I had someone in that level of the judiciary at that time. They probably got their own, you know, crimes, some shit. Yeah, yeah, they got that seven league stare, you know what I mean?

[Robert Evans]

When you see a federal judge using a language that you would expect from like some 19 year old like anarchist protester at like an anti prison rally, like the, the conditions must be nightmarish, right. John Paul Stevens is calling the people running this system evil. Like cannot, cannot exaggerate how bad it is. It's like when you hear the SS punished a guy for committing war crimes, it's like, oh my God. Wow, wow.

[Ben Bolin]

It's too far.

[Robert Evans]

It's too far. What did you do?

[Ben Bolin]

It's like here in Atlanta you might hang out in various. Well, I'll say it, if someone is too hard into crack cocaine or methamphetamine and you know that person and they tell you not to hang out with Wild Jimmy, then don't hang out with Wild Jimmy.

[Robert Evans]

Do not hang out with Wild Jimmy.

[Ben Bolin]

But this shows us, this shows us the extent of the problem and perhaps it shows us that the money moved despite observations of what would have been the rule of law. Right?

[Robert Evans]

Yes. Well, what was the recommendation of law again? They never make a rule against this.

[Ben Bolin]

Oh, it's non binding. Sorry. It's non binding guys.

[Robert Evans]

Right? The pinky swear of law. And the other thing is that, cause this is right, right? When those, the Supreme Court is like, yeah, this is an evil system run by evil men. That is right. When the program of taking blood from these prisoners is about to start. Right? So this is just, you've got a prison system where inmates are not allowed to make money any other way. That is already an evil nightmare. And into this situation in 1978 steps a new governor, William Jefferson Clinton. Right. That is his first term in office and he's got a lot of exciting plans for how he wants to reform things in one of the poorest states in the union. And he's also got a lot of good friends who had helped him win election and who he owed some favors. Both of these things are going to come together in the ambition of several men to make Arkansas prisons a major hub for blood product exports. And all of this is gonna be done. These are all Arkansas prisons that are donating, but the hub for donation is Cummins prison. Right. They're sending people there to give donations. That's where the actual cause they build a lab there. Right. You have to have some equipment to do this. And again, yeah, because there's like, you know, you've got this perfect stable supplier position who have no other way to make money. It's just a great place to do this. Now, a few years before Clinton came into office, a doctor named Bud Henderson had formed a company called Health Education Consultants. They did well and he hired a banker named Leonard Dunn from Little Rock to run business operations. Eventually, in 1978, they'd renamed themselves HMA and jumped into the prison plasma business with both feet. Henderson had gotten tight with the medical director at the state presence prison system, John Byas. Right. B Y U S. And so he, he manages to negotiate a contract to manage both the plasma program and the clinics at all state prisons. Right. So you've got this private company by a Dr. Bud Henderson, and he's got this banker, Leonard Dunn, eventually helping him out. He talks John Bias into giving him the contract to do all of the healthcare, including plasma donation for the whole Arkansas prison system. This makes Arkansas the only state with a prison medical program run by a for profit company. Right.

[Ben Bolin]

Interesting.

[Robert Evans]

That's where this starts. And I'm going to quote from an article by Susie Parker in Salon here. Susie Parker is an Arkansas investigative journalist. Bias and Henderson say the motive for the plasma program was twofold. The inmates needed money to buy gum and toiletries, and the destitute prison system needed medical equipment. Arkansas is also one of the only states that refuses to pay prisoners for their labor. Each unit of plasma was sold by HMA, which was running the program under the prison's FDA license for at least $50. And half was handed over to the prison system. With hundreds of prisoners donating once, sometimes twice a week, plasma became a profitable enterprise. And in fact, in short order, the profits from blood plasma sales turn Arkansas prisons from a line item in the state budget to a net profit enterprise. Because of this program, prisons become profitable in Arkansas. Right to the state.

[Ben Bolin]

Cut to Governor Clinton doing a sick saxophone riff.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah, just fucking blazing on that sax.

