Stuff You Should Know - SYSK Selects: Are there undiscovered people?
Episode Date: May 5, 2018In this classic episode, Josh and Chuck discuss whether there are any truly "undiscovered" groups of people left on the planet, the definition of undiscovered -- and why groups might want to avoid mod...ern civilization. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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On the podcast, Hey Dude the 90s called,
David Lasher and Christine Taylor,
stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude,
bring you back to the days of slip dresses
and choker necklaces.
We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point,
but we are going to unpack and dive back
into the decade of the 90s.
We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends
to come back and relive it.
Listen to Hey Dude the 90s called
on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast,
Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.
Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass
and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?
If you do, you've come to the right place
because I'm here to help.
And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander
each week to guide you through life.
Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast
and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say.
Bye, bye, bye.
Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass
on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Hello Stuff You Should Know Nation,
Stuff You Should Know Army, and even casual listeners.
Welcome to this week's Saturday Stuff You Should Know
Select episode.
This one's from January 28th, 2010.
Are There Undiscovered People?
And this was a great one.
I just remember thinking at the time,
wow, is it possible that there could be people out there
in the world that we don't know about?
In this day and age?
Even in 2010?
Not even 2018.
So it was pretty interesting
and it's sort of an older one at this point.
And it's just a super interesting one.
Learn all about everything we know about whether or not
there could be undiscovered people in the world.
So enjoy Are There Undiscovered People right now.
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
from HowStuffWorks.com.
Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark.
With me as always is Charles W. Bryant.
I'm always there for you, Josh.
Yeah, as always.
Yes, how's it going?
I'm contractually obligated to do it.
I know.
I know.
I know.
So, Chuck, you doing all right?
Yeah, dude, how are you?
I'm doing pretty good.
It's Thursday.
It's not Friday, but...
It's a little gray out for my tastes.
Yeah.
It's sprinkling, by the way.
I thought it was like pouring rain.
Is it sprinkling?
It's sprinkling.
Yeah, it's good.
So, Chuck, do you remember,
can we go back a year or so?
May 2008?
How many years after Ghostbusters?
Let's see, hold on.
What was it, 84 or 86?
84, and yes, we do know that there is a...
It's 24 years.
A sequel coming, by the way.
Yes, Ghostbusters 3.
That's going to be awesome.
Should be.
The entire original cast.
I believe so.
Except for Sigourney Weaver, which that's okay.
Yeah, Ghostbusters 3 coming out.
Right.
So, where are we?
So, we're 24 years after Ghostbusters.
Right.
May 2008.
And the news cycle had this kind of strange occurrence
where a bunch of undiscovered human beings
were splashed across the front pages
of newspapers everywhere.
Yeah.
Yeah?
Sort of.
Yeah.
So, there's this photo, there's several photos
of these people living in primitive huts.
Actually, primitive longhouses is what it looks like.
And they are, it's an aerial photo
taken from a low-flying helicopter.
And they are pissed.
Yeah.
They're aiming their bows and arrows at the camera.
Did you see the picture?
It's pretty cool.
Yeah, it's awesome.
Like, get out of here.
Right.
And so, yeah, this whole thing made the news cycle.
And Chuck, I imagine, I take from what you said
before we started recording that you have a tad bit
of disdain for the, let's say, journalism
that was applied to this.
Yeah.
Well, first of all, should we go ahead and refute it?
Why not?
Because they were not, in fact, undiscovered people.
No.
And there's actually a huge, huge distinction
between undiscovered people and uncontacted
or isolated people, right?
Right.
But you would not know that by reading
The Independent from London.
Which I'm disappointed, because I like that paper.
No, I'm sorry.
I could care less about the independence of the Guardian.
I like that.
Yeah, you like the Guardian.
Yeah.
Not the Daily Mail, the Independent.
Right.
Here's how the article opens up beneath the picture
of the, you know, clearly savage human.
Long claws and everything.
With the arrow pointing at the helicopter.
Right.
Three near-naked figures are visible in the forest clearing.
Two of them are men.
Their bodies dabbed with a red dye,
and they are aiming their bows at the sky.
A third figure appears to be a woman.
