The Man with the Golden Arm

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

0:31podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Joel and Matt from How To Money. If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back. Prices, they're still high and the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right. Yeah. Each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on and the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to How to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:05This is Dr. Jesse Mills, host of the Mailroom Podcast. Each January, men promise to get stronger, work harder, and fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? I sat down with psychologist Dr. Steve Poulter to unpack shame, anxiety, and the emotional pain men were never taught how to name. Part of the way through the valley of despair is realizing this has happened, and you have to make a choice whether you're going to stay in it or move forward. Our two-part conversation is available now. Listen to The Mailroom on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.

1:39Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

1:49Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and it's just us, and that's okay, because we're going to get bloody here on this episode of Stuff You Should Know. I just had a cockroach crawl over my barefoot. I've got a cockroach story for you. First of all, how are you doing? You okay with that cockroach experience you just had? It's not my favorite thing. Secondly, why are you barefoot? We're working. Oh, you know, I don't put on shoes unless I have to. Thirdly, you want to hear my cockroach story. Yes, although I will quickly say that's not the worst. The worst cockroach story I've ever had is when I saw one as I was turning out the light fall from a ceiling above my bed.

2:34Yikes. And then the light went off. And then you heard the cockroach go nighty night. What's yours? It just happened today. I don't know if this is my worst or not. It's pretty bad. I went to go pour coffee from our coffee pot and a roach spilled out along with the coffee into my mug. It was like in the port, the top that you can take off. It was in the little spout, apparently. I just remembered I had the worst one because I think this top's yours. I drank a cockroach and some red wine one time. That's the worst one. There you go. Could you feel it crawling around in your gullet? To swimming through the red wine in my mouth, and I just spit it out.

3:17Just wasted. And I'm sure everyone just heard me stomping in the background. Tell me you didn't. Dude, you want me to get up in the middle of a recording and save a cockroach? I'd wait, yeah. No, I don't save cockroaches. I don't feel bad about it either. We've talked about this before. I think we have. Fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, cockroaches, everything else, I'll save. I'm with you on fleas, ticks, and mosquitoes. I know. Cockroaches, I'll leave alone. I know. Well, you've claimed that many times. We all know you're better. I saw a cartoon. It was the annual meeting of insects people like, and they switched to the next panel, and it was just a butterfly sitting alone at a conference table.

3:58That's cute. But, you know, you can't save a cockroach. If they just crawled into the cup, I might think about it, but they don't. Okay. I disagree. I try to get them with a paper towel, lightly pick them up, Throw them outside and say sayonara. I'm sure they suffer no damage. Probably not. They're pretty tough. Okay. This one wasn't. All right. Let's get, let's get, that's terrible. Let's get to this episode because this is a profile in courage and heroism of an everyday guy who found out he was a little more special than the rest of us and he put it to good use. And his name is James Harrison.

4:41Is that how am I saying that correctly? I think so. Australia's own James Harrison, who is probably the most prolific blood donor in maybe human history. He donated blood 1 ,173 times over a 60-year period. Yeah. And is credited with saving the lives of 2.4 million babies. Yeah. Referred to as the man with the golden arm. And we need to back up a second. You can either pause and go listen to our episode on blood types. That was a live one, right? I think so. Or you can listen to a quick explanation of what RH disease is and what RH incompatibility is. Because when you have a blood type, you've heard now we know that you can be like positive or negative, like, oh, positive, oh, negative.

5:29That negative or positive is your RH factor, so named after the RH rhesus monkey, inadvertently, not correctly named. And so that's a RH factor. It's a protein found on the outside of your red blood cells. And then you either have it or you don't. It's an inherited thing. 85 % of babies that are born are RH positive, which means they have that protein. But you either have it or you don't. And that becomes incompatible when it doesn't match up with what your mom has. Right. Yeah, that's a real problem because if your mom is RH negative, meaning she doesn't have those proteins, her body's never been exposed to those proteins.

6:11So when she has a baby developing in her stomach, her womb, I guess you'd call it, and some of those red blood cells cross the placental barrier, her body flips out. It's like, what is this? We need to create some antibodies to attack this. And those antibodies attack the red blood cells, the protein on the red blood cells, the RH vector, and tear them apart. And that is not what you want happening to your fetus while it's developing in your womb. No, it's not. And just to be clear, it's not a problem at all to have a negative blood type. It's just this incompatibility in pregnancy is a problem.

