Is HumanMicrobes.org legit? Is it a scam? Are they really paying $500 for stool donation? Misinformation & fake reviews on reddit. Sources

Michael Harrop · 2026-05-25T14:21:27-0400

There are two reddit threads that show up in search results that are full of misinformation. Since reddit is a "free-for-all" where anyone can anonymously write anything they want, there is nothing that can be done about it other than to create threads about them and hope they show up during searches.

The Human Microbes project actually started out on reddit. But that history and useful information are not what show up in search results.

I've spent the past decade trying to educate people about this situation, and have put out a ton of information. But naturally, redditors would rather wildly speculate and spread misinformation instead of reviewing it and educating themselves and others.

The first thread is on the "scams" subreddit, and all the top comments are people saying completely false things with utmost confidence. This is extremely common on reddit. What is similarly common is people with an agenda doing it deliberately. I'll address the claims directly in the comments below.

This is a big reason why the people involved left reddit. The vast majority of what's on reddit is untrustworthy and misinformation. There's a saying that "you realize how bad the information on reddit is once you see someone talk about a subject you're well-informed on". Anyone can anonymously say anything they want on reddit, and thus, reddit is frequently used by people with bad intentions to spread misinformation & disinformation. Especially now that it frequently shows up at the top of search results.

This brings us to the second reddit thread on another microbiome sub. The OP is "quoting" a review that doesn't exist, and the comments are full of a group of scammers who are retaliating for exposing them. The thread title is mimicking one that was made about them. https://humanmicrobiome.info/where-to-get-fmt/#microbiomaorg

Controlling/manipulating search results is also a big business. Those same scammers purchased a fake review on a "for hire" website that also shows up in the top search results: https://forum.humanmicrobiome.info/threads/review-of-microbioma-org-2022.117/post-2582

Social media websites are poor sources of information for these reasons. You have to put in effort to find trustworthy information these days. In this case, here are some things you can do:

1. You can review the website yourself and compare it to what people are saying about it. Most people should then be able to determine that the reddit comments are nonsense. This may take more time than reading a few reddit comments.

2. Look for places where the people involved communicate publicly. In this case, there is a detailed blog, and a microbiome forum. There are also social media pages where this has been directly addressed.

If you have additional questions or concerns, you're welcome to ask them in this thread.

3. If it's a scam, what is the purpose of the scam? How does the scam work? Is there supporting evidence for or against?

Credit to the OP, they did specifically ask that, but the people concluding that "it must be a scam" offered nothing but wild speculation.

Besides the website and blog, there are videos and social media posts that explain exactly what Human Microbes is trying to do and why it's offering so much money for poop.

Also consider what the project is. It is a patient (at times a group of patients) taking on a hundred-billion-dollar industry. There are many people who have a strong financial interest in seeing such a project fail.

There is more information about this, and HumanMicrobes.org's history, near the bottom of this forum post: https://forum.humanmicrobiome.info/threads/rules-info-submission-guidelines-features.20/

Every person who wants a cure for chronic diseases to be available should read this and take action: https://forum.humanmicrobiome.info/threads/the-fda-and-fmt-regulation-part-2-jul-2024-humanmicrobes-org-i-met-wit.520/post-1370

Michael Harrop · 2026-05-25T14:36:40-0400

Addressing some of the specific claims being made:

the most obvious indication that it’s not legit is the listed address goes to a “Halal Grill Shawarma” somewhere in California.

This is a Google Maps bug. If you remove the suite number from the address, it shows the correct location.

The site may be legitimate as some others have claimed but it is defiantly not MEDICALLY legitimate

[because...]

at the bottom they talk about a collection kit which contains "1 freezer bag", they also say "Collect your stool directly in a ziplock bag"; this would NEVER EVER fly in a medical environment, it would be in a screw top plastic container that would be cleaned with wipes and then bagged to minimize risk of fouling. Furthermore ziplock bags aren’t clean, medical supplies are handled in ways to minimize fouling....

This is laughable.

