Scientists have isolated valuable stem cells from plain ol’ menstrual blood! I read this today and was delighted to imagine myself selling my bodily fluids, never working another dull, officey day in my life (assuming I can stop getting pregnant long enough to make it to harvest, as it were) and saving the world all the while. What an awesome development!
The news piece had a link to a site/lab called C’elle (“Your Monthly Miracle”) that is already storing womens’ menstrual blood for them. I have never seen menstrual blood presented with so much marketing panache. “Treat yourself to the potential for better future health and subscribe to the C’elle service now!” says the pricing page. Yes! I am so tired of treating myself to trips to the spa! What’s left for a woman who has spent her disposable income everywhere she possibly can?
It’s refreshing, actually, to go to a site about menstrual blood and have said blood be presented as normal, valuable and worth spending a cool hundred bucks a year to store cryogenically. It’s a little squicky that they refer to my potential menstrual stem cells as “c’elle stem cells” but I guess if they’re the only ones doing it and I send them my credit card number and my blood by Fed-Ex then maybe they can call the results what they want. They can even call my vials of blood my “…very own stem cell investment portfolio comprised of menstrual stem cells that are highly prolific…” I always knew I was special.
A couple of my questions weren’t addressed on the FAQ page, though.
1. You said to hurry up and sign up for your service. Why should I hurry? I am probably going to bleed for another 10 years, that’s 120 cycles. Right now you have no competition in the marketplace but, like CD players, I bet there’s a cheaper option in a year.
2. How about we split the cost of storage if I let you re-sell my cells to hospitals and research labs?
3. How do I get a cryogenic chamber at home? In the Future, will we all have our own cryogenic chambers and centrifuges and whatnot at home? I think we will.
And then, near the bottom of the page, just as I was asking it in my head, they answered my last question: Gift certificates? YES! “C’elle is perhaps the most special and meaningful gift anyone could ever give or receive in their lifetime!” For the (pre-menopausal) woman who has everything. Christmas is coming, dudes.