Definitely not to be confused with the brutal despot Pol Pot, there are people out there who are Poo Pot deniers. And while his Khmer Rouge regime carried out the Cambodian genocide, in which an estimated 2million people died, all the deniers are in danger of killing is themselves. I didn’t know they existed until recently, when the good old Twitter algorithm (I won’t call it X) thrust some of their views onto my feed of despair. I’ve labelled them Poo Pot deniers because apparently, when the NHS sends them a small plastic pot and asks for a “stool sample,” they either bin the pot or send it back without the requested contents, with a note saying “stick your pot where the sun don’t shine”.

While the notorious dictator Pol Pot is infamous for orchestrating the Cambodian genocide, claiming the lives of approximately 2 million people, there exists a surprisingly different group that one might call “Poo Pot deniers.” These individuals, while not committing acts of historical horror, are perhaps putting their own health at risk. The term struck me when the Twitter algorithm, with its penchant for peculiar suggestions, introduced me to this odd phenomenon.

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In reality, even with postal costs on the rise, the expense of dispatching a pot and conducting a stool test is significantly lower than the potential cost of untreated bowel cancer. This is a simple yet crucial preventative measure.

The NHS spends a tenth of its budget on chemotherapy, trying to keep people like me alive.

My treatment also involves fortnightly blood tests and doctor consultations, as well as regular MRI, CT, and PET-CT scans. Occasionally, I also have X-Rays, and dream of the day when I might have an operation to remove a tumour or two, or repair my hernia. And it came as a shock to me when, one day, one of my consultants stuck her finger “where the sun doesn’t shine” before performing a sigmoidoscopy.

The price of sending out a package containing a letter and a plastic pot doesn’t seem so expensive now, does it?

One of my favourite Poo Pot deniers suggested the best thing to do was to get blood tests done privately and then use ChatGPT to analyse the results.

Apparently, people feel like this because, according to the Poo Pot deniers, they no longer trust the NHS.

It’s good that people aren’t just blindly trusting the experts, and still maintain their bodily autonomy and are asserting what they think is right for them. This seems in stark contrast to a lot of teenage boys who will seemingly believe whatever the hate-fuelled, ugly, idiot Andrew Tate says.

I, too, don’t trust many medical experts as people, but I trust their expertise and their efforts to keep patients alive for as long as possible.

A big part of living is not wearing a tinfoil hat and not thinking that the NHS bowel cancer screening programme is a massive conspiracy. It’s unlikely I’ll live to the ripe old age of 50, a glorious time when I would then be eligible to be sent a plastic pot as part of the screening programme. But if you get one, I advise you to follow the instructions and get tested. It might just save your life.