Zip-lock bags are food-safe. One of their primary uses is to store food in, and then eat that food. Poop is not sterile. Donors do not need to collect their stool in something completely sterile. Donors are essentially creating, collecting, and preparing a human-fermented food.
It's not correct that stool is collected in "a screw top plastic container" in "medical environments". Those containers are commonly what stool is stored in, after collection. The most common stool collection device is a "stool collection hat" that is placed over the toilet bowl. I have received these from doctors/labs a number of times, and they are definitely not sterile.
Donors are trained to collect their stool in a zip-lock bag, away from the toilet, for the exact reason of minimizing contamination.

when you look at the donor survey /recipients its a google form that has a lot of legal sounding phrases but that is not a way to conduct a medical screening. It would need to be done by an actual doctor who actually collects a complete medical history.

This is misinformation. Virtually every source of blood & stool donor screening begins with a questionnaire. You can find discussions where I criticize other FMT sources for their weak screening questionnaires.

Google Forms are a very common way for researchers to collect data. They can be made HIPAA-compliant.

Additionally, there are official stool donor screening guidelines, and additional screening steps like blood & stool testing, which are linked to on the "recipients" page this person refers to.

On their DONOR RESULTS that they share from their website they have PEOPLES FULL NAMES

All donors & recipients are anonymous by default. I believe the only name that has ever been on there is mine, Michael Harrop, the founder of Human Microbes. I have published my name and results publicly for transparency. I started the entire project primarily to address my own poor health. FMT is an experimental treatment; I have always used myself as a test dummy. If I'm not willing to try the donor, that would be a big red flag. It appears this redditor didn't even bother to check the "About" page.

They are supposedly trying to vet the site to determine if it's a scam, and they don't even look at the About page? Pretty fishy.

I mean come on.... look at what they are linking to in terms of directions: https://github.com/MaximilianKohler/HumanMicrobiome/wiki/FMT#upper-route

(The correct link: https://humanmicrobiome.info/fmt/#upper-route)

I would argue that this is the best website of this sort that exists. After all, it was created by me, and I believe I'm the #1 world expert on FMT.

These are their specific criticisms about the content:

any medical team would call it defecating

Ah, I use the word "poops" instead of "defecates". You got me! Definitely not medically legitimate!

there would be testing done on every sample

This is misinformation. The onus of proof is on the person making the claim, and this person provides NO citations for their numerous [false] claims. Testing every stool sample would be extraordinarily expensive. And stool testing is a small part of donor screening due to severe limitations.

no mention of wearing PPE, when they talk about filling capsules,

No PPE is necessary. Stool is not sterile. Wash your hands as you would before preparing food. Specifically, a human-fermented food.

"might be the best way", no you HAVE A PROCESS THAT HAS BEEN VETTED and you might need toothpicks handy to unclog the syringe?!?!

Yep. There are tradeoffs for everything. This person would probably be flabbergasted to learn that the most common way for doctors to prepare FMT has been to put it in a home-blender. Shocking! Not medically legitimate!

Here's an amazing excerpt from you that I promise is medically vetted, I heard this many times when I was getting my license: "If you can stomach it you can skip the capsules and just straight up swallow the poop. As a plus side, unhealthy poop is going to be a lot more repugnant (some support: [1][2]). And if the stool is too soft it will melt the capsules anyway. You could also add water and use a straw to drink the liquid."

!MedicalScam

This is correct. This is the way FMT has been performed throughout the entire history of the animal kingdom. There are various benefits from using this method, and one I'd argue makes it essential. I won't disclose that reason publicly for the moment, but you can review this clinical trial where the large particles were filtered out to remove the taste, and the patients drank the liquid: https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40168-016-0225-7

They made autistic children drink poop! Horrifying!

Similar to blood donations you don't screen someone once then say YOURE GOOD FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, samples are constantly screened.

They're baselessly implying that Human Microbes does not do that, which is false.

AT THE END OF THE DAY, I think this website is a legit scam website

And above were all their reasoning & evidence for coming to that conclusion.

Michael Harrop · 2026-05-25T15:03:19-0400

This one is quoting multiple redditors.

This is a pretty shitty scam.

There's no way to tell for sure what type, but it has to be one. Nobody is going to pay you that much to take a shit.

It appears that this person didn't bother to review the website at all.

Old thread but this is real.

The only issue is that you WILL NOT qualify. You have a better chance at hitting a lottery of some kind.

