Michael Harrop
Well-known member
1 hour Q&A
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4No2o9fZrc
It had some interesting parts. I would have been interested to hear what the panelists think about humanmicrobes.org and https://humanmicrobiome.info/fmt (and https://humanmicrobiome.info/where-to-get-fmt), as they discussed similar sites & topics.
Dr. Alexander Khoruts (University of Minnesota GI, Director, UMN Microbiota Therapeutics Program) made a concerning and depressing statement about the FDA at 43:30. He asks an FDA adviser "Does the FDA care more about profits or people?", and the response he gets is "one of the missions of the FDA is to protect the interests of commercial developers". Another question to the advisor: "How much influence does the industry have over the FDA decisions?", A: "A lot".
At 37:00 - 40:15 Dr. Khoruts starts commenting & complaining about the FDA's decision to regulate FMT as a drug, and how he disapproves of the for-profit model and says he wishes a non-profit model would exist.
45:40 "People are more important than profits".
Peter Westerhaus founded Achieving Cures Together (ACT). He has/had UC. He got FMT from UMN and still had to have his colon removed.
Amanda Kabage: UC & C. diff patient. Research program manager for UMN FMT. Has had multiple FMTs.
06/23/2025 updates:
Added more highlights from the video in light of new information about the UMN program.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4No2o9fZrc
It had some interesting parts. I would have been interested to hear what the panelists think about humanmicrobes.org and https://humanmicrobiome.info/fmt (and https://humanmicrobiome.info/where-to-get-fmt), as they discussed similar sites & topics.
Dr. Alexander Khoruts (University of Minnesota GI, Director, UMN Microbiota Therapeutics Program) made a concerning and depressing statement about the FDA at 43:30. He asks an FDA adviser "Does the FDA care more about profits or people?", and the response he gets is "one of the missions of the FDA is to protect the interests of commercial developers". Another question to the advisor: "How much influence does the industry have over the FDA decisions?", A: "A lot".
At 37:00 - 40:15 Dr. Khoruts starts commenting & complaining about the FDA's decision to regulate FMT as a drug, and how he disapproves of the for-profit model and says he wishes a non-profit model would exist.
45:40 "People are more important than profits".
Peter Westerhaus founded Achieving Cures Together (ACT). He has/had UC. He got FMT from UMN and still had to have his colon removed.
- He knows the potential benefits of FMT.
- UMN failed him.
- He set up a non-profit (ACT) designed to raise money for UMN.
- "Let's accelerate research and find cures" is his stated goal.
- I contacted him about donor quality, etc. No response. He apparently doesn't care about the reason UMN's FMTs failed him and resulted in him having to have his colon removed.
Amanda Kabage: UC & C. diff patient. Research program manager for UMN FMT. Has had multiple FMTs.
06/23/2025 updates:
Added more highlights from the video in light of new information about the UMN program.
- Format correct?
- Yes
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