Blood transfusion startup Ambrosia is now up and running

bryanrasmussen | 44 points

"A startup company, Ambrosia, has been selling "young blood transfusions" for $8,000 since 2017 under the guise of running a clinical trial ... The clinical trial has no control arm and so is neither randomized nor blind. The company was started by Jesse Karmazin, a medical school graduate without a license to practice medicine. 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 trial as they would be unable to get FDA approval to sell this treatment otherwise." [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_blood_transfusion#Ambros...

shanehoban | 5 years ago

I don't know if Parabiosis will eventually prove to have any use in fighting any sort of disease ever, but what I can tell from this article is that I wouldn't trust that company as far as I can throw it.

Just the thought that someone running a medical company thinks he can gather evidence worth talking about by just observing old people who got blood transfusions tells you all you need to know. He's willing to completely fabricate claims about the benefits of this treatment.

We now how much of a nightmare Theranos was -and that was a relatively passive procedure they were selling. What happens when this scrappy start up skimps on the screening tests for their donors and end up with venereal diseases in their blood supply? The old 'fake it till you make it' doesn't fly here.

Traster | 5 years ago

Enjoy your to-be-discovered deadly viruses you got from such a transfusion. (I'm not joking, there might be undetected viruses that promote development of cancer and other diseases.)

Odenwaelder | 5 years ago

The medical part of my brain cringed on the idea to transfuse blood to healthy recipients.

Blood is a tremendously tricky substance. I guess they have the necessary precautions in place. But still...

bayesian_horse | 5 years ago

To any British person they will assume Ambrosia are doing blood transfusions with custard

alexbilbie | 5 years ago

This is of course ridiculous, stupid, and immoral, but I don’t think it’s unprecedented.

I know that the Vampire Facial[0] has been a popular supposed beauty treatment for at least a couple of years.

When I become king, all of this would be outlawed along with homeopathy.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platelet-rich_fibrin_matrix

yakshaving_jgt | 5 years ago

Next SV startup: all the benefits of young blood transfusion, but requiring only a single drop of blood.

Udik | 5 years ago

Where are they getting the plasma from? Doesn't it basically cost about $75 for the donor plus the cost of collecting the plasma? Based on the ads that I have seen.

patrickg_zill | 5 years ago

Can you say the next Theranos?

ArrayList | 5 years ago

So, what exactly is the theory here? They are transfusing plasma, which, as far as I understand, is blood without all the various cells in it. So basically water with some elements and whatever proteins are too small to separate in the centrifuge.

So either the specific mixture of stuff in "young blood" is better, or they mean the specific molecules are healthier because of their origin. The latter is homeopathy style chemistry, and the former seems mostly like a contrived way of taking hormonal supplements.

SiempreViernes | 5 years ago

From Gavin Belson we know that you can never ever trust your blood boy.

mto | 5 years ago