They ask for insane amount of physical stuff before passing you(for example, they needed a video of me jogging on a treadmill for 240 minutes straight).

They want tip top physical performance.

The first blog post is about "our 1 in 23,000 donor". Not quite as rare as the "one in hundreds of millions" for the lottery.

The "video of jogging for 240 minutes" part is probably trolling. At no point are videos of any kind requested. When someone who actually received the directions comments, they respond with "Things may have changed". No, the directions have always been the same.

These types of comments are annoying. It's probable that you didn't even take the time to review their website and learn why they're paying so much for shit.

Welcome to reddit. Bitch, talk shit, complain about something you know little to nothing about.

I couldn't agree more. Lol. I hate reddit but Google led me to this page.

He's also from California so maybe he's racist and sexist since I'm Hispanic and I'm not a girl. The only 2 actual donors are girls which is on the website but no name.

Being a high level athlete isn't correlated to a healthier gut. He's the professional so he should know this. I know this with just 5 years of experience. The sources are my degree in Kinesiology & Human Performance & experience with Nutritionist. I worked under the Director of Sports Nutrition at UCF Football.

Maybe I'm a racist and sexist??? What???

It's not true that the two donors were girls. One was a black man.

His comment about athletes is also wrong: https://humanmicrobiome.info/fmt/#impact-factors

I would say its shady… just trying to fill out the questionnaire to determine your eligibility is a pain, the coding on the page is off. You cant even select the answer fields because the site is so cheaply coded and poorly put together

Google made that questionnaire page. One of the largest companies in the world, which is not exactly known for its "cheaply coded and poorly put together" software. They have a "send feedback" link on most pages. You should let them know about the problems you had.

why does every time someone mentions getting to the next step on this thread there’s no follow up?

Probably because it’s a scam

I see numerous people following up. But due to the large number of applicants (1.5 million), it can take more than 6 months for a response, so some of them probably forgot about the reddit thread, and many people miss the follow-up email.

Michael Harrop · 2026-05-25T15:27:21-0400

Poop donation is real, this site is looking shady. If they are real, they need to seriously improve their communication because it truly sucks.

Yes, they say somewhere in the fine prints that they only pay that to the ultra rare applicant (so far they screened 26,000 candidates and found none matching their criteria) but that should be made much more clear.

This is a really weird claim. It's literally the main heading of the front page: "Working to find the fewer than 0.1% of people with healthy, unperturbed, disease-resistant microbiomes"

And on the Donors page, "0.1%" is in bolded text multiple times.

What happens if you do not qualify? Do they still pay for shipping and dry ice? Do they still pay you the first one for your time? None of it is clear. The entire process should be explained clearly instead of stamping a big "we pay you 180k a year to shit in a bag!!!!!!!!" on a flyer.

It's quite odd (and deceptive) that they're conflating a flyer with the website. Flyers are very limited in space. They're designed to grab attention and give a basic gist. The flyers direct people to the website, which has all the information.

They continue with their critique of the flyers:

The flyers are shit. If you can afford to pay 500$ for poop, you can afford a designer. The information is all over the place, frankly useless, the pictures used make no sense and overall, it's simply so badly done that it looks like it was done by in paint in 5 minutes.

A designer was indeed hired to create the flyers. Multiple versions/mock-ups were presented, and I liked the one that you dislike.

The pictures make no sense? The picture is a colon with a magnification of the bacteria. Is this person mentally impaired, or are they deliberately spreading FUD?

I found the guy ranting on several subreddit that nobody wants to help, that humans are trash for not trying to help a good cause but in the mean time, it looks like he is going out of his way to make his site and flyer look like a scam.

If you want to look professional hire a professional instead of trying to save a few bucks.

Very strange comment.

There was no specific reason why "the site looks like a scam". All the specifics were about the flyer.

Interestingly, it looks like they edited their comment to remove other parts that another user criticized. Including:

Poop donations never pays that much. There is no shortage of people willing to poop for money, quite the opposite.

In a follow-up comment they claim that the website was changed after they made their criticisms. This is not true. Their only criticism about the website was that "it's only in the fine print that they pay the ultra rare applicant", but you can use archive.org to see that this was always the headline of the front page: "Finding the 0.1% of people with healthy, unperturbed, disease-resistant microbiomes."