Her body blackened, and only her pale hands and face
betraying her natural color.
This remarkable photograph is the first proof of existence
of one of the world's last uncontacted tribes.
Yeah.
So they do say uncontacted.
That's good.
But not everybody did, though.
Sure.
It's a little overblown.
That was a fine dramatic reading there, Chuck.
I think the funniest thing that would have happened
is if he would have shot that arrow,
and it would have somehow disrupted the propeller
of the helicopter.
And it would have landed safely on the beach
for them to be eaten.
Yeah.
That would have been a nice ending.
There are tons of rumors of cannibalism
about undiscovered people, right?
In this specific case, there is a guy
named Carlos Dos Reis Moreles.
My Spanish is a little rusty, but I think that's about right.
Not bad.
And he is an Indian expert.
I just made air quotes.
And these photos were taken in Brazil, right?
This guy led the search for this tribe, right?
And I guess he kind of watched with horror, hopefully,
as they were described as undiscovered,
and no one had ever found them before.
He came out and was like, wait, wait.
No, I've been following these people for the last 20 years.
Right.
So they're not undiscovered.
See, I thought that was part of the ploy for him.
Was he taken aback by that, you think?
I thought maybe that's how he got the funding
to get the research team by saying they were in his place.
It could go either way.
We'll find out.
Well, let's talk about it.
Is it even possible to be undiscovered?
Well, that's what this podcast is about, buddy.
And you know what?
It's kind of impossible these days.
Yeah, we have things like GPS.
We have things like heat sensors that
can be attached to airplanes, which body heat sensors.
There is almost complete and total encroachment
and harnessment of any square parcel of land on the planet.
Yeah, most everywhere.
Most.
But that doesn't mean that there aren't
people who live outside, I guess, the French,
who live primitively.
And remain in a, I guess, primitive state.
These are the uncontacted people.
Yeah, isolation.
Basically, first they call them undiscovered,
then they say uncontacted, and then they finally
settle on isolated.
Which means more than anything is
they don't want any part of us.
Yeah.
Not that we don't want a part of them,
because we're always interested.
We are.
And usually with, I guess, murderous results, right?
Yeah, these people have learned the hard way.
And some of these uncontacted tribes also, we should say,
don't even, we have no idea what they call themselves.
Right.
So there's a group actually called Survival International.
And they are dedicated to preserving
indigenous ways of lives.
Yeah, for these tribes.
For these uncontacted tribes who've
rejected modernization, right?
Indeed.
Because that's the thing you think about it when
it's undiscovered or they're uncontacted.
You kind of point it out.
We just tend to think like, oh, well, they don't know
about civilization.
Right.
Or these poor fools, they don't know about television
or Grand Theft Auto VI.
And it would clearly be better off
if we gave them TV or made them Christians
or did whatever made them slaves.
Yeah, which we have a fine, fine tradition of doing.
And in this, who's this kid who wrote this?
Patrick Keiger?
Yeah, never heard of him.
I hadn't either, but he's pretty good.
He does say that it goes back to Columbus.
It goes well back for that.
The Portuguese in particular loved to enslave Africans.
And actually, African tribes used to enslave one another.
They had a completely different method and system of slavery.
Slaves were treated much better among African tribes,
especially West African tribes, to where they would eat
at the same table as the people that owned them.
And of course, the Romans used slaves.
The Jews spent a good portion of their history as slaves
to the Egyptians.
So I mean, whenever we come upon new people or subjugate them,
we have a history of enslaving them, like you said.
Yeah, we tend to conquer.
Like Chris Columbus met the very friendly Arawak people.
And instead of saying, well, we can learn from them,
he thought they would make really good servants.
Look how hardworking they are.
And they don't even speak English, so who cares?
Right, exactly.
Well, they were also looked upon as savages
that were less than human, which definitely
aided the subjugation of their, I don't know, blood.
Right, do you know why?
Why?
Because back before everything was discovered,
and there was still a lot of undiscovered land,
and they were making maps, the map makers
would often chart these undiscovered lands
as being filled with mutant human beings
and scary beasts for some reason.