[Ben Bolin]

Oh, the right to bleed.

[Robert Evans]

The right to bleed. That is what they call it. That's literally the term. So as we all know, once the profit motive becomes the governing concern over, say, human welfare, people consider some dark things. One of the doctors who worked at Cummins Prison during this time was a guy named Mike Galster. He started in 1979 just as the program got off the ground. And he has since made some terrible allegations. Quote, I could see prisoners were being given illegal narcotics. Several indicated that this was how they were being paid for their plasma. And so guards are being pressured to sign up prisoners to donate. I think there's some evidence guards are getting kickbacks. You know, like incentive. There's some incentive. And also, drugs are always in prisons. But there's only one way drugs get into prisons because prisoners can't leave, it's guards, right? Like, that's.

[Ben Bolin]

I mean, come on. I mean, I thought you were gonna be fun about it, but no, you're right.

[Robert Evans]

No, no, that's the way this works. And this is one of the things that is happening. The other thing that's happening. It's not just guards giving drugs. A lot of prisoners want the money they get from donating to buy drugs. Cause it's prison, and drugs make it suck less, right?

[Ben Bolin]

Anything can be currency.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, anything can be currency, right? And there's also some evidence that, like, some of the prisoners are getting drugs from, like, the clinics, right? Like, they're getting painkillers and shit, which are a lot easier to come by then, right? So even in that case, it's effectively free, Right. For the people bribing these drugs, there's at least one case here that we know of, a bogard taking kickbacks from prisoners who had been rejected from the program because they had bloodborne illnesses and letting them donate because they needed drug money. There's, like, evidence that people falsifying data to let people who knowingly had tainted blood continue to give it. Right.

[Ben Bolin]

Despite clearly, provably having something like hepatitis A through C, hiv, et cetera.

[Robert Evans]

We know this happened with a documented time, and it's happening a lot more than that one time. Right. You know, because this guy is going to become one of, like, the couple of people that they try to use as scapegoats later. Now, state investigators later confirmed Galster's allegations that prison employees traded drugs for blood. This doctor also observed that many inmate donors he saw, quote, appeared jaundiced and very sick. Quote, when I would ask if they had just had a blood test, they would say, no, I've just given plasma. It was clear they were sick. Now, to save costs, this makes it even worse. Again, they want this prison as cheap as possible. What's a big line item if you're doing blood donations? Boy, you know how expensive needles are. You're supposed to use a new one each time.

[Ben Bolin]

We're throwing money out the door with all these one use needles.

[Robert Evans]

Let's just wash them. Which is exactly what they do. So they start reusing needles on these prisoners to get donations. Which means not only are sick prisoners, some of whom know they're sick, a lot of whom don't. Donating and adding tainted blood to the supply, but also a lot of prisoners who are not sick are getting sick because they donate and then keep continuing to donate and adding even more tainted blood to the system. Now, Galster claims he was unaware of the possibility at the time that this could happen, saying later, quote, I assumed, stupidly, that our people selling this plasma had some process of cleaning it up. So again, he's like a prison clinic guy. I said doctor earlier, I don't actually know what his degree state is, but his attitude is like, like, they've got to be doing something to make this safe. Right, Right. They can probably pasteurize blood, right?

[Ben Bolin]

Yeah, like it's, you know, the modern era. You gotta.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, we know.

[Ben Bolin]

Right? We know that someone will do something.

[Robert Evans]

It's like someone will do something.

[Ben Bolin]

Yeah, right. Someone will always do something. Tragedy of the Commons. You walk into a public space and you go, man, surely somebody sweeps here.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, somebody's gotta be handling the. They're not. Surely not just. Just sending this to Canada.

[Ben Bolin]

I mean, you know, not me, obviously, but surely someone along the chain.

[Robert Evans]

Someone must be responsible for making sure this doesn't go horribly wrong.

[Ben Bolin]

People can't be that evil, they say, Right?