The reddit thread was created on July 12, 2022, and there's an archive of the website on that same day: https://web.archive.org/web/20220712144416/https://www.humanmicrobes.org/

No matter how you look at it, the website (and flyer) are so unprofessional looking that it's legitimate to wonder if it's a scam or not. They made the website themselves, as medical professionals, not thinking about how the masses will react to it. Other medical professionals may be thinking "yeah, it's perfectly normal to pay 500$ for special poop" but not the general public and guess what, the general public is who they are advertising to.

When you advertise, you don't advertise to yourself, you do it for a certain public and you need to tailor your advertisements for them or you will fail to capture them.

It's marketing 101 and they blatantly failed at it. You can defend their legitimacy all you want but you have no way to defend the way they have advertised themselves to their target.

"It's perfectly normal to pay 500$ for special poop" is not what our thoughts were. Which is why the website, social media, etc., clearly explain why we're paying so much for special poop.

I'm still unsure if this person is mentally impaired or is deliberately spreading FUD.

Michael Harrop · 2026-05-25T15:47:09-0400

I found out about this through TikTok (which is sketchy already).

I'm not a fan of TikTok, but everything on TikTok is sketchy? That seems like a stretch. And why are you on TikTok if everything on TikTok is sketchy? And you go from TikTok to Reddit? You seem to spend a lot of time on sketchy websites.

I looked at their website, and it seemed like I qualified for it, so I decided to try. I filled out their questionnaire, which is mainly filled with medical-related questions. The questionnaire is exceptionally long and thorough (it asks if you have dandruff or if you have used braces). However, what seemed weird to me is that the questionnaire does not ask anything about your family disease history, which is found in most health screenings.

The questionnaire absolutely asks about family disease history.

The website is also very bare bones, and it presents a lot of misleading claims.

Please enlighten us about which claims are misleading.

I firmly believe this is a scam; it seems like they might be selling your information to certain companies for targeted ads. So if I answered that I suffer from dandruff I might get some shampoo ads on my email or social media.

You firmly believe it's a scam based on the few minor and erroneous statements you made?

My other theory is that this is not entirely a scam, and they receive stool donations. However, I firmly believe these donations are not for medical use, and they are being used for something else. And, of course, no one is getting paid 500 dollars for their stool.

Anyways I still completed the questionnaire and sent it; maybe they will prove me wrong...

And these firm beliefs are based on what?

Michael Harrop · 2026-05-25T16:03:33-0400

Just got targeted marketing for this on insta lol. There are so many red flags on their page.

First fecal donations use many different donors

Firstly, that's a nonsensical sentence. Secondly, it's not true. There are plenty of sources of FMT, including most clinical trials, that do not use "many different donors".

Third, there are many different reasons for "fecal donations", with widely varying criteria for donors. For example, C. diff is the most common condition, and very easy to treat with low-quality donors. Other conditions need higher-quality donors, and that's exactly what the Human Microbes project is trying to obtain.

and it is highly screened and tested before it ever makes it to a patient.

Falsely implying that Human Microbes does not do that.

The patients are in a controlled environment, hospitalized or monitored under a doctors care.

This is not always true.

This says you can ship directly to the recipient, on dry ice or mixed w antifreeze, and can choose whether to put it in capsules yourself (lol) by arranging the price for this directly with the buyer. C’mon.

If you say it seems implausible, then I guess it must be!

They’re offering “$500 per stool sample ($180,000/yr). But if that is not sufficient payment for your time, you are able to set whatever price you would like. We cannot solve this problem without you.” Setting your own price is laughable. This is not how fecal donation or transplant works.

Oh? The website is littered with information explaining exactly why it does work like that. But thanks to you, we can simply ignore all of that and take your word for it.

They say they PREPAY you $500 per bowel movement. How? Well I’d guess by turning over your bank account info. Along with all your personal data on the application….What could go wrong?

Wild, baseless speculation that ignores a plethora of public information indicating such things are not happening.

There should be a doctor or lead study coordinator you could contact. No university/hospital/medical malpractice insurance would ever touch a fecal supply company shipping directly to patients. A person can die from ingesting poop.