Right, like here there'd be monsters,
because we haven't gotten around to mapping this area yet.
Just assume that there's some sort of water serpent
that's going to eat your boat.
Yeah, I guess I don't know why they
tended to strike fear into people and to explorers,
instead of saying there might be very friendly people.
Maybe caution.
Fear of the unknown.
You think so?
Sure.
But Josh, these days, virtually every corner of the earth
has been explored, except for, obviously, parts of Antarctica
and Amapa, which I had never heard of.
Oh, where is it?
In Brazil.
And they said that 70% of this territory in northern Brazil
is still unexplored forest.
Right, so it's possible there are undiscovered people out there.
Maybe.
Right.
If there are undiscovered people out there,
they are in big trouble, because if the uncontacted
or isolated people are any indication in their plight,
then, yeah, any undiscovered people
are really kind of screwed.
Yeah.
Ba, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
Stop, you should not go.
On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher
and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude,
bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker
necklaces.
We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point,
but we are going to unpack and dive back
into the decade of the 90s.
We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends
to come back and relive it.
It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars,
friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever.
Do you remember going to Blockbuster?
Do you remember Nintendo 64?
Do you remember getting Frosted Tips?
Was that a cereal?
No, it was hair.
Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up
sound like poltergeist?
So leave a code on your best friend's beeper,
because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts
flowing.
Each episode will rival the feeling
of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy,
blowing on it and popping it back in,
as we take you back to the 90s.
Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted
Tips with Lance Bass.
The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when
questions arise or times get tough,
or you're at the end of the road.
OK, I see what you're doing.
Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass
and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?
If you do, you've come to the right place,
because I'm here to help.
This, I promise you.
Oh, god.
Seriously, I swear.
And you won't have to send an SOS,
because I'll be there for you.
Oh, man.
And so will my husband, Michael.
Um, hey, that's me.
Yeah, we know that, Michael.
And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week
to guide you through life, step by step.
Oh, not another one.
Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy.
You may be thinking, this is the story of my life.
Just stop now.
If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody,
about my new podcast, and make sure to listen,
so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye.
Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart
radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
We talked about Chris Columbus and subjugating people.
And actually, Columbus is quite the little genocidal maniac.
He was.
We covered that in one of the other podcasts, too.
We did.
We did.
Because not only did he enslave them, he killed them,
had them killed, like an entire groups of people
are assumed to have been wiped out
by European colonization, and not just through brute force.
But this type of genocide, and especially
if you look at a genocide by its definition,
that it's the systematic wiping out of a group, right?
Like a people or a population, then it still continues today.
As recently as the 80s, the 90s in Brazil.
Are you talking about the microbes?
Or are you talking about outright violence?
Violence, specifically against the Akunzu.
Yes, Josh, the Akunzu, who seemed like a friendly tribe
that grew corn and hunted in remote Brazil
for thousands of years until they were discovered.
And it was discovered that their land
could be used for a soy cultivation in cattle.
Right, and logging, actually.
So the companies put in logging roads
and into this virgin territory where the Akunzu lived,
and they actually came upon them.
And it's part of Brazil's constitution
that the moment you meet an uncontacted tribesperson
or an undiscovered person, all work stops.
So what the logging companies and the soybean farming
concerns and the cattle ranchers did
was hire assassins, like death squads,
when they did meet the Akunzu, and sent them in
and actually massacred them with guns.
These people used bows and arrows,
and these guys came in with machine guns
and killed all but seven of the entire tribe.
Yeah, and sadly, they fled.
And just last year, a newspaper reported
that there were only five living Akunzu in the world.
Right, and that was 1990.
That wasn't 1492 or 300 AD.
Very shameful.
But they are not, Josh, the most isolated tribe,
according to Survival International, are they?
Right, no.
That would be the Sentinelese.
Had you ever heard of these guys?
No, I hadn't, and I saw that video you sent me.
There's a clip on YouTube.
I think, did you just search the Sentinelese
and that's what came up?
There was a couple of clips.
I think Nat Geo went down there,
and they did the same thing.
They came out of the jungle onto the beach.
And what it looked like in the video,
or their interpretation, was they were making
friendly gestures.