[Robert Evans]

Right. And speaking of human. Nope. Speaking of great people, let's have some more ads.

[F]

Is this a good time? It's me, Dylan Mulvaney, and my dear friend Joe Locke from Heartstopper. And Agatha all along is my very first guest on my brand new podcast, the Dylan Hour. It's musical mayhem and it is going to be so much fun.

[Robert Evans]

I like a man.

[F]

You like a man. What do I like, Joe?

[Robert Evans]

You like a man, too.

[F]

We often. There's quite similar. There's some cross pollination happening in here.

[Robert Evans]

Not like. No. Have we.

[F]

No, no, not yet. Never say never. I cannot wait for all you Girls, gays, and they's to join me on this extremely special pink confection of a podcast. There is so much darkness in this world. And what I think we could all use more of is a little joy. Listen to the Dylan hour on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Love ya.

[D]

Hey, kids, it's me, Kevin Smith.

[Robert Evans]

And it's me, Harley Quinn Smith.

[D]

That's my daughter, man. Who my wife has always said is just a beardless d Ckless version of me. And that's the name of our podcast. Beardless Me.

[Robert Evans]

I'm the old one, I'm the young one.

[D]

And every week we try to make each other laugh really hard. Sounds innocent, doesn't it? A lot of cussing, a lot of bad language. It's for adults only. Or listen to it with your kid. Could be a family show. We're not quite sure. We're still figuring it out.

[Robert Evans]

It's a work in progress.

[D]

Listen to Beardless me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[E]

Do you remember what you said the first night I came over here?

[Ben Bolin]

Ow. Go slower.

[E]

From Blumhouse TV, iHeart podcasts and Ember 20 comes an all new fictional comedy podcast series. Join the flighty Damien Hirst as he unravel the mystery of his vanished boyfriend and Santi was gone. I've been spending all my time looking for answers about what happened to Santi and what's the way to find a missing person. Sleep with everyone he knew, obviously. Hmm. Pillow talk. The most unwelcome window into the human psyche. Follow our out of his element hero as he engages in a series of ill conceived investigative hookups. Mama always used to say God gave me gumption and place of a gag reflex. And as I was about to learn, no amount of showering can wash your hands of a bad hookup.

[Robert Evans]

Now take a big whiff, my bruh.

[E]

Listen to the hookup on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Robert Evans]

How serious is youth vaping? Irreversible lung damage serious. 1 in 10 kids vape serious, which warrants a serious conversation from a serious parental figure like yourself. Not the seriously know it all sports dad or the seriously smart podcaster. It requires a serious conversation that is best had by you. No, seriously, the best person to talk to your child about vaping is you. To start the conversation, visit talkaboutvaping.org, brought to you by the American Lung association and the ad council. And we're back. So to save costs. And again, because there's no real oversight to the program, it's also like, if you want to have like a professional phlebotomist. And like, phlebotomists are pretty good generally at like, taking blood. If you've ever had like a phlebotomist take your blood and then had like, you know, a nurse who's. That's not their specialty take your blood. You know that, like, when somebody specifically their whole thing is doing blood draws, it's a much more pleasant process. Right.

[Ben Bolin]

Yeah. They know where the vein is.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. But here's the thing. Both nurses and phlebotomists. Expensive. You know, who works for basically free taking blood. Prison inmates.

[Ben Bolin]

Oh, hey, also, wait, before we go, I do want to point this out for anybody who is a nurse or RN associated listening, that is not to denigrate.

[Robert Evans]

No, no, no. You guys have a lot of stuff. I'm just saying, like, people who specifically train to draw blood are better than people who, like. That's just one of a bunch of things they do at drawing blood generally.

[Ben Bolin]

Yeah, it's like, it's. It's like a single knife versus Swiss army knife.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Or it's like, it's like how a nurse or a doctor who's like, specialize in like OBGYN stuff and childbirth, they're going to do a better job of like, birthing a child than someone who, like. That was just part of my training, but I'm. I'm here to deal with like, car crash and shit. Right, right.

