STAT OpEd: Fecal transplants are saving lives — but are now at risk

By Neil Stollman, MD

Stollman is chief of the Division of Gastroenterology at the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center and works at the East Bay Center for Digestive Health, both in Oakland, California.

Twenty years ago, a respected colleague asked me to perform a “poop transplant” on a local schoolteacher with multiply recurrent C. difficile infection.  I was incredulous and skeptical, but my colleague (a friend but a forceful one) persisted until I ultimately acquiesced.