I did see another one where they had the bow and arrow out.
And I was laughing the one I was watching it earlier.
Part of me expected Hippie Robb to come out
as their leader, you know?
Yeah, he's like the God.
He's like Brando and Apocalypse Now.
Exactly.
And the Sentinelese, Josh, where they are believed
to be descended from the very first humans in Africa.
And technically, we all are, but these people
are directly descended from the first group
that migrated out about 60,000 years ago, right?
Yep.
They live on the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean.
And did you notice how clear that water was
and how white those beaches were?
I wouldn't leave either, dude.
It was gorgeous.
Who needs TV and Xbox when you've got that, you know?
Right.
So these people will come out of the jungle
if you throw coconuts into the water at the beach.
Right.
That's what they were doing, right?
Oh, was it?
Yeah, this group of people were sitting there
throwing coconuts into the water.
And the Sentinelese came out and were like,
thanks for the coconuts.
Well, they probably thought it's raining coconuts
from the giant monster.
Yeah.
But they are actually not primitive Stone Age folks
from what they say.
Survival International says they actually do make tools
and weapons from recovered metal from shipwrecks.
Right.
Pretty cool.
They are actually not threatened.
They're very isolated and relatively uncontacted.
Right.
But they're not threatened.
They live on an island that no one really has
any interest in, right?
Yeah, exactly.
As we saw with the Akunzu, though,
if there is money to be made off the indigenous land,
you're in trouble.
Soy, oil, cattle.
Survival International actually named all of those oil,
farming, cattle, and logging as the dominant threat
to uncontacted tribes.
So sad.
There's supposedly an estimated 100
uncontacted tribes in the world.
Yeah, I was kind of surprised.
That's a lot.
And it's sad that these people are around for 60,000 years
doing their thing long before us.
And we just come in and say, hey,
this would make a great soy farm.
So I'm going to massacre you.
Yeah.
They heard about the bailout.
And they're like, we're staying here.
Not for us.
No.
So there's five regions that are under the greatest threat
right now.
And they're in Brazil, Paraguay, and Peru.
And actually, there's tons of evidence.
There's groups dedicated like Survival International
and other NGOs.
And then there's actually government ministries set up
in Brazil and in Peru and I think Paraguay
that are in charge of keeping track
of these uncontacted tribes, which is really difficult to do.
And a lot of times, these uncontacted tribes
are slivers, offshoots, of other tribes
that have had their land disturbed by logging or mining
or oil companies.
So they would join up with another tribe.
No, they'd just take off into the forest.
Oh, and start a new tribe.
No one would know how many there were, that kind of thing.
But yeah, they would be living primitively.
But they're getting pushed further and further out
or being massacred.
Or they're coming into contact with disease, right?
Yeah, that's what I was talking about with the microbes.
Violence is obviously a big threat.
But they say that a bigger threat
are these people, these tribes that
lack immunities to these awful diseases
that 20th century man has.
Right, 21st century man, excuse me.
Sure, it's the future, remember?
I'm living in the past.
Yeah, there's actually that favorite book of mine, 1491.
Oh, yeah.
A Charles C. Mann.
Talked about how there's an estimated 100 million people
living in the Americas in 1491.
And then, I think, 90% were wiped out by smallpox.
Thank you.
Like, within a few decades.
And Josh, it didn't just happen way back then.
No.
Like you said, in the 80s, some Christian missionaries
made contact with the Zoe tribe in Brazil.
And in pretty short form, 45 members of that tribe
died from the flu, malaria, and respiratory diseases,
just like that.
And more recently, in 1996, half of the Maruna Hua.
Maruna Hua?
Maruna Hua tribe.
I think in Brazil, they were contacted by illegal loggers.
Right.
And half of the tribe was wiped out
from respiratory illnesses, I think.
Awful.
So it's not like to bring up one of our favorite movies again.
It's not like bringing orange soda to the Waponi Woo.
Joe versus the volcano.
Oh, yeah.
It's not like that in real life.
I thought you were talking about the gods must be crazy.
No, another good one, though.
But it's not like the Joe versus the volcano.
It's not all happy, go lucky.
