Then the urine is likely collected as in some stadiums and other public places and used by major pharmaceutical companies to draw off resources for their products. You think I'm joking don't you?
"To us, the public, urine seems like an undesirable waste product of the body, but to the medical research community and the drug industry it's been considered to be liquid gold. Don't believe it? Read this:
"Utica, Michigan - Realising it is flushing potential profits down the drain, an enterprising young company has come up with a way to trap medically powerful proteins from urine. Enzymes of America has designed a special filter that collects important urine proteins, and these filters have been installed in all of the men's urinals in the 10,000 portable outhouses owned by the Porta-John company, a subsidiary of Enzymes of America.
"Urine is known to contain minute amounts of proteins made by the body, including medically important ones such as growth hormone and insulin. There is a $500-million-a-year market for these kinds of urine ingredients.
"This summer, Enzymes of America plans to market its first major urine product called urokinase, an enzyme that dissolves blood clots and is used to treat victims of heart attacks. The company has contracts to supply the urine enzyme to Sandoz, Merrell Dow and other major pharmaceutical companies. Ironically, this enterprise evolved from Porta-John's attempt to get rid of urine proteins-a major source of odour in portable toilets.
"When the president of Porta-John began consulting with scientists about a urine filtration system, one told him he was sitting on a gold mine.
"The idea of recycling urine is not new, however. 'We thought about this,' says 26 Whitcome of Amgen, a Los Angeles biotechnology firm, 'but realised we'd need thousands and thousands of litres of urine.'
"Porta-John and Enzymes of America solved that problem. The 14 million gallons flowing annually into Porta-John's privies contain about four-and-a-half pounds of urokinase alone. That's enough to unclog 260,000 coronary arteries."
("Now Urine Business", Hippocrates magazine, May/June 1988)
But urokinase isn't the only drug derived from urine that, unknown to us, has been a financial boon to the pharmaceutical industry.
In August of 1993, Forbes magazine printed an article about Fabio Bertarelli who owns the world's largest fertility drug-producing company, the Ares-Serono Group, based in Geneva, whose most important product is the drug Pergonal which increases the chances of conception. Guess what Pergonal is made from?
"To make Pergonal, Ares-Serono collects urine samples from 110,000 postmenopausal women volunteers in Italy, Spain, Brazil and Argentina. From 26 collection centres, the urine is sent to Rome where Ares-Serono technicians then isolate the ovulation-enhancing hormone."
(N. Munk, "The Child is the Father of the Man", Forbes Magazine, 16 August 1993)
Ares-Serono earned a reported $855 million in sales in 1992, and people pay up to $1,400 per month for this urine extract."
"Despite what you may have been led to believe about urine, pharmaceutical companies have grossed billions of dollars from the sale of drugs made from urine constituents. Research is happening every day in labs attempting to isolate specific elements of urine so they can create new drugs and patent the substances. For instance, Pergonal is a fertility drug made from human urine. 1992 sales of this drug were reported at $855 million while it costs a patient $1400 a month to consume. Urokinase, a urine ingredient, is used in drug form and sold as a miracle blood clot dissolver for unblocking coronary arteries. Urea, medically proven to be one of the best moisturizers in the world, is packaged in expensive creams and lotions. Take the M out of Murine eye drops and what do you have? Yep. It's made from carbamide - another name for synthetic urea."