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Anti-Aging Start-Up Is Charging Thousands of Dollars for Teen Blood (vanityfair.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A startup called Ambrosia is charging about $8,000 a pop for blood transfusions from people under 25, Jesse Karmazin said at Code Conference. Ambrosia, which buys its blood from blood banks, now has about 100 paying customers. Some are Silicon Valley technologists, like Thiel, though Karmazin stressed that tech types aren't Ambrosia's only clients, and that anyone over 35 is eligible for its transfusions. Karmazin was inspired to found Ambrosia after seeing studies researchers had done involving sewing mice together with their veins conjoined. Some aspects of aging, one 2013 study found, could be reversed when older mice get blood from younger ones, but other researchers haven't been able to replicate these results, and the benefits of parabiosis in humans remains unclear. "I think the animal and retrospective data is compelling, and I want this treatment to be available to people," Karmazin told the MIT Technology Review.
It's Bram Stoker spining is his grave.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
I hope they rot in hell.
You plebs better hope your not in an accident and need a blood transfusion cause the rich will be cutting into the already short supply!
Are they going to start bathing in milk again too?
... Peter Thiel would be a real-life vampire would actually explain a lot.
We gotta go to a crappy town where I'm a hero.
Why isn't the FDA shutting this down.
Drinking blood is the next big thing to keep old people young.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/10/julia-caples-drinking-blood_n_3416983.html
Note that donated Blood has an expiration date. Living cells die. Red blood cells last for 42 days, platelets last only for 7 days.
That means in order to have enough blood for medical emergencies, we need t constantly have EXTRA blood available that will be wasted. Which means that every day we throw out a ton of 'expired' blood.
This new business can help manage this problem. Bigger market, means less gets wasted. Worst case scenario, we can say "sorry, you need to return that blood, that was a 12 car pile up on I95." Build it into their contracts.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
More like 43 year old homeless drug addict blood. But how would you tell?
A little hepatitis never hurt anybody...
It's _possible_ there might be some effect from this process, but a business model based on the idea sounds like an attempt to milk as much money as they can before it all falls apart.
Either further tests by researchers will prove that the perceived effect was a mistake or due to something besides the blood itself, or they'll figure out what the mechanism is and they'll develop a means to synthesize whatever component of the blood causes it. Which means you'll be able to get the treatment without paying thousands of dollars to be a high-tech vampire.
Until then they're counting on the fact that it _sounds_ plausible to a layman, and also probably that some really rich people _like_ the idea of sucking the life out of poor people in a much more literal manner than they can usually get away with.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
I say go for it. Millenials and whatever the younger generations are have been screwed over by boomers. If boomers want to throw peanuts to the younger generation in exchange for something they can easily regenerate, fine, it's better than the financial vampirism they've already done to education, social security etc.
Plus, as long as you match up the blood types and keep things clean, it doesn't hurt anyone. Unlike the stem cell superstition clinics currently targeting people with more money than ability to understand medical advice.
I wonder if the original donors know that their blood is being sold for this use? I know that if I donated my blood thinking it was going to save a life, and it was instead sold for profit, I'd be a little disturbed.
"All I needed was the blood of a young boy" - https://youtu.be/VRNwqVU70Q8
He's stayed alive this long, he must be onto something
Twinstiq, game news
Why aren't we putting stakes in these capitalist vampires?
I guess the show does mirror/satire real life pretty well. I just watched the "Blood boy" episode last night, where this was a thing.
Calling Countess Bathory...
Oh, wait! They already do that!
Elizabeth Báthory had a similar idea, don't think that worked out for her.
And I thought the transfusion scene in Silicon Valley with Gavin Belson was so absurd as to be fantasy. The real Silicon Valley (place) is far scarier than the show makes it out to be.
And in other news, the number of teenage runaways appears to have quadrupled over the last year. Details at 11.
If you ever need an organ transplant, all those transfusions will lower your ability to find a good match. When my wife was on the list for a kidney transplant, she needed transfusions due to anemia, and MAN did they hold back as much as possible so as not to screw her out of a new kidney.
