350 Ops, 200 Bites, and the Future of Healing | Bill Clark & Dr. Bob Harmon | Ep. 442

Bill Clark is a former DEVGRU military working dog handler — one of the first brought into the program when it launched around 2002. He grew up in chaos. His father was a Vietnam-era Marine door gunner. His mother married five times. His stepfathers were abusive. He played Division I football, joined the Marines, switched to the Navy for a dog handler slot, and ended up spending 13 years at the command across 13 deployments. He ran over 350 operations and logged more than 200 bites. He survived late-stage colon cancer at 37 — linked to battlefield exposures — and now leads executive protection for Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson, who is building what may become the largest stem cell treatment hub in America at his clinic in Gillette, Wyoming.

Dr. Bob Harmon calls himself a cow doctor. He started as a large-animal veterinarian out of UC Davis, got pulled into doing clinical trials for pharma companies, and then one day watched stem cells beat like a heart in a petri dish — no electrical stimulation, just cells that had been told what to become. That moment changed the trajectory of his career. He built a veterinary stem cell company that has now treated over 25,000 patients across 60 species. He developed stem cell therapy for the Navy's dolphins and sea lions. And he became the first person in the history of biopharma to take only veterinary data to the FDA and get approval for a human clinical trial. His company, Personalized Stem Cells, is now treating humans under the Federal Right to Try Act and the newly signed Wyoming Stem Cell Freedom Act.

We talk about the night Bill's dog Axe took a round through the skull and kept trying to get back in the fight. What it looks like to laze a door from 300 yards and send a dog into a compound full of armed fighters. How big pharma's animal and human divisions refuse to talk to each other. Why your own fat holds young stem cells at any age — even at 92. The difference between your own cells and donor cells. The ten COVID ICU patients who all walked out. How stem cells make their own morphine-like painkiller and could break the opioid addiction cycle. The TBI pilot study coming for veterans. And what it would take to get stem cells on the sideline of an NFL game or in a medic's backpack on the battlefield.

Today's Sponsors:

Black Rifle Coffee:

David:

David is offering our listeners a special dealbuy 4 cartons and get the 5th free when you go to

Timestamps:

[00:01:35] Bill Clark family background

[00:07:39] Football, Marines, and Navy path

[00:10:58] Building the combat dog program

[00:15:50] OJT learning and combat operations

[00:29:23] Dog health, cloning, and bloat

[00:33:35] Dr. Harmon’s veterinary journey

[00:41:15] How they met through stem cells

[00:49:04] Retirement and transition challenges

[01:02:03] Crypto work and stem cell access

[01:08:39] Stem cell regulation and right to try

[01:24:23] Wyoming treatment process and trauma use

[01:33:55] Chronic disease, COVID, and inflammation

[01:49:49] Addiction, aging, and healing limits

[01:58:52] Traumatic brain injury discussion

[02:05:38] Safety, costs, and access barriers

[02:20:56] Cancer, vision, and hearing possibilities

[02:30:23] Veteran access and final thoughts