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An anti-ageing startup is offering transfusions of blood from young people

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Re: An anti-ageing startup is offering transfusions of blood from young people

#71

Post by jack9 »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #67
maxerickson wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blood banks do have plenty of real costs and a payment to the donator would just get passed through to the patients receiving the blood. It looks like I donate to a for profit organization, but for instance, the Red Cross isn't paying shareholders profits from the blood they sell.

Paying for blood, and the ethical issues around that, reminds me of pharmacies giving out gift cards and other discounts for flu shots. I recall CVS was giving out a $25 gift card to anyone who got a flu shot, and I imagined a lot of low income and poor people lining up for a shot they may not need, and in fact may be harmful, just to get money to buy food, etc.

> I imagined a lot of low income and poor people lining up for a shot they may not need, and in fact may be harmful

That's an interesting spin, which may be true of other types of injection. However for flu shots, it can save lives (the poor are particularly susceptible and potentially focal for infection clusters). In that way the financial incentive is progressive.

Re: An anti-ageing startup is offering transfusions of blood from young people

#72

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

savanaly wrote: post #63
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But do we want to allow rich vampires to drive the price of blood up? It seems to me that maybe blood shouldn't be treated like a commodity which is driven by the market. Most people receiving blood are not exactly in a position to turn it down or shop around and so some technologists driving the price up to $8,000 is going to hurt you.

To the extent it's a competitive market (and it seems like it would be-- a lot of potential buyers and sellers), the price should be determined by the minimum average cost, not by the willingness/ability of the buyer to pay. This outcome is not dependent on the ability of the buyer to walk away (as you note, their life might depend on it so some of them can't), but on the sellers pursuing their self interest which we…

It may turn out to be a competitive market, I just don't think it should be. In a truly competitive market Peter Thiel could just outbid a sick person for a particularly choice pint. In this market system whether a person gets blood or not will depend on their ability to pay for it not their need of it.

Re: An anti-ageing startup is offering transfusions of blood from young people

#74

Post by dang »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #50

> ... helping Covfefe supporters? Dangit man!!! I snorted cola through my nose! You have any idea how much that stings?

We've asked you before to stop posting unsubstantive comments. If you keep doing it, we're going to end up banning your account.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14470829 and marked it off-topic.

Re: An anti-ageing startup is offering transfusions of blood from young people

#75

Post by nradov »

I was concerned about this because I'm scheduled to donate blood later today so I contacted the American Red Cross on Facebook and asked if they had ever sold blood to Ambrosia.

"The Red Cross has no record of providing blood to this organization."

So Ambrosia must be getting their blood from another supplier.

Re: An anti-ageing startup is offering transfusions of blood from young people

#76

Post by JustSomeNobody »

dang wrote: post #74
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #50

> ... helping Covfefe supporters? Dangit man!!! I snorted cola through my nose! You have any idea how much that stings?

We've asked you before to stop posting unsubstantive comments. If you keep doing it, we're going to end up banning your account. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14470829 and marked it off-topic.

Is there a way to have a private conversation with you?

Re: An anti-ageing startup is offering transfusions of blood from young people

#78

Post by chiefalchemist »

sp332 wrote: post #6

They buy the blood from blood banks, so people donating blood don't know it's going to paranoid rich people instead of sick people, and they don't get any of the money! Edit: I thought it was illegal in the USA to pay for body parts, but there is an exception for plasma (and maybe the rest of the blood?). But it's already predatory http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/business/06plasma.html and this new business only ma…

One of the NPR shows also did a show on the blood biz. In short, if you give blood, someone is making a buck off that donation.

Re: An anti-ageing startup is offering transfusions of blood from young people

#79

Post by zzzzzzzza »

bad_user wrote: post #14
zzzzzzzza wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe the blood banks need money to run their operations more than they need blood...

Then they should ask for money instead of blood.

maybe people are more willing to donate blood than money

Re: An anti-ageing startup is offering transfusions of blood from young people

#80

Post by Overtonwindow »

