The super rich are injecting blood from teenagers to gain ‘immortality’

[Independent voter]

I thought this was a joke, it was on HBOs Silicon Valley where the rich dude had a "blood boy" that he would get transfusions from to keep him young.

It doesn't seem ethical.

bbc article so they're usually pretty careful in their reporting.







http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/3...b-95f637a9dc2e





To their Yin of affordable housing, secure jobs and actual pensions, we seem to have the Yang of six-figure car garages for homes, ‘gigs’ for jobs, and a retirement age that like a mirage on the horizon, seems to get further away the closer you get to it.

Avocados on toast aside, it’s pretty clear that Yang is not doing well in this relationship.

But the bloodsucking appears to have become a whole lot more literal.

Because the super-wealthy are now pumping themselves with the blood of young people in an attempt to prevent themselves from ageing.

Over 100 people have participated in a clinical trial at a San Francisco start-up offering blood transfusions for older patients. Each procedure costs $8,000 (£6,200) and sees the patient injected with two and a half litres of plasma – the liquid element of blood that remains after other cells have been removed - taken from young people.

The procedure is being offered as an experimental attempt at rejuvenating the elderly. The median age of the patients is 60 years.

Jesse Karmazin, 32, a Stanford-trained scientist who founded the US clinic, told The Sunday Times that the initial results from his patients had been encouraging.

“It could help improve things such as appearance or diabetes or heart function or memory. These are all the aspects of ageing that have a common cause.

“I’m not really in the camp of saying this will provide immortality but I think it comes pretty close, essentially.”
Blood transfusion, couple standing in front of blood bag.Getty Images
The new treatment comes on the back of several studies over the last 17 years in which Stanford researchers have shown the joining of circulatory systems (known as parabiosis) between old and young mice to be effective in rejuvenating organs, muscles and stem cells. Additionally, a study last year found that the plasma of young people itself had a rejuvenating effect when injected into older mice.

However, despite the results of the mice-based studies, researchers have attacked the scientific validity of Karmazin’s experiment and raised a number of ethical concerns.

“There's just no clinical evidence [that the treatment will be beneficial],” argues Tony Wyss-Coray, the Stanford neuroscientist behind a key 2014 mice parabiosis study. For one thing, Karmazin’s trial does not use a placebo control group and participants can be as young as 35.

Critics have also pointed to the dangers of unnecessarily exposing people to the potential risks of blood transfusions, which include hives, lung injury and fatal infections.

Others have argued that the treatment amounts to a scam exploiting the hype around the untested medical properties of young people’s blood.

“People want to believe that young blood restores youth, even though we don’t have evidence that it works in humans and we don’t understand the mechanism of how mice look younger,” Wyss-Coray told the MIT Technology Review.
Separated blood plasma, which has been extracted from donated blood.Getty Images

And then there’s the murky ethics of buying blood that young people might have thought they were donating to those in medical need, and using it for expensive, experimental treatments.

While US plasma donation sites normally offer a stipend of $20-50 (£16-39), they emphasise the life-saving treatments that donations can support, using patient testimonies.

And with a disproportionate number of America's poorest people regularly donating plasma to make ends meet, this paints a very different picture to the strange world of regenerative medicine, where hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested by the super rich in a bid to outsmart ageing, or even death.

Karmazin has responded to criticisms by saying his study has passed ethical review. In response to criticism about the trial's cost and methodology, he adds that it would be unfair to give paying participants a placebo.
And, he argues, his patients are immediately reaping the rewards of his treatment: “We’re already seeing people look better after just one treatment.”

“It’s like plastic surgery from the inside out.”

Hmm. With pale teenagers, immortality and a lot of blood, it all sounds a bit Twilight to us.

[GennGreymane]

There was once some countess or baroness who did something similar.

[Friendlyimmolation]

There was once some countess or baroness who did something similar.

Elizabeth Báthory?

[ohiostate124]

There was once some countess or baroness who did something similar.

Ahh Diablo 2

[Tarshamy]

People sell their blood all the time. In many countries when you give blood you get some compensation for it.
I don't think it's unethical. It's his blood to sell, no one forces him.

But it's extremely dumb.

[Kaleredar]

So... stupid rich people wasting money?

This sounds like a bad 50s sci-fi movie.


Oh wait, it was.

[Selastan]

If teenager blood made you immortal...wouldn't teenagers live forever?

[Dr Assbandit]

For being rich you would think they would consult even a basic physician on all the negatives of constant blood transfusions...

[Deleted]

If teenager blood made you immortal...wouldn't teenagers live forever?

Vaccines makes sure that doesn't happen

[Selastan]

Ahh Diablo 2

Nah this shit was real life. She bathed in the blood of virgins because she thought it helped her skin

[Amerrol]

I mean, there isn't much risk to donating plasma. I'm curious as to how much of that $8,000 the donor gets. If it's all just scummy shit where they steal blood that was donated for hospital use, that's fucked up, but if some kid wants to make a few hundred bucks I see no problem with it.

[Rusken]

If teenager blood made you immortal...wouldn't teenagers live forever?

Nah you see once you turn 20 your blood turns mortal and you start dying.

Seems like a good way for a youngster to make some cash, exploiting rich idiots into buying their blood haha.

[Azadina]

I mean, there isn't much risk to donating plasma. I'm curious as to how much of that $8,000 the donor gets. If it's all just scummy shit where they steal blood that was donated for hospital use, that's fucked up, but if some kid wants to make a few hundred bucks I see no problem with it.

Almost crap all. And yea, it's exactly what they do.

And then there’s the murky ethics of buying blood that young people might have thought they were donating to those in medical need, and using it for expensive, experimental treatments.

While US plasma donation sites normally offer a stipend of $20-50 (£16-39), they emphasise the life-saving treatments that donations can support, using patient testimonies.

[Independent voter]

Placebo effect on this treatment must be huge!

After a transfusion you go home and chase the wife around the house.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/menta...placebo-effect

[Elba]

Isn't capitalism beautiful?

[Glnger]

there was a thread about this some months ago... the product of neo-liberalism and wealth hoarding by gen-Xer's...

homosexual teen "cabana boys" weren't enough to keep these arsses feeling youthful?

MAGA!

[Deleted]

MAGA!

Make aging go away?

[pateuvasiliu]

There was once some countess or baroness who did something similar.

My Druid killed her with a club to the fookin' head.

- - - Updated - - -

Nah this shit was real life. She bathed in the blood of virgins because she thought it helped her skin

Elizabeth Bathory played Diablo 2 and fucking ripped off the Countess.

[Rudkobing]

That's not the way to gain immortality. You get it from.....

/fades into the shadows

[ohiostate124]

Where do I sign up for this and how much is my blood worth?