Firstly, Human Microbes is not "a study", so there is no "study coordinator". HM is a source of donors for studies. Secondly, there are other major pharmaceutical companies selling FMT products and shipping them directly to patients.

Yes, we're aware people can die from FMT. That doesn't lend any credence to the false statements you've made.

Any of this would have to be shipped with biohazard and dry ice labeling which is not outlined.

It's covered directly with the people who ship stool. It's a bad idea to bog the website down with unnecessary information. People already seem unable to read and comprehend the more important information that exists there.

Modern labs require extensive labeling and a identifying patient number. You can’t just send a ziplock of poo all willy nilly to a bonafide lab.

Good thing we don't do that then! And nowhere on the website does it say that we do.

Out of 26000 tested they say they haven’t found a match. There should be at least 26 if the qualifying rate is 0.1%. For no matches they somehow have plenty of “donors” to interview.

The website says "fewer than 0.1%". And the blog goes into more detail.

People’s stool flora changes day to day. This is why they use multiple donors and screen out the bacteria that make people sick.

This is nonsensical and also falsely implies that Human Microbes doesn't screen people for bacteria that make people sick.

They say that you can arrange a direct local pick up with the recipient. Neverrrrrrr. This would need to be received, processed, tested, and prepared - this takes days at minimum. You don’t just take someone else’s poo and change your flora and medical conditions. You have to go through a very specific and thorough medical process to clear out your own micro biome.

This is both nonsensical and wrong. There are many different kinds of recipients. Some recipients may be hospitals, doctors, or clinical trials, which often prefer direct local pickup, and may do their own processing and testing.

It's also possible to send donors to local labs to do the stool & blood testing, and donors can do some basic processing of the stool. There's no reason why a donor could not then arrange a direct local pickup.

The last sentence is flat-out wrong. Clearing the recipient's microbiome prior to FMT is not always done. It is still being researched to determine if it's necessary and what the best method might be.

The words they chose to bold don’t make sense. “If you’re willing”, “antifreeze”.

Ok.... Don't make sense to you, I guess.

The nurse in me isn’t as alarmed as the skeptic. I bet any poo shipped is directly tossed into a dumpster behind the building.

There is plenty of public information indicating that is NOT happening.

This is a scam.

You've presented a lot of convincing arguments, thanks.

Michael Harrop · 2026-05-25T16:21:26-0400

Well, I mean fecal transplants are a thing to treat a few things like C-Diff but it is often useless unless the donor shares the same home environment with the patient since it is supposed to replace the normal microbes that were previously in the patient's GI tract.

This is absolute nonsense. Microbes are generally "species native", which means that pigs have their own strains of certain bacteria, mice have their own strains, and humans have their own strains, etc. There are FMT consensus guidelines linked on the website that conclude that "universal donors" are supported by the evidence.

It is also fairly hard to qualify as a "donor".

True.

I am pretty sure that it is either an advanced fee scam or a fake check scam of some sort, basically a weird twist on a job scam.

They also may be focused more on scamming buyers.

I am pretty sure that this is more wild, baseless conjecture for which there is plenty of public evidence that such things are not occurring.

They charge them like $1000 plus shipping costs for each "donation" they receive, don't actually have any medical professionals

Statements like this can be convincing to some poorly informed people. But this notion is naive. Here's some educational material for you:

That being said, individual recipients are encouraged to seek medical oversight from a physician. However, in my experience, most physicians do not want to get involved in research or anything that is not a well-established practice. So many patients, including myself, have a very difficult time finding a doctor to help.

Human Microbes itself is not doing anything that requires a medical professional. You definitely want someone who is well-informed on the microbiome, health, and FMT, but recruiting and screening donors itself does not require the involvement of a medical professional. Screening guidelines are public, and donors can be sent to local laboratories for blood & stool testing.

or verify a medical need for it,

There are many uses of stool. If a donor wants to only sell their stool to recipients with a verified medical need, they are free to do so. Why do you think no donor has chosen to do that?

and make claims that it can cure stuff like Eczema.

All medical claims are thoroughly cited on the website.

Even paying $500 to the donor leaves them with $500.

Yes, and?

Is HumanMicrobes.org legit? Is it a scam? Are they really paying $500 for stool donation? Misinformation & fake reviews on reddit. Sources

Michael Harrop

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