[Seoul, December 15. Image via Getty.]

South Korean children smile with tumblers during a year-end campaign to raise funds for the poor in Seoul on December 15, 2009. The event was co-sponsored by the Korea branch of the global charity group World Vision and businessmen which sell the tumblers called 'Heartea (heart and tea)' mounted with a heat sensor for 25,000 won (21.5 USD). AFP PHOTO/JUNG YEON-JE (Photo credit should read JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images)

[Seoul, October 27. Image via Getty]

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - OCTOBER 27: People wait for the H1N1 swine flu test at Korea University Hospital on October 27, 2009 in Seoul, South Korea. The Korea Food and Drug Administration approved domestically developped vaccines last week, the government plan to vaccinate 35 percent of South Korean population until next February. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

[Seoul, July 14. Image via Getty]

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - JULY 14: Members of Coexistence for Animal Rights participate in a protest against eating dog meat on July 14, 2009 in Seoul, South Korea. Dog meat is a traditional dish in Korea dating back to the Samkuk period (period of the three kingdoms BC 57 - AD 668). (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

[Seoul, May 29. Image via Getty]

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - MAY 29: Women cry during the public funeral of former South Korean president Roh Moo-Hyun on May 29, 2009 in Seoul, South Korea. Roh, 62, jumped to his death on May 23, 2009 while hiking in the mountains behind his rural southern home. Roh was embroiled in a multi-million dollar corruption case in relation to receiving more than 6 million USD from the Taekwang Group. (Photo by Cho Woo-Hae-Pool/Getty Images)

Slate's Amanda Schaffer investigates the medical benefits of the placenta when she visits Tenteki 10, a trendy IV drip spa in Tokyo that sells 10-minute drips of amino acids, biotin and placenta extract to health-conscious customers. (The placentas are contributed by local hospitals, but no information is given as to whether monies are exchanged, or whether the women from whence the organs came gave an actual go-ahead. Clients at the clinic Schaffer visits include two Japanese businessmen.)

Sure, the idea of buying IV drips at a spa may give you the willies (especially since they are injecting these "treatments" into healthy adults) and the idea of getting placenta injected directly into your veins sounds a little odd, but does it work? Schaffer says that in peer-reviewed medical journals, there is little evidence that the placenta holds significant medical benefits for adults. While the doctors at Tenteki 10 say the placenta is safe and "better than aspirin," placentas can offer some risks to healthy adults and Japanese people who are "treated" with placenta drips are no longer allowed to donate blood in Japan :

It's hard to know what exactly is present and what the accumulated effects will be. For instance, some cytokines found in the placenta act to increase inflammation while others act to decrease it; some, like interleukin 6, can do either, depending on what other molecules are present, according to Ted Golos, an expert on placenta at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Rigorous clinical trials, using standardized extracts, would be crucial for sorting out what the actual effects might or might not be. And since extracts are made from human tissue, they could contain bacteria or viruses, some of which may not be tested for. As the staff at Tenteki 10 casually informs clients, those who receive placental infusions are no longer allowed to donate blood in Japan.

These dangers might seem important to wrestle with if placenta were shown to have genuine healing powers. But with little proven benefit, it seems questionable to turn to the extract, especially for conditions that have other available treatment options. For severe menopausal symptoms, for instance, it's hard to know whether placenta would prove better (or worse) than hormone therapy, unless more research, including head-to-head comparisons, were conducted. Meanwhile, claims that the extract aids both insomnia and fatigue are cause for some head-scratching.

Is Human Placenta A Wonder Drug, Or Is It Just Another Japanese Health Fad [Slate]

Earlier: Save Some Womb For Dessert
Conan The Barbarian

[Image via Tenteki 10]

• Speaking of cows, a new breed of miniature cows has been bred in Ireland. Each cow is no taller than a German shepherd. • The prospect of being forced to marry a 75-year-old man in exchange for her own father to have the older man's 13-year-old daughter has driven a Saudi teen to suicide. • Arwa Mutabagani, a professional show jumper, has been appointed to the Saudi Olympic delegation (a first for a woman) and intends to use her position to open Saudi Arabia up to female athletes. • Meanwhile, Condoleezza Rice says she hopes to someday see Saudi women in the Games, which she think will happen after they are given the right to vote. • The lack of "artificial birth control" in the Philippines is expanding the amount of poverty in the region, where more children for a family can mean a great financial stress. • A 27-year-old Egyptian woman in Alexandria gave birth to sextuplets. • Mark O'Connell, author of the book The Marriage Benefit, believes that there are emotional and physical benefits to staying married. • "The Hardwood Cabin" a six-bedroom sex club in the Pacific Northwest, was shut down last month. • A group of South Korean lawmakers have introduced a proposal to ease a ban established in 1987 to prevent doctors from telling parents the gender of their fetus to stop abortions of unborn female children. • Some women work too hard in their positions to be seen as "leaders" and thus get promoted at their jobs. • Does Kim Novak get ignored by film critics because she was "the object of voyeuristic male gaze" in the '50s?

MOE: Okay sooooo … you know how I always say I genetically don't have the capacity to get "offended"? Uh, well. Ummmmm…holy shit. And here I thought we could maybe get in some real news today, like about how Mugabe is sort of doing on a mass scale with Zimbabweans what that weird New Jersey couple did with their foster kids and getting a few fat while leaving the less-special ones to starve…
MOE: Or how pirates control the seas off Nigeria or how this Genocide Olympics stuff has finally put pressure on China to ask the Sudanese government to uh “push forward the peacekeeping mission and political process in a balanced manner" or the great Korean Beef Beef.

