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Anti-Aging Start-Up Is Charging Thousands of Dollars for Teen Blood (vanityfair.com)

Posted by msmash on from the meanwhile-in-Silicon-Valley dept.

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.

10 of 243 comments (clear)

  1. What's That Sound? by lobiusmoop · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's Bram Stoker spining is his grave.

    --
    "I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
    1. Re:What's That Sound? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 5, Funny

      After you get a transfusion, you sparkle in the sunlight for an hour.

  2. No Blood For You! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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?

    1. Re:No Blood For You! by Moof123 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I have never been paid for my blood donations. I found the use of my freely donated blood for cosmetic surgery to be unnerving, but acceptable. Now that profiteering has decided to dip into the game, I want a cut. Why should I give away my valuable life blood for a mere T-shirt (and I haven't even gotten one of those is over a decade)?

      Creepy stuff.

  3. The notion that... by Rei · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... 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.
    1. Re:The notion that... by Rei · · Score: 5, Informative

      Sure about that?

      Yes, he most definitely has interest in doing it to himself. It's not quite clear whether he has started the treatment yet or not (in 2015 he stated that he hadn't “quite, quite, quite started yet”), but he definitely plans to at the very least.

      --
      We gotta go to a crappy town where I'm a hero.
  4. Bogus Health Claims by Luthair · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why isn't the FDA shutting this down.

    1. Re:Bogus Health Claims by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      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. Now, with this administration that considers all government regulation to be BAD and its knack for cutting budgets willy-nilly, do you honestly think the FDA will tackle this?

      And the claims are so outrageous, the cost is $8,000 - well,, I see the only people doing this are very wealthy who can throw away $8,000 and not miss it and very gullible people.

      On another note, when you start seeing outrageous things like this that cost a lot of money, I'm inclined to think we are at a peak of an economic cycle. Maybe even a bubble (I wouldn't go that far myself).

      A fool and his money ....

  5. Foolish Risk by Fieryphoenix · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  6. Simpsons did it! by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 5, Funny

    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