They usually make contact with them.
And even in the case of the Christian missionaries,
they were trying to do good, I guess,
and ended up killing a lot of them.
And the Brazilian government stepped in and actually kicked
them out, the religious group, and said,
now you've got to get out of here.
And apparently, even when the thing is,
when contact is made as safely as possible,
and there's a medical contingency plan in place,
it's expected that a lot of the tribespeople will die.
But if they're made through illegal loggers
or a Christian missionary group that
doesn't know what they're doing, then, yeah,
a lot of people die, if not the entire group.
Right.
That tribe did recover, though, we should know.
Yeah.
Which is good news.
So get out of here, Christian missionary,
so we can live peacefully and healthfully.
On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s,
called David Lasher and Christine Taylor,
stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude,
bring you back to the days of slipdresses and choker
necklaces.
We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point,
but we are going to unpack and dive back
into the decade of the 90s.
We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends
to come back and relive it.
It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars,
friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever.
Do you remember going to Blockbuster?
Do you remember Nintendo 64?
Do you remember getting Frosted Tips?
Was that a cereal?
No, it was hair.
Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up
sound like poltergeist?
So leave a code on your best friend's beeper,
because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts
flowing.
Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out
the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it
and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s.
Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast,
Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.
The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when
questions arise or times get tough,
or you're at the end of the road.
OK, I see what you're doing.
Do you ever think to yourself, what advice
would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands
give me in this situation?
If you do, you've come to the right place,
because I'm here to help.
This, I promise you.
Oh, god.
Seriously, I swear.
And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there
for you.
Oh, man.
And so will my husband, Michael.
Um, hey, that's me.
Yeah, we know that, Michael.
And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander
each week to guide you through life, step by step.
Oh, not another one.
Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy.
You may be thinking, this is the story of my life.
Just stop now.
If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody,
about my new podcast, and make sure to listen,
so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye.
Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart
radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to podcasts.
So Chuck, is it good to even contact these people?
Well, it can be good and bad, because obviously,
if you make contact and you know a little bit about their way
of life, you can protect them.
But it's also like this newspaper article.
It also opens them up to being invaded or watched,
or in this case, what was the tourism trip?
Tell me about that.
That's awful.
Savage tourism?
Yeah.
Yeah, actually, the guy who was responsible for leading
the expedition that produced those photographs that
made the paper in 2008 was apparently approached
by travel agents who wanted him to set up
a savage tourism trip.
Awful.
Which came to see a bunch of fat white Germans
and Americans like, ooh, I want to touch you.
Now your whole tribe's wiped out.
And now let's get back on the cruise ship
and look at the ice sculpture.
Like I said, Brazil mentions uncontacted and undiscovered
people in its constitution, in large part because of that 70%
of unexplored forests in just that one territory.
They have a real, you don't have that in America.
We don't have to worry about how to treat undiscovered tribes.
We figured out how to treat the ones we're familiar with
badly enough.
But so Brazil apparently recognizes that, hey,
this is your land, and you legally own it.
If you're an uncontacted or isolated tribe,
nobody can touch it, but then has a really terrible history
of following through on stopping people
from going in and logging in oil.
Peru's history is even worse.
They have some uncontacted tribes,
some threatened uncontacted tribes.
And Peru's president is like, I'm not even sure they exist.
And by the way, the French oil company that's
working in this area where they supposedly exist,
I've now just decreed that their work
is a national necessity.
So when you're an uncontacted tribe
and you're butting heads with an oil company,
you're going to lose.
Yeah, I would say so.
But I will say, Paraguay, hats off to Paraguay
because they actually, the environmental nice,
Chuck just took his hat off too.
The environmental ministry revoked
the license of a ranching concern that was just decimating.
And I don't mean in the literal removing 10% term.
I mean decimating.
All you Latin speakers out there.
The land that technically belongs to the indigenous
uncontacted tribes there.
So they booted them out, or they just took away their permits?
They took away their permits, which is pretty much
tantamount to booting them out.
Awesome.
Yeah.
It's just so sad that when such a modernist point of view
to see these undiscovered or uncontacted people
and think that they're savages and that their way of life
is savage and primitive, it's just they were here first.