MEGAN: I was just about to send you the Michelle Obama thing, too. Query: what other potential first lady has been referred to not as "the wife and the mother of his children" but as a candidate's "baby mama?" Because I'm going to say none. I guess it's apparently ok, though, because she's, like, black and that's, like, what "they" call each other, right? No subtext there, let's just make sure to remind everyone that the Obamas aren't white.
MOE: Unrelated: The Boy Scout leader they are interviewing on Fox re some natural disaster is kind of, you know, foxy. But why the open shirt, kid?
MOE: Okay, back to my belle though. Whoever approved that needs to be fired STAT.
MEGAN: Yeah, I'm gonna guess: not. Though E.D. Hill did get the ax for the terrorist fist bump thingie, even though she was, apparently, quoting an overblown story from the crazy right-wing site Human Events which I'm not going to link to.
MOE: One thing that actually really surprises me about all this too is that yesterday I was watching Fox, and O'Reilly had on that guy who made "Hillary: The Movie" — he's made a new movie about the Obamas! — and O'Reilly was all, "Oh just shut up about Michelle's antiamericanism already, she's explained it, that was back in February, she seems like a nice person, why beat up on the guy's wife," etc. etc.
MOE: And dude, that was O'Reilly.
MEGAN: Yeah, for real. But the HTM guy is, like, a total wack job, did I tell you I met him?
MOE: Incidentally he also told the guy to stop kvetching about how the campaign hadn't released Obama's college thesis on nuclear disarmament. "We all write boneheaded stuff in college, get a life."
MEGAN: Oh, and you know why they had to rush "production" of the movie? So they can advertise it without FEC intervention.
MOE: I still haven't watched it but I found it the other day whilst looking for important documents.
MEGAN: I'm just sad no one is trying to read my college thesis. It was like a solid 6 months of my life and in the whole universe, only 4 people read it.
MEGAN: Oh, well, totally get drunk and watch the movie, it's only worth watching altered.
MOE: Seriously dude, though, WHAT THE FUCK MEGAN.
MOE: Oh by the way, readers who were offended by my addressing Geraldine Ferraro "sweetie" in my Hirshman rebuttal; the original line was: "Sweetie, John McCain left his first wife in the wake of a debilitating car accident and called his second a "cunt" in front of reporters."That was a sort of rhetorical device, meant to contrast "sweetie" (representing the Obama's most noted offense against womanity) with "cunt" (representing McCain's.) It didn't work out so well in the edit, because apparently you aren't allowed to use the word "cunt" in the Washington Post, though "sweetie" is apparently passable.
MEGAN: Also, Jesus Christ, people, a little satire?
MEGAN: Oh, wait, I forgot, we're all supposed to be humorless and opinion-free. This is a news outlet!
MOE: This is getting me off-topic, but there is a (very very bronze) Hillary supporter making the rounds on Fox saying Hillary supporters are choosing McCain because they can't tolerate a "less experienced" candidate than Hillary, which I think is a crock of shit, but it was probably smart that they reverse their "sexism" argument in time for Fox to employ the term "Baby Mama." Unless Tina Fey told them it was okay?

MEGAN: Yeah, I saw her yesterday! She said she'd really like to see Clinton on McCain's ticket, so, frankly, I don't really think she's concerned with "feminist" issues per se.
MOE: Hot new phrase alert! "Consummate political insider"…spotted in today's Times and Jim Hoagland's column…three makes a trend! As I am the consummate idiot savante regarding the Beltway corporate interest groupies, I am wondering if you'll explain to me whether this Jim Johnson thing is a big deal or like if the McCain thing is that big a deal and whether there is anyone in Washington who is going to survive a campaign that banishes anyone who takes money from the corporations who actually make it or whether we are going to be left with Kucinich as a running mate.
MOE: And speaking of Kucinich, who was on O'Reilly last night as well, WHERE DID HIS WIFE GO. I miss Elizabeth.
MEGAN: I think she's probably somewhere working for peace.
9:30 AM
MEGAN: I mean, I don't think the rich stuff about Jim Johnson is a huge deal. I think the stuff about him getting a special loan from Countryside isn't really good.
MEGAN: But I think the bigger problem is how to integrate what has essentially been an "outsider" campaign with the Democratic party machine.
MEGAN: And the people that go with it, some of whom are sketchy. It's not like all lobbyists are Republican, it's not even like all corporate lobbyists are Republican or all shady lobbyists are Republican. There's plenty of shadiness in both parties.
MOE: Okay, we gotta return to Michelle. I'm cynical, sure, but I find this shit actually chilling. But also: it is sort of fascinating. There is so little range when it comes to public stereotypes of black women. Like, part of them are trying to cast her as a cold imperious vengeful anti-American bitch, and the rest are just like "no man, just call her BABY MAMA." Think of all the illicit sex they must have had that summer with all the Spike Lee movies. I hear they had chocolate ice cream on their first date. YOU KNOW WHAT THAT'S CODE FOR????
MEGAN: mmmm, chocolate ice cream
MEGAN: Oh, wait, right, we were talking about race.
MEGAN: I actually sort of beat MoDo to the punch yesterday, after I'd read a bunch of really good bloggy stuff about it.

MEGAN: Like, where are all the women who were crying sexism two weeks ago? Because all the stuff I've seen about baby mama and Michelle Obama — until fucking Maureen Dowd — in the MSM has been written by men.
MEGAN: It seems like most of them are still crying over Clinton even as the right wingers are re-writing their 1992 attacks about Clinton's fitness to be First Lady because of her baking skills and (gasp) having a career to suit Michelle, with a lovely little side of racial overtones.