[Ben Bolin]

This all, you know, just like, as a representative of Big Vampire. This sounds too expensive.

[Robert Evans]

Let's cut all these people out. Anyone professional?

[Ben Bolin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Let's get.

[Ben Bolin]

Let's get rid of these fancy degree types. I want someone on the ground who ask fewer questions.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. Someone who's in prison because they shot two guys. Right.

[Ben Bolin]

Oh, my God.

[Robert Evans]

He should be right. Yes, yes, yes. Perfect. Perfect. One witness to this was a former inmate donor, John Schock, who spoke to Susie Parker. Quote, they had inmates doing things they shouldn't have been doing. They would let people who. People who was sick bleed. Ain't no telling what they had. They didn't check all the time. And after Shock had been donating for some time, prison medical staff conducted a hepatitis test and he turned up positive. Quote, I am damn sure I got it. Hepatitis C in the prison. I didn't have it before I went in. I've never had needles stuck in my arm. That wasn't supposed to be there. I've never interacted with homosexuals. I love women, too. Again, this as the 70s. I didn't get it those ways, but. Right, but he is saying that, like, the only time needles were in my arm was when I was doing this blood donation program. Obviously, I got hepatitis from this.

[Ben Bolin]

Yeah, yeah. You don't have to be a perfect person to exercise logic. That's what he's doing.

[Robert Evans]

Right, exactly. And he claims that when he gets diagnosed with hepatitis C, they don't kick him out of the donor program. And in fact, he claims the doctor who sees him is like, well, your eyes aren't yellow. You don't have jaundice yet, so you're probably fine. He said, quote, if you start feeling bad, come back and see me. That's just the way they were. They don't care because you are dirt down there anyway. Yep. Ah, prisons. Yes.

[Ben Bolin]

Ah, prisons.

[Robert Evans]

And what part of the story here is that, like, you know, Americans don't like to think about treating prisoners more nicely. It's never a popular political topic. But when you treat these people like shit and like they're not human, thousands of you might die from tainted. Like, that's not why you should care. But there are objective consequences to this evil, right? Like, it never stays. No, no. No evil on a population of people ever stays isolated to that population of people. This is a lesson we never learned, but it is important.

[Ben Bolin]

That's really well put too.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Ben Bolin]

That's one of the best articulations I've heard of that. Honestly, I'm not blowing smoke, you know, that is there is a interlinked system, regardless of whether people want to admit that is the case or not.

[Robert Evans]

We're all deeply tied together. These are human beings who live with us. And treating them like shit causes problems outside of them, even if you don't care about that group of people. And you should. But, like, you should try. You should try. You should care about that.

[Ben Bolin]

You should maybe not try to give them diseases while stealing their blood.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, you know what? That might. That might blow up.

[Ben Bolin]

Is that a reasonable, reasonably low enough bar?

[Robert Evans]

Look, I'm not saying none of these guys did terrible things. I'm saying don't give them diseases while stealing their blood.

[Ben Bolin]

I mean, just like, you know, if we're spitballing, right?

[Robert Evans]

If we're spitballing, first step, maybe don't be a vampire.

[Ben Bolin]

All right, hang on. You said you were gonna be cool.

[Robert Evans]

You're right, you're right, you're right. Cause like, sometimes you could be the sexy vampire who winds up getting cast in Bong Joon Ho movies or, you know. Right. Maybe. Maybe this will give us more Robert Pattinson movies. We shouldn't judge. Oh, wait, no. I'm hearing the Arkansas blood donation program did not lead to any Robert Pattinson.

[Ben Bolin]

Wait, you have this confirmed?

[Robert Evans]

All right, Yeah, I have this confirmed. I'm shocked you haven't brought up Nosferatu as we saw that with Garrison. I'm actually unclear as to whether or not that has something to do with the Arkansas prison system. You never know with Willem Dafoe.

[Ben Bolin]

Think about it.

