Mary Roach

The guy who invented ECMO, Bob Bartlett, runs the lab.

And initially, the public affairs office, they answered my email and then they just ghosted me.

And I was like, what?

I kept writing to them.

Finally, I called Bob Bartlett.

I'm like, what's the deal?

He's like, you know what?

It's my lab.

You just come here and we'll let you in.

So I go there and I said, what the heck happened?

And he said, oh, the public affairs people were really concerned that you're an animal rights fanatic.

Anyway, so there's a lot of wariness and nervousness.

And I get that.

People are worried about lawsuits.

They're worried about social media.

They're worried about everything.

It's a time of being worried.

So I think that being allowed to go, I mean, I went to Chengdu, China, because I couldn't go to United Therapeutics or eGenesis, the two companies here that are creating pigs that have

more acceptable organs to humans.

So yeah, I mean, thank you to both of them because I had a great time in Chengdu, but that can be very frustrating and I don't blame them.