Well, I mean, we were all here first.
We were all here at the same time.
But it's just a complete lack of recognition
of other people's choices.
Yeah, and respect for other cultures and ways of life.
And because they didn't fly around here.
There's no Grand Theft Auto in the jungle.
No, there's not.
No.
There's no auto.
If you want to learn more about people, undiscovered
or otherwise, you should try typing in people in the Andy
Surge Bar at HowStuffWorks.com.
It brings up a hidden sub channel.
Really?
Yes.
And I guess since I said hidden sub channel,
that means it's time for what, Chuck listener mail?
Yes, Josh, it is.
And before we do that, we want to send a thank you
to Dan of the pottery, Dan.
Dan Made.
Dan Made.
He has a little Etsy website, danmade.etsy.com.
And he makes pottery.
And he sent us some really awesome coffee mugs.
Yes, Dan Made.
Very cool mugs.
And actually, that's my work mug now.
That's what it is.
I noticed.
Cool detail.
You got an octopus on yours.
With a pipe.
Oh, did I have a pipe?
Smoking a pipe.
I can't tell what mine is.
It's some little dude, but it's just got cool details.
It's got swirls in the bottom.
Yeah, little indentions.
And only some parts of it are glazed and others raw.
It's really, Dan Made knows what he's doing.
Yes, he does.
So thanks, Dan.
Yeah, thank you.
And you know what?
You wanted to bring up people who
have been sending us little gifts.
And it's just really nice to come into work and have someone.
You know, what was her name that sent us the homemade Twinkie
the Kid shirts?
I don't remember her name.
It's like Kaya or something like that.
Kyla, I believe.
OK.
She should write in because I told her
that I would mention her little website too.
OK, yeah.
Yeah, we got Twinkie the Kid t-shirts
because remember we talked about how badly we wanted some?
Uh-huh.
So with that, listen to your mail.
All right, I'm going to call this organ donation details
from someone who knows.
Hi, Josh and Chuckers and Jerry.
I'm an anesthesiologist who specializes
in organ transplantation, specifically
livers and kidneys.
In fact, we performed a liver transplant just last night.
And I'm home resting after what is always
an exhausting procedure.
He thought we might want a few more details
about organ donation.
So he says this.
They do not get to meet the donor and the recipient
until after a period of time, usually a year,
and only after both agree to meet.
But we also had people that wrote in and said
they met like weeks later.
So it might vary by hospital or state.
Yeah, I'm not sure.
Or maybe there's just an agreement you go into.
But he says they can trade letters
and get very basic, unidentifiable information
about each other.
But it all gets censored by the organ procurement
organization.
This is because if this recipient does not live
or the organ fails, the recipient or donor
won't blame the donor and their families.
Also, if the organ works, they don't
want the parties involved feeling unduly indebted
to the donor.
After all, it's supposed to be a free gift
with no strings attached.
After they have both had time to adjust to their new lives
and agreed and prepared to meet, they can meet.
That being said, people can still find each other
if they are looking and turn to the same websites,
specifically designed to link donor to recipient,
although it is strongly discouraged.
So maybe that was the deal.
They did it in surreptitiously.
So I thought your listeners.
Somebody came up at the website to make money off
of people who want to meet the people who donated a kidney
to them.
What a great world we live in.
I thought your listeners would want to know this.
And I hope it encourages would-be donors
that they don't have to meet the recipient if they think
it would be too difficult.
Regards, Todd.
Thanks, Todd.
The anesthesiologist.
Yeah.
And didn't he say that it's like you die very easily
if you're over anesthetized during a liver procedure?
Yeah, he has a PS here.
If you want to know why an anesthesiologist would
need to specialize in liver transplantation,
ask yourself if you would like to wake up
during a procedure where patients don't
tolerate anesthetics very well, and if you
would like your new liver to have something to cleanse.
That's what he says.
Very mysterious, Todd.
I just asked myself that, and I have no answer.
I don't know.
So if you bring people to the brink of death
and you want to tell us about it,
or if you make money off of genuine humankind-ness,
we want to hear your ploy.
Sure.
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