[Robert Evans]

It. Yeah, Willem Dafoe. Perfect, perfect, perfect. So the first diagnosed AIDS case in the United States.

[Ben Bolin]

Speaking of Segways.

[Robert Evans]

Right? Yeah. June 16, 1981. Now, obviously, HIV had been spreading around the country for some time before this point, but it takes a while for people to realize, especially because of the way hiv, you know, you have it for a while before you have, you know, you have symptoms that are clearly. You know, it takes a long time to figure out what the fuck is going on. Right? But once it does, it's become so widespread that there is a fucking panic right now. The panic is initially focused mainly in the coasts and kind of the more densely populated areas than rural Arkansas. So while other institutions start taking action to counter this new bloodborne horror, the Arkansas prison system does nothing at all. Bud Henderson, who is again the doctor who founds the company managing not just the plasma program, but all of the prison clinics in the state, said later there was mentality that we didn't have any AIDS in the central part of the country. The Department of Corrections said for years we didn't have any AIDS cases. There was a subconsciousness that we just didn't want to think we had those people around us. Again, the role bigotry plays in all of this cannot be overstated either. Those people. And again, if you just, like, are fine with horrible things happening to a group of people, it never stays isolated to them. However, Henderson does admit that he was aware of a danger because it had impacted his ability to sell blood overseas.

[Ben Bolin]

He's pretending, oh, it hits his money.

[Robert Evans]

It hits his money, right? He's pretending, obviously, we don't have AIDS in Arkansas. Keep drawing. But countries around the world and the companies that do blood imports for them are like this whole bloodborne illness thing. We're maybe not gonna buy as much blood from, like, shady foreign companies, Right? Like, we're really worried about that. And Henderson calls this the worst possible time for plasma sales. And so, as a result, he's only able to maintain his profits by finding a partner in Canada, a company called Continental Pharma Cryosan to take the contract. Now, Cryosan is a blood wholesaler. They purchase it, they refine it to specifications that fit what their customers need, and they sell plasma direct to Switzerland, Japan, Spain, Italy, and another Canadian company who uses it to make a factor, a thing for hemophiliacs. Now, a number of these companies that Cryosan is selling to have banned the purchase of blood on their own soil. And I think all of them have banned the use of blood derived from prison inmates. Right? But Cryosan doesn't tell them anything. And I think they're generally aware where a lot of this blood is coming from. But it's like a loophole, right? No, no, we'd never do that. That's against our Swiss ethics, you know, to take advantage of people in that situation. And it's not safe. Oh, hey, Cryosan, they've got clean blood. And Cryosan ensures the shipping papers say nothing about the facts. The fact that these products have originated from prison donations, the source was just listed as ADC Plasma Center, Grady, Arkansas. You see that? Some Japanese guy working at a company that's sending blood to hospitals. Fine. You know, whatever.

[Ben Bolin]

Yeah, we got the paperwork. You know what I mean?

[Robert Evans]

We got the paperwork. It's all good.

[Ben Bolin]

Why would somebody be dishonest about a way to make this much money?

[Robert Evans]

Right? Right. And in 1983, the program does come to a screeching but temporary halt. Because during this process, when they're sending shit to Cryosan, it is found that several units of blood tainted with hepatitis B have made their way to Kryosan and thus overseas. This was a problem at the time because hep B we now know, can indicate the presence of HIV. Right. Which means we are basically certain that by 83, HIV has entered the Cummins blood supply that's being sent out to all these companies. We don't know exact when it happens, but the amount of hep B they're finding suggests that it's pretty widespread by 83. Now, remember, the fact that this tainted blood is leaving the prison also means that it's being spread around inside the prison, some through sex and some through drug use. But it does seem like more than anything, because of how many people are donating through tainted needles being used for blood draws. Right? Because that lowers costs for the company doing the blood draws. Now, this whole disaster, the fact that a bunch of tainted Units of blood get sent to Canada is written off as a screening lapse. The FDA closes the donation program in Cummins for a while. You know, this is in 8, 1983. But in 1984, they publish an investigation that comes to some damning conclusions. Quote, Health Management Associates had prematurely and improperly distributed plasma contaminated with hepatitis 12. Ineligible donors had given blood in a breach of screening process and an international recall resulted. The FDA then revoked the center's license to operate. An investigation revealed that the program allowed disqualified donors to bleed, altered records and stored plasma in ways that didn't prevent contamination. It also found that plasma center staff wasn't well supervised and discovered attempts by people in HMA management positions at the center to hide from FDA inspectors the fact that they had either initiated or condoned the destruction or alteration of records concerning these activities. So this is not just something you can say, well, they shouldn't have put it on to the prisoners. But the problem started there. No, no, no. Management is actively covering up that they are producing and selling tainted blood.

