Taking a young person's plasma and infusing it into an older person to ward off aging -- a therapy that's fascinated some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley -- has no proven clinical benefit, the Food and Drug Administration said.
The agency issued a safety alert on Tuesday about the infusion of plasma from young donors for the prevention of conditions such as aging or memory loss, or for the treatment of such conditions as dementia, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, heart disease or postātraumatic stress disorder.
"There is no proven clinical benefit of infusion of plasma from young donors to cure, mitigate, treat or prevent these conditions, and there are risks associated with the use of any plasma product," the FDA said in a statement from Commissioner Scott Gottlieb and Peter Marks, head of the agency's biologics center.
(Score: 1) by doke on Wednesday February 20 2019, @09:07PM (3 children)
I first heard of this idea in Melthusela's Children, a 1958 novel by Robert Heinlein. It was based on a 1941 serial. I've never read serial version. The novel predicted the use of blood transfusions to prolong life. However, it didn't predict (or avoided) the use of young people's blood, and the potential ethical issues. In it, the humans left on earth used cloned blood for life extension, not donated from younger people. Later Larry Niven had several stories involving organ transplants. Those got diastopian, with almost any crime being declared capitol, so the state could harvest the criminal's organs to preserve old, rich people.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday February 20 2019, @11:18PM (1 child)
This was one of the things that led to the citizen's revolt on Mount Lookitthat. Eventually you send the wrong person to the organ banks and they won't take it lying down anymore.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20 2019, @11:42PM
Yeah, they end up coming back with organs from that Abby Normal woman all the time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 21 2019, @09:40AM
Are you sure it was not the WarBoy's blood bag in "MadMax: Furry Road"?