US FDA's 'vampire' warning highlights obsession with not growing old

LOS ANGELES (DPA) - The United States federal government finally took a stand this week on vampires feasting on the blood of the young.

It is against the practice.

Actually, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning about older people injecting themselves with the blood plasma of young donors - a fringe therapy that is marketed as a way to fight ageing and a variety of illnesses, including dementia, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease.

"Simply put, we're concerned that some patients are being preyed upon by unscrupulous actors touting treatments of plasma from young donors as cures and remedies," FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement.

"Such treatments have no proven clinical benefits for the uses for which these clinics are advertising them and are potentially harmful."

He added: "Reports we're seeing indicate that the dosing of these infusions can involve administration of large volumes of plasma that can be associated with significant risks, including infectious, allergic, respiratory and cardiovascular risks, among others."

Shortly after the FDA's announcement, a Monterey, California, start-up called Ambrosia Health said it would stop offering the injections.

Customers paid US$8,000 (S$10,810) for a litre of young blood, and US$12,000 for two litres.

The vampire miracle cure is just one of numerous treatments that have formed a multi-billion-dollar rejuvenation business as Americans grow older.

Some are legit, or involve minimal risk, such as taking fish oils to improve memory. Others are potentially dangerous or border on pure quackery.

"People have been peddling anti-ageing snake oil since Day One," said Professor Kathy Black, who deals with ageing studies and social work at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee.

"Gerontologists have long said that there's a limit to how long you can live," she said. "And that's about 120 years."

There is nothing new about wanting to cheat death - human beings have been keen on the idea since at least the ancient Egyptians.

What is different now is the combination of enormous wealth being focused on such endeavours and technological breakthroughs that promise at least a shot at longevity, if not immortality.

Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison has channelled much of his fortune into keeping the Grim Reaper at bay. Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page reportedly are heavy into anti-ageing research, as is Amazon's Jeff Bezos.

Mr Dmitry Itskov, a Russian billionaire, has launched the 2045 Initiative, which aims to map the brain so our minds can be downloaded into robot bodies or synced with holograms.

Then there is Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel, who popularised the idea of harvesting the blood of the young.

He wrote in 2009 that he was opposed to "confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual". He subsequently revealed that he was taking human growth hormone pills as part of efforts to live to at least 120.

In an interview published in 2016, Mr Thiel enthused about a process known as parabiosis, which sounds benignly academic until you learn that it involves taking blood from young people and injecting it into older people in hopes of tapping a biological Fountain of Youth.

Mr Thiel said we should not be opposed to new ideas just because they are, you know, totally freaky.

"I suspect we're a little too biased against all these things in society," he said.

Mr Thiel apparently has yet to indulge his thirst for parabiosis. Or if he has, he is not publicising it (which would seem wise). He declared in November that he has never injected himself with a "young person's blood".

"I want to publicly tell you that I'm not a vampire," Mr Thiel said at an investment conference. "On the record, I am not a vampire."

Well, it is good to have that settled. Although, for the record, the issue here is injection of blood plasma, the liquid portion of blood, not the part with red blood cells. So Mr Thiel has not quite put the matter to rest.

In any case, there is no shortage of interest in Silicon Valley.

Prof Valter Longo who specialises in gerontology at University of Southern California (USC), said that when he meets with tech-industry executives, "there are lots of people talking about immortality. It's not about living to 110 or 120. It's about living to 1,000".

He declined to identify these wanna-be Dorian Grays. All Prof Longo would say is that "you hear some really delusional talk from some really famous people". This is not to say that medical breakthroughs are not worth pursuing.

Stem cell research, for example, holds promise for addressing a variety of ailments including diabetes and Alzheimer's. However, as American columnist Michael Hiltzik has reported, claims of rejuvenation are, shall we say, exaggerated.

"Ageing is a source of stigma and shame in our society, so it is not a surprise that many individuals are looking to profit from this," said Prof Meika Loe, a professor of sociology and women's studies at Colgate University in New York and author of Aging Our Way: Lessons For Living From 85 And Beyond.

"Anti-ageing quackery goes back for centuries, and for centuries people have been harmed by falling for the latest antidote to ageing," she said.

Prof Loe and Prof Longo both said that even though there has been potentially promising research involving longevity of mice, there is precious little data about how such experiments can affect humans.

Not to be alarmist, but avid consumers of science fiction wouldn't mind observing that whenever the government warns at the beginning of a movie not to inject yourself with other people's blood, it is just a matter of time before the human race is overrun by bloodsucking fiends.

Then there are are the inevitable philosophical questions that would arise if anyone cracks the immortality code. Would it be available to everyone? Would we have two classes of people, immortals and non-immortals?

"It's time that we stop portraying aging as an illness, or something to fight," said Dr Maria Claver, director of the gerontology programme at Cal State Long Beach. "Rather than trying to avoid ageing, which is impossible, we need to focus on educating people about lifestyle choices that can optimise the ageing process."

Prof Black at the University of South Florida said the question people should be asking is not how we can last 1,000 years; it is how we can have the highest quality of life for the time we are given.

The trick, she said, is not harvesting the blood of children. It is "staying physically, mentally and socially engaged". This may not be as fun as living to 1,000, but it makes the most of being in the moment.