Smithers, call them up right away!
The supplement business could be described in those terms.
Sen. Orin Hatch (R-Utah) got the laws passed where the burden of proof is no longer on them but on the FDA as to their product's efficacy.
I can throw together a supplement that has very little active ingredients and claim it does anything I want. And until the FDA uses their budget to fund studies to prove me a liar, I can keep on selling and making $$$.
With Mr. anti-government-regulation Trump in office, everyone has a license to steal from the gullible. I just may do it myself. If people can say with a straight that just giving money to them will reward the giver ten fold because of an imaginary sky being who keeps track of all that - and no one bats an eye - then I have no moral qualms about creating a dietary supplement or procedure that will lengthen life.
And here's the wonderful part of America! The burden of proof is on everyone else.
Can't prove it?! Well now, sue for slander! Another revenue stream.
First they will prey on young students just trying to get through college but then come to a conclusion that it would be cheaper just to pick on people who happen to be in a condition where they have no other opportunity. Sentences for crimes will be shortened if they are under 25 and donate a pint of blood.
Welfare parents are also trying to take advantage of this system by having more children. Blood children, they are mules for society. Sure a child shouldn't be able to donate until they are 16 with parental approval, but fake papers and steroids promote early growth, getting a child to become a donor at an earlier age. From ages 12 to 25, children become the bread winners of families. While some grow sick and die from over donation, the population boom from parents having children to become blood mules for the wealthy is enough to offset the losses.
Private prisons are the first to capitalize on this lucrative supply. Three months off for every pint they donate, but then any probation violation gets them back into prison, where they seem to find them selves with sentences that for some reason end at the age of twenty five. Drug users who have STDs or other diseases are not optional. Incarceration rate skyrockets, The US goes from having 25% of the world's prison population to 50% of the world's prison population in just a few short years. One side-effect of this is that a cure for AIDS as well as a number of other STDS is found in a very short period of time, yet all of the schools how have mandatory abstinence only education. Condoms and other forms of birth control are outlawed.
Decades later, the majority of the youth are only kept alive to prolong the life of the wealthy and society collapses as a population boom causes world wide famine nearly pushing humanity to the brink of extinction. This was a fun ride while it lasted though.
Place something witty here
I would stop donating blood if I found out it was being used for things like this. Anyone know which blood banks they're buying from? I already give rich assholes enough of my blood and sweat, I'm not going to donate any more to them.
But calling the elite who run the world baby eating pedos is 'crazy talk'.
Let the 3rd world harvesting begin!!!
Remember, if you're under 34, you might be a millenial. /offtopic
"I think the animal and retrospective data is compelling, and I want this treatment to be available to people." - I want to make as much money on this as quickly as I can before it's disproven.
Blood transfusions carry risks. Virus screening isn't perfect. Transfusions are for emergencies, not for vanity.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Bring up the images of Baron Vladimir Harkonen, from Frank Herbert's Dune.
Or the rumors that were rampant in pre-2011 Egypt that President Hosni Mubarak is still in power because he gets blood transfusion from youth on a regular basis.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Either further tests by researchers will prove that the perceived effect was a mistake or due to something besides the blood itself,
In short :
- Blood tranfusion from blood banks is really only red blood cells. And almost nothing more.
- Hooking two mices together, is way much more than that.
Out of the top of my head:
- Means that the old mouse's blood is processed by the organs of the younger one :
kidneys, liver - organs which are in charge of eliminating/chemically processing toxins.
- There's more that simply red cells that the old mouse is getting from the young one :
platelets, white blood cells and antibodies (ie.: imune system),
hormones and growth factors (the original study mentions quite a few of them),
etc.
Oh, and - mentionned in TFA :
these results haven't been replicated successfully yet.
Disclaimer: I*A*AMD, I just don't dabble into casual vampirism.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Loren Pickart first discovered this effect in the 1970s and found the responsible isolate, GHK, which has been extensively studied.
It's probably available in kilogram quantities for the price this company is charging.
This company is either ignorant of basic science, or a deliberate scam.