[Ben Bolin]

They conspired.

[Robert Evans]

They conspired. They knew. They were incredibly well aware of what they were doing and they did it all for money. Now it is obvious even this is putting the problem that exists too mildly. And in fact, later in 1984, in part based on the FDA's investigation, the National Correctional association puts out an informational bulletin to members and their members are prisons warning that plasma centers are a bad idea. You shouldn't have them in prisons, right? And as a result, most US prisons that had been in the process of like making plans and contracts to do plasma donation programs stop. Because their whole organization is like, actually, this is a terrible idea. You are opening yourself up to so much fucking liability. Like, just don't do it. Right? But the prisons in Arkansas don't stop. Company founder Bud Henderson considered the program critical not just for his own bottom line, but for the welfare of the state itself. And Bud argued it's, quote, for the good of the inmates because. And the prison needed money too. You have to understand, that's why we have taxes, Bud.

[Ben Bolin]

They like it though. They like it though.

[Robert Evans]

You wanna be able to cut those. Yeah.

[Ben Bolin]

Wow.

[Robert Evans]

By the early 1980s, that's when he brings in Leonard Dunn to run his company, right? I mentioned this earlier, this lawyer from Little Rock, Leonard Dunn, is a confidant and friend of Bill Clinton. He's this like, you know, he's a banker, right? And Clinton had appointed him at the same time as he's being made the head of H. Governor Clinton appoints him to the head of the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission. Now, Clinton also appoints HMA's attorney, Don Smith to the Board of Corrections for the state. So we're seeing these people. One is a close friend of his being put in charge of HMA, and also HMA's attorney is being put on the Board of Corrections. Right. So there's some direct involvement here of the Clinton administration. And they're at this point trying to get the program going again. Again, because it makes the prison system solvent.

[Ben Bolin]

And the question, though, we have to ask on behalf of everybody tuning in, the question is, at what threshold can we still maintain some sort of possible, if not plausible, deniability? Right.

[Robert Evans]