6:54And on the first pregnancy, this can happen and everything is likely going to be okay. It's the subsequent pregnancies that are the issue. And so to prevent this from happening, the pregnant person is giving immunoglobulin. I have such a hard time saying that. And that's, that prevents those antibodies from forming and attacking. And it's a, it's a done in the way of a plasma injection called anti-D. Right. And the reason why the first birth is okay is because the mom's body is still generating antibodies. Because again, these are brand spanking new for her immune system. And so when the first baby comes out, her immune system's like, yeah, that's right.

7:37Walk away, walk away. And then when the second baby comes, it's ready. And that's when it really becomes a problem. And it can result in, and very frequently results in stillborn babies and newborn deaths as well. So if it wasn't bad enough, just add dying babies to it, and it suddenly becomes much more urgent. And it's not that rare either is the thing. Yeah. I mean, they didn't even know about this until 1939, the RH factor. Before that, it was just the ABO system. But there was a woman who had given birth to a stillborn baby, was given a transfusion from her husband and had an adverse reaction despite having a matching blood type.

8:20So that's when scientists figured out like, oh, hey, there's another factor here. And it's this negative and positive RH factor. And another Australian, a guy named John Gorman, a doctor, was working in blood banking. And this was in 1958. He said, hey, I think that if we give these mothers an Rh antibody, they wouldn't make any of that antibody themselves. So it's kind of like a weird reverse treatment. Right. Yeah. And that's, it's really worth saying it's weird because they don't know still to this day exactly how it happens or how it protects developing fetuses, infants. They think the best guess is that these antibodies that they consider passive antibodies.

9:06They don't attack the red blood cells of the developing child. Instead, they actually attach to it and act as a protective layer. Essentially like Obi-Wan saying to the mom's immune system, these are not the red blood cells that you seek. This is not the factor that you're interested in. Beat it, in the words of Obi-Wan, like I said. So, Dr. Gorman and his research partner, they tested this idea out on prisoners, on male prisoners at Sing Sing Prison in New York, injecting that RH negative into them with antibodies and then measuring the response. And they found that it worked and that it was safe.

9:50Obviously, not the most ethical thing. Theoretically, I guess these were volunteers, but you know how that goes. But the question still remained, like, will it save a baby? And it turns out that his sister-in-law, Kath, was a nurse and was RH negative. And his brother, her husband, was RH positive. And they were like, hey, we'll be the guinea pigs in this one. Let's do it. Yeah. So the problem was is that John Gorman's brother and sister-in-law, Kath and Frank, lived in London at the time. and Gorman, like you said, was in America, even though he was Australian. It's a brain buster, I know. But the upshot of it is that Gorman sent this anti-D inoculation, essentially, that he was testing out to the Gormans in London.

10:40They had to go to Heathrow to pick it up. John Gorman had to get it to them so quickly, he didn't even fill out paperwork. He just sent it Like it was, I don't know, like a push pop or something like that. Yeah, deodorant. Great. And they had to go to Heathrow to pick it up. That's how time urgent this was. And if it wasn't urgent before, it was when they got to Heathrow because Cath went into labor when they were picking up this injection. Yeah. So they were somehow managed to talk this doctor into administering this treatment, which that's probably the most surprising thing that this doctor went along with it.

11:16But that doctor did. And Kath Gorman had a healthy son. And then she had another healthy son a year later after giving this injection. And they were like, hey, it worked. And now it's given to women in the 28th week of pregnancy. And if the baby is found out to be RH positive, given again within 72 hours of giving birth. Yeah. I think one of the other things that stood out to me about Kath and Frank Gorman's story is that the doctor who gave them the injection was persuaded to do so also by a rival team from Liverpool who were also working on some sort of antidote to RH factor disease. So they basically said, like, this is actually going to launch John Gorman into the lead here, even though we're competing to come up with this.

12:09But seriously, you should you should inject her with this. It's going to be great. So they put they put saving babies before their own career. That's great. Yeah. I think Gorman ended up saying that it was the most cost effective drug ever produced. In 50 years, there have been no fatalities from this treatment. and he said it saves about a billion dollars every year by preventing high-risk RH pregnancies. Yeah. So it was really something. The thing is, you still need to this day human blood to make the anti-D immunoglobulin. It is hard to say, Chuck. Inoculation. Yeah. Plasma, technically. Yeah.

12:52Yes. And this is where James Harrison comes in. But he doesn't come in yet, dear people because you are going to have to pay through the nose to get to him by listening to these commercials

13:12new year new goals and in this economy a better money plan is more necessary than ever i am matt and i'm joel uh we are from the how to money podcast and every week we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's going on out there. If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen. Listen to How to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally. And I'm Hari Kondabolu. It's a new year, and on the podcast Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health.