$8000 for teenagers blood? what would they pay for babies blood? but I bet this takes off in china
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
Get over it!
Sounds like the dumbest and riskiest thing to do with blood. I'd bet that there are huge risks with blood transfusions.
Long-term things like immune-system fatigue,
big things like contamination, and
small things like whoops-wrong-blood-type.
When you're severely injured, and in a hospital, and doing it rarely, those risks are certainly and obviously worth undertaking.
But voluntarilly taking those risks, in the hopes of a very-long-term benefit, well, how many of those risks need to go wrong before you've made things worse instead of better?
I'm thinking the answer is only one.
"I think...therefore you must pay me."
They are taking whole blood from humans when experiments have proved that all you need is plasma, and it doesn't even have to be from the same species. Human teen plasma rejuvinates elderly mice. Cow or pig plasma should do the same for humans.
I bet I could find a nurse or technician, and a willing compatible blood donor for about a quarter of the price.
Just another day in Paradise
It's illegal to sell your own blood, but legal to sell somebody else's! Capitalism! USA! USA!
Disgusting....
Bleeeeeeee!
If people aren't allowed to sell their nutritional breast milk, you shouldn't be able to buy blood transfusions outside of medical emergencies, especially when it was donated with another purpose in mind.
Finally, we've found a job the Millennials are willing to do: sit in a chair and bleed while they play on their phones! I kid, I kid... :)
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
So rich old people are injecting themselves with the blood of teenagers to maintain their youth.......... I'm going to be surprised if a media feeding frenzy doesn't ensue.
I'm surprised to see over 100 comments, and not yet find a single Blood Boy comment.
Holy - what the - jesus - mother of - huh?
Now they're literally parasites. If they wanna feel good, how about paying some taxes to support the society that gave you everything you have?
Hasn't Keith Richards been doing this for decades? I'm pretty sure the teen gets a pint of Keith's blood back in trade, so everyone is happy.
Why isn't the FDA shutting this down.
Because thanks to Orin Hatch (R-Utah) the burden of proof is on the FDA. Meaning, THEY will have to do the studies and THEY have to prove that the claims are bogus.
Which is as it should be.
Otherwise you have a government agency responsible for any failure of safety regulations, but no burden of cost for implementing those regulations.
And thus it costs $2.5 billion to bring a drug to market because of paranoid bureaucrats terrified of being held responsible for failure...
A stagnant medical industry, littered with improvements that can't be brought to market because they wouldn't be cost effective...
Small-population diseases for which we have cures, but which can't be implemented due to the costs involved with testing...
And the inability for patients with terminal illnesses to "opt out" of the regulation by informed choice, if they want to take a hail-mary chance with a new or innovative solution.
Oh, and mentioning Orrin Hatch is an "appeal to the character of the person", it's basically an emotional argument. I don't know why that's relevant when you could just discuss the issue rationally.
Once again, the Simpsons were ahead of their time:
“I tried every tincture and poultice and tonic and patent medicine there is, and all I really needed was the blood of a young boy.”
--Montgomery Burns
This is very old news as the original "research" was done in the late 1500's by Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed
If you don't donate, you should start, just for your own health.
I'd be happy to give blood anonymously. Since that is impossible, I don't do it.
It's unfortunate because I have an uncommon type (not the rarest) and try to live charitably.
You can cite all the reasons why it has to be non-anonymous, but the disadvantages to *me* for being non-anonymous outweigh the advantages to "society in general" for these unnecessary restrictions.
There's a sucker born every minute, and our government wants you to know that it supports bullshit like this or it would be illegal.
Correlation is not causation. It reads like they went way out in left field to get to this point. Then again, they always say, "a fool and his money soon part ways".
Use a little common sense once in a while. --Book of Mooch Ch. 5 verse 14
Charges triple. Sells at Hot Topic.
We are a bunch of fucking morons.
The key ingredient in the anti-agapic cannot be synthesized.
It must be taken from living beings.
For one to live forever, another one must die.
You will fall upon one another like wolves.
Well that's creepy.