That is the question we'll be dealing with throughout the episode. But this is what's happened right now, Right? Okay. So months after the FDA shut things down and issued a report condemning the whole operation, HMA creates a subsidiary called Arkansas Blood Components, or ABC Plasma. And they keep selling the blood that way, Right? Including to that and to Cryosan, the company that uses tainted USN made blood that they are there selling this tainted blood to the Canadian Red Cross. Now, at Cummins, plasma donations continued and by all accounts, most, if not all of the same problems persisted. So they get relicensed. Right. And the next year, in 1985, stories come out that Arkansas prisons had more inmate complaints than any other state, not just due to the blood program, but more broadly due to hideous issues with rape and abuse by guards and poor facilities. This is a black mark on Governor Clinton's record. And so he decides we need to take some serious action in the prisons. Not to, like, necessarily fix anything, but I'm gonna have the state police conduct an internal investigation into what went wrong here. Right. Susie Parker writes, the state police prison investigation resulted in two misdemeanor charges and one felony charge for employees running a gambling operation. Only a few weeks into it, Clinton himself urged a speedy end of the probe. I told them to get it done and get it over with. Clinton told reporters complaints about poor health care and the plasma program resulted in no action. And the Arkansas Department of Corrections Director Abe Lockhart, who had been at the center of the allegations, was not punished. Clinton said the prison system had been studied to death and refused to oust Lockhart. Now, Susie's right to center a Art Lockhart, the Department of Corrections director, because he is one of three men who control the state prison system. The other two are a state senator named Knox Nelson and a state representative named Bill Foster. Now, there are allegations that all three men, or at least men close to them, profited directly from the blood program, often by awarding contracts to local businesses who supported them and their campaign. One good article that I read in the Arkansas Times on the matter interviewed Bobby Roberts, currently the director of the Arkansas Library system, or later the director of the Arkansas Library System and a former member of Governor Clinton's staff. And he blames Newton and Foster for blocking any attempts to reform the system. Roberts recalled it as a time when Nelson held the upper hand over Clinton with regard to the prison system, which was headquartered in his district. Roberts said Nelson made it clear to Clinton that as chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, he would prevent legislation that the governor wanted in other areas, such as schools, roads, and economic development, from ever reaching a vote if Clinton pressed for changes in the prisons. Knox and I got into about everything, into it, about everything under the sun. Robert said, I don't think any governor was going to cross him and a handful of other senators down there and think he was going to get anything done. There was a lot of politics that went on in those things. You really could not do anything with the ADC if you ran a fall of Bill afoul of Bill Foster and Knox Nelson. That's just the reality of it. So Roberts's allegation is that that part of what's happening here is these guys see a lot of use in the plasma program because it's bringing in money not just to the prison system, but it creates a lot of opportunity to, like, give people work and contracts that also profit them. And it's not just the blood system, the whole fact Arkansas prisons are uniquely fucked up in the US at this point in time. And part of it is because they are being run by these guys who see them as a way to get kickbacks and bribes for their friends, right? That's effectively what's happening. And their threat is like, hey, whatever else you want to do in the state of Arkansas, Bill, you won't get to do if you fuck with this golden goose of ours. So just stay the fuck away, right?

[Ben Bolin]

Just wrap it up, wrap up the investigation, get back to your fucking saxophone and play nice.

[Robert Evans]

Then you could do some shit with the schools and become president, right?

[Ben Bolin]

Whatever you want, buddy. Whatever you want. Just keep the blood flow.

[Robert Evans]

That's one allegation right? Now, Roberts writes Clinton a letter at this point, right? Telling him that appointing HMA attorney Don Smith to the corrections board had been a terrible idea, right? So he is mostly blaming these guys in, like, the local legislature, but he's also like, why would you put this guy, this attorney at this company that just got shut down by the FDA on the Corrections board. Right. And he. He. His claim. And Roberts would for years claim plasma donations were never like, our main concern when it came to prison reform. But he says that it was known to everybody working in the prison system that the program was poorly run and was a disaster waiting to happen. In his letter, he described HMA to Bill Clinton as, quote, a time bomb waiting to blow up in somebody's face. And before longer it would do just that. But that's gonna be in part two. How you feeling, Ben?

[Ben Bolin]

Oh, man, I'm so stoked, you know, about how great this is all going.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's gonna be good.

[Ben Bolin]

I feel like this is a real cliffhanger, right? This is a term.

[Robert Evans]

Maybe it all works fine.

[Ben Bolin]

Yeah. You know, who knows, Robert?

[Robert Evans]

Maybe it turns out we don't have enough hepatitis, you know, have we considered that? Yes, we have.

[Ben Bolin]

Yeah. Maybe the real blood money was the friends we made along the way and whatever. But, yes, this is a story more people need to learn about. And I think it's a story that a lot of people are a little bit shook to investigate because in very divisive domestic times, it may tell you a narrative that you don't want to hear.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Yeah. And it's. Yeah, I think that's a very good way to put it. And I think the big part of this story is like the distributed system of making great evil. Right. Very rarely is it like somebody comes in with a plan, a scheme to do something monstrous. It's more incentives align and a bunch of people make little compromises. And a few people at the time top do, you know, are just psychopaths who are like, yeah, I don't give a. How many people get Tainted Blood. I want my money. You know, Anyway, it's cool stuff. Also, I am now thinking of that song Tainted Love, but like, about Tainted Blood. So that's going to be going on in my head for a while anyway. Whatever. Nobody needs that. Nobody needs me.