13:47Which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed? We talk to experts who share real experiences and insight. You just really need to find where it is that you can have an impact in your own life and just start doing that. We break down the topics you want to know more about. Sleep, stress, mental health, and how the world around us affects our overall health. We talk about all the ways to keep your body and mind inside and out healthy. We human beings, all we want is connection.

14:26We just want to connect with each other. Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, this is Dr. Jesse Mills, director of the Men's Clinic at UCLA Health and host of the Mailroom Podcast. Each January, guys everywhere make the same resolutions. Get stronger, work harder, fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? To kick off the new year, I sat down with Dr. Steve Poulter, a psychologist with over 30 years experience helping men unpack shame, anxiety, and emotional pain they were never taught to name.

15:05In a powerful two-part conversation, we discuss why men aren't emotionally bulletproof, why shame hides in plain sight, and how real strength comes from listening to yourself and to others. guys who are toxic, they're immature, or they've got something they just haven't resolved. Once that gets resolved, then there comes empathy as in compassion. If you want this to be the year you stop powering through pain and start understanding what's underneath, listen to the mailroom on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.

15:48Okay, everybody, thanks for listening to those commercials. We're back, and it's time that we really introduce you to James Harrison. He was an amazing guy, but I feel like we should go back to before he was a full guy, when he was just a 14-year-old, because he underwent a really big-time surgery, and I could not find out why, but he had to have an entire lung removed, again, at age 14. Yeah, there's not a lot about the guy. Even when you read his obituary, the just details are scant. And I'm sort of feel like he probably wanted it that way as a kind of a low key, awesome dude. But yeah, at 14, he had a lung removed.

16:27He was in the hospital for three months. And during that time, he required almost two gallons of blood, 13 units of donor blood. A human adult has about 10 units of blood. So a 14 year old wouldn't even have that much. So basically a full plus transfusion of his blood that saved his life and comes out of it as a 14 year old. And his dad explains what happened. And he's like, I know my calling. Like when I come out of this and I'm able to be old enough to give blood and plasma, like that's what I'm going to do with my life. Yeah. His dad was already a blood donor, too. So I'm sure it was gratifying for him.

17:06And James Harrison, I guess he had to wait a few years before he was eligible to donate blood. But once he did, he started doing it right off the bat, right when he could. But it took another 11 years. I guess when he was in his early 30s, he had something like that, or about to be 30, before the doctors were like, hey, hey, this guy's something special. He's got some dynamite plasma because they think when he got all of that blood, he was RH negative, but he got a lot of RH positive blood. And his body started making RH positive antibodies that can just knock your socks off. So this guy, James Harrison, when he was 14, essentially acted inadvertently as a human test tube or Petri dish where they put together RH negative and RH positive, shook it up.

17:58And this guy started making antibodies for the rest of his life that would go on to save babies. Yeah. I mean, his stuff was so good and he was so prolific and dedicated. And we'll talk more about that. There was a doctor that said in the Sydney Morning Herald in 2018 that every ampule of anti-D ever made in Australia has James in it. Yeah. Primo stuff. Pretty cool. So the 2.4 million babies he saved, not an exact number, obviously, but they basically did a calculation where they analyzed birth data from 1964 moving forward, accounted for the people who got this anti-detreatment, and then weighed overall mortality risk from RH disease and came up with that number, 2.5 million babies.

18:44Yeah, because, I mean, when you donate blood, you do save lives, but you don't necessarily save babies' lives. Like James Harrison was a baby-saving machine. That's right. They tried a synthetic version, but they're still not there yet. So they're still reliant on people donating their blood and plasma. But the synthetic that they've been working on it, they call it James in a Jar, which is kind of cute as well. Right, for sure. So like you said, it is kind of tough to find much about James Harrison's life other than his blood donation. Laura Clausen, Dr. Claw, helped us with this one. And she found out that he was a clerk in the Regional Railway Authority.

19:26And his wife, his beloved wife Barbara, who died in 2005, was a teacher. And Harrison's dedication was such that when they went on vacation, whenever they went on vacation, they would putz around Australia in a camper. he would find the closest blood donation clinic and go donate blood. And the reason why he did that so often was because with plasma donations, your body regenerates the plasma so quickly, I think within 48 hours, that in some cases, in some countries, you can donate plasma a couple of times a week rather than the, I can't remember, it's several weeks, if not a month or more, that you have to wait to donate whole blood, like the regular kind.