Yes, they say you must donate your blood for free because the government says selling body parts is illegal (cronies must be enriched).
But you have to PAY for the blood you get from transfusions.
So, it is OK for the medical establishment to be paid for your blood, but you cannot be paid for your blood. Double standard!!
Don't people donate blood to blood banks? How is it that the blood bank is permitted to sell the donation? Why doesn't this start-up skip the middle-man and buy directly from youngsters?
Wow, I can't even understand the breadth of this stupidity. Let me explain the process. Patient comes for a surgical procedure, the patient may possibly need blood due to loss during said procedure. Blood bank gets sample of patient blood and performs a type and screen (checks group and antigen/antibody reactivity) vs the donor blood. Immediate reactions may occur in which the antibody screen is positive and patient reacts, the unit is then not transufsed. Other times a reaction to lesser antigens on the red cells may not occur, but a post transfusion reaction may occur if said donor receives blood with that antigen LATER. The end result is a higher incidence of sensitizing recipient immune system to foreign antigens found on donor blood, increasing both chance of TRALI, TACO, and general exposure to blood born pathogens.
Although viral diseases are screened adequately, bacterial or fungal are NOT. Oh look, you got lyme disease, or some other tick borne, mosquito borne, fly borne, illness.
How can this even be though of as a good idea? Packed cells don't contain chromosomes or a nucleus, that has already been ejected during the maturation process. Unbelievable.
At the same time, which regulatory agency is going to monitor these con artists? What methods are they using, how are they documenting quality control. I can see so many problems and dangers in an idiotic procedure. To the layperson blood is blood, but there is SO MUCH regulation. Not to mention that the blood you receive has red cells with life range of ~7 - 120 days you're at the bell curve of effective cells. What would someone be trying to accomplish anyway? Oxygenation? That won't fix a tired heart of diseased lungs..
Wow the level of stupid.
This is why I don't donate blood. Corporations (blood banks) are making BANK off of this stuff. They don't give the blood away.
I like how the left out the follow-up study in mice where they only gave transfusions to the older mice and it had no effect.
It turns out the effect was from the young kidneys, liver, etc. that the older mice could use when their circulatory systems were joined.
What kind of sick fucking research involved doing this? You can bet the author didn't do it, but scarred some young employee by making them do it.
There are rules about this kind of shit.
The Elizabeth Bathory Institute.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
This is exactly what princess Bathory thought back in the Middle Ages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_B%C3%A1thory
Transfusions always have risks, even when the blood is carefully screened. Conversely, aren't there studies showing that periodic blood donors are healthier? It might be correlation vs. causation. However, we might find out in the long run that the "clients" have paid to have a worse health outcome than the "resources".
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I get my daily caffeine transfusion from coffee beans which are younger than me.
Works every time.
Probably much safer too... for me... not the bean.
Whew! That was a great point to be wrong with.
Guess they won't transfuse baby mice blood.
is a way to turn humans into mice
Donated blood *SHOULD* only be provided by non-profit blood banks, and only TO licensed hospitals performing emergency services.
Any for-profit non-emergency care should buy blood bags at market rates from people willing to sell it. 'Quality' blood will thus demand fair market value and ensure an acceptable amount of this profit is returned to the younger donators who are otherwise going to have income difficulties in the coming economy when they are our ages.
Anyway, fuck parasitic business like this one.
Funny. I thought "teenager" meant at the oldest nineTEEN.
It always worked better when we used Gelflings.
How about the bit where babies go to hell? If eternal torture for adults isn't mean enough to disregard a belief system as sadistic, is eternal torture for babies?
Note that "some dude had a dream" doesn't seem like a good basis for an argument.
Why do transfusions (the egg) when you can get the bone marrow (the goose). Yeah major operation but you only do it once.
..to save Hillary. She had the money, had the need and certainly had the attitude.
Disclaimer: I*A*AMD, I just don't dabble into casual vampirism.
A Modern Dracula wouldn't be into casual vampirism, now would he?
RE the rest of the post: Thanks. That was helpful.
Don't forget the protein! We are all Soylent Green!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.