[Ben Bolin]

Everybody needs a. We need someone to write the full parody lyrics of this. Send it to us copyright free.

[Robert Evans]

Copyright free.

[Ben Bolin]

Absolutely. Copy left or whatever.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Get a whole band together. Do it. I don't know what we'd use it for because we're already recording the episode, but I think maybe.

[Ben Bolin]

Yeah. Thank you in advance, folks. Maybe just a non sequitur, you know, there's no joke like an old joke, especially a specific one. So give it, you know, give it a few years.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, we'll throw it up in a year in an episode on Heinrich Himmler, you know.

[Ben Bolin]

Oh boy.

[Robert Evans]

Fuck it.

[Ben Bolin]

That's the real banality of evil. Oh, geez.

[Robert Evans]

So Ben, where can people find you on the Internet dot com?

[Ben Bolin]

Ah, yes, theinternet dot com. That's a real up and coming thing and thank you for asking, Robert. Well, you can find me hanging out occasionally with you on behind the Bastards. In ages past. You can check out critical thinking applied to allegations of conspiracy and stuff they don't want you to know or ridiculous history. You can also find myself calling meself Ben Bullen in a burst of creativity wherever there's an sign. And then before now you could have found me just freestyle selling blood on the streets. But I'm really excited about the, the catalytic converter thing. I think this, I think that's going to be big for us.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, no, it's going to be big for us and obviously big for all of you who lose your catalytic converters. But hey, we've got extras that we took from you anyway.

[Ben Bolin]

Yeah, we'll sell them back.

[Robert Evans]

We'll sell them back. That's the episode everybody come back to part do. Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, cool zone media.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the Bastards is Now available on YouTube. New episodes every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube.com behind the basis the Bastards.

[C]

If you're anything like me, you probably think of TikTok as a place for cute pet videos. Get ready with me and viral dance trends. But a few years ago, a group of teenage girls used Tick Tock for an entirely different reason. To track down their friend Daisy's killer. I'm Paris Hilton, executive producer of My Friend Daisy, a gripping new true crime podcast that uncovers the shocking murder of 19 year old Daisy Deadly. Below, listen to my friend daisy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts beginning on March 26th.

[D]

Hey, kids, it's me, Kevin Smith.

[Robert Evans]

And it's me, Harley Quinn Smith.

[D]

That's my daughter, man, who my wife has always said is just a beardless, dickless version of me. And that's the name of our podcast, Beardless Me.

[Robert Evans]

I'm the old one, I'm the young one.

[D]

And every week we try to make each other laugh really hard. Sounds innocent, doesn't it? A lot of cussing, a lot of bad language. It's for adults only. Or listen to it with your kid. Could be a family show. We're not quite sure. We're still figuring it out.

[Robert Evans]

It's a work in progress.

[D]

Listen to Beardless me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[E]

Do you remember what you said the first night I came over here?

[Ben Bolin]

Ow. Go slower.

[E]

From Blumhouse TV, iHeart podcasts and Ember 20 comes an all new fictional comedy podcast series. Join the flighty Damien Hirst as he unravels the mystery of his vanished boyfriend. I've been spending all my time looking for answers about what happened to Santi and what's the way to find a missing person? Sleep with everyone he knew, obviously. Listen to the hookup on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Robert Evans]

Welcome to the Criminalia Podcast. I'm Maria Tremarke. And I'm Holly Fry. Together we invite you into the dark and winding corridors of historical true crime. Each season we explore a new theme, from poisoners to art thieves. We uncover the secrets of history's most interesting figures, from legal injustices to body snatching. And tune in at the end of each episode as we indulge in cocktails and mocktails inspired by each story. Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.