20:14Yeah, I mean, you have to wait two weeks for plasma even, but he wanted to donate so frequently they would bend the rules. And like they said that he would come in at day like 10 and 11 sometimes and be like, come on, just take my plasma. I'll be fine. And they did oftentimes. And they don't get paid for it. You can get paid. It's a sort of a, I don't know how common it is, but it's an old trick if you're really broke and can't make rent to sell plasma in the United States because you can get paid for donating plasma. But he didn't get paid for any of this either. No, we should also say if you've never donated plasma, but you've donated blood, it's slightly different.

20:51Donating blood can take 15 minutes maybe. Donating plasma is a whole thing where they take your blood out, just like they do with whole blood, and then they run it through a machine that separates the plasma from the platelets in the red and white blood cells and returns the red and white blood cells to you. And the whole process takes about an hour rather than a quarter of an hour. And it has all the other stuff, the lead up and the recovery that a whole blood donation takes. So when you take that into account, James Harrison making these donations, it's just even that much more hat removal worthy.

21:29Yeah, like, I mean, one of these guys said it's like a half a day, basically, when you count in travel and all that. So if he donated, you know, let's say that's like four hours. And if he donated, you know, 11, I mean, how many times was it? 1 ,100 plus? Yeah. Like that's just thousands and thousands of hours of his life where he's trying to donate even more frequently. Like, hey, it's been 10 days. Get me in there. I'm ready. For sure. I'm sure his coworkers were like, oh, James gets to take a four-hour lunch break every couple weeks. And his supervisors, like, let me tell you about James and what he's doing with this four-hour lunch.

22:05Exactly. You like saving babies? Right. So he and his wife, Barbara, had a daughter and two grandchildren. And the daughter was an anti-D recipient herself. And she made a big statement after he died. As an anti-D recipient myself, he has left the family behind that may not have existed without his precious donations. And I believe a granddaughter-in-law, Rebecca Meleship, also got the anti-D treatment. So he even furthered his own family by helping out his daughter and granddaughter-in-law. Yeah, I guess he had four great-grandchildren when he died this past February in 2025. Yeah. And yeah, like she said, you can make a really good case that these people would not necessarily exist without him donating his very special plasma.

22:54and this was like not it's not like his family wasn't aware of this like this was a big celebrated thing not just with his family but in Australia and so his grandson Scott turned 16 and said I want to join the family racket and start donating blood too so the first time he gave blood he went with his grandfather took him with him and so Scott's first time was his grandfather's 1 ,000th donation too and apparently the whole family donates blood, which I mean, imagine being the one family member who's like, no, I don't feel like it. And everybody is donating it. But, you know, there's one, you know, there's one family shame.

23:35Yeah. He his wife passed away, Barbara, in 2005. So very dark times for him. And he pressed through and did not let that disrupt his donation schedule. So for the last 20 years of his life as a widower, he kept giving that stuff even though he hated needles, he hated the sight of blood, and he had a very low threshold for pain. There it is, our O. Henry-style ironic twist. Yeah. The man who gave blood 1 ,173 times to save 2.4 million babies was afraid of needles. That's right. And he had a favorite arm too, right? Yeah, his right arm. He said at some point that he feels like, and he even admitted it could be placebo effect, but he can feel them injecting the IV into his left arm, but he doesn't feel it in his right arm.

24:28So out of those 1 ,173 times, only about 10 were in his left arm. Yeah. Should we take a break? We should. All right. We'll take a break and finish up right after this.

24:51New year, new goals, and in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever. I am Matt. And I'm Joel. We are from the How to Money podcast. And every week, we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's going on out there. If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen. Listen to How to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

25:43site. You just really need to find where it is that you can have an impact in your own life and just start doing that. We break down the topics you want to know more about. Sleep, stress, mental health, and how the world around us affects our overall health. We talk about all the ways to keep your body and mind, inside and out, healthy. We human beings, all we want is connection. We just want to connect with each other. Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, this is Dr.

26:19Jesse Mills, director of the men's clinic at UCLA Health and host of the Mailroom Podcast. Each January, guys everywhere make the same resolutions. Get stronger, work harder, fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? To kick off the new year, I sat down with Dr. Steve Poulter, a psychologist with over 30 years experience helping men unpack shame, anxiety, and emotional pain they were never taught to name. In a powerful two-part conversation, we discuss why men aren't emotionally bulletproof, why shame hides in plain sight, and how real strength comes from listening to yourself and to others.