5 ms·
"Creepy as fuck: doesn't even begin to cover it: A startup company, Ambrosia, has been selling "young blood transfusions" for $8,000 since 2016 under the guise
by omginternets 3y ago
"Creepy as fuck: doesn't even begin to cover it:
A startup company, Ambrosia, has been selling "young blood transfusions" for $8,000 since 2016 under the guise of running a clinical trial, to see if such transfusions lead to changes in the blood of recipients.[1][14] As of August 2017, they had 600 people join.[15] The clinical trial has no control arm and so is neither randomized nor blind. As described, whole blood collected by blood banks that had passed its 42-day storage limit was centrifuged to remove cells, the resulting cell-free plasma pooled from several donations and intravenously transfused into recipients.[15] The company was started by Jesse Karmazin, a medical school graduate without a license to practice medicine.[16] David Wright is the licensed doctor overseeing the clinical trial; in his practice he administers intravenous treatments of vitamins and antibiotics for nontraditional purposes and was disciplined by the California Medical Board for the latter in 2015. Jonathan Kimmelman, a bioethicist from McGill University, suggests that Ambrosia is running this as a trial as they would be unable to get FDA approval to sell this treatment otherwise.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_blood_transfusion#Ambrosia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_blood_transfusion#Ambros...
- neovialogistics 3y agoIt's a lack of imagination amongst policymakers that has resulted in this business being treated differently than a hypothetical business selling kidneys for $8k.
- mbg721 3y agoOr that your body makes more blood in a relatively short time. It's pretty harmless for the donors, except for the recipients' use-case being creepy and batshit-insane.
- ribosometronome 3y agoIsn't their use case borne out somewhat from this study?
- jostmey 3y agoEh, if what you say is true, the blood is not young but expired, having passed the 42-day storage limit
- thesaintlives 3y agoYes but the level of relevant proteins it contains will remain the same..
- jostmey 3y agoI think even frozen the proteins can degrade. It is not like freezing the blood will stop all chemical reactions--it just slows chemical processes down without halting the chemical processes. There's a reason the blood is no longer considered useful. To be honest, I am not an expert in this, but I'm sure the proteins are degrading too
- gumby 3y ago> whole blood collected by blood banks that had passed its 42-day storage limit How often does this happened? I am continually being spammed by Stanford saying they have a critical shortage, and I do almost the maximum number of donations a year. I would hate to discover that it's all a waste.
- omginternets 3y agoThe shelf-life is probably the reason for the shortages. You need overhead to meet peak demand, and some of that necessarily goes to waste.
- teaearlgraycold 3y agoI would assume need outstrips supply for platelets. Whole blood need could be very volatile. So donate platelets if you can.
- gumby 3y agoYes, I do a double double (double plasma double platelets). It’s annoying because it takes a while but it’s a good time to catch up on my reading. Don’t try catching up on your sleep while doing this because they get upset thinking you passed out.
- teaearlgraycold 3y agoDon't forget to run to In N Out after for a double double!
- gumby 3y agoNo thanks I’m not a christian.
- nostromo 3y agoBlood donation centers make money when they sell your blood. Blood is a profit center for a lot of organizations. That's a big reason they're always bugging you to give more.
- nostromo 3y agoI don't see the problem as long as everyone understands the risks they're taking. I'm also glad there are people willing to take some calculated risks so we can continue to learn about ourselves and our world.
- joshspankit 3y agoYou’re assuming that they are: 1. Gathering accurate data 2. Sharing (or intending to share) the accurate data
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> whole blood collected by blood banks that had passed its 42-day storage limit was centrifuged to remove cells This seems like a great business? Blood banks get to monetize what would have otherwise been a waste product. And we get more data. Why is it creepier than standard organ donation?
- magicpin 3y ago> The clinical trial has no control arm and so is neither randomized nor blind. There isn't really an experiment being run, just the waste product --> money pipeline.
- antisthenes 3y agoAs long as we can extract $8000 per transfusion from extremely wealthy people, that's a massive win for humanity, even if there are no experiments being run.
- soco 3y agoI'm not sure how "we" extract that. Wealthy people do spend money - on caviar and private jets for instance - should "we" be celebrating this as well?
- MichaelZuo 3y agoA lot of normal middle class and upper-middle class jobs are created by the private jet industry. The entirety of Bombardier is now focusing on private jets for example.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> isn't really an experiment being run, just the waste product --> money pipeline You're claiming we have all the clinical data we need on this treatment model?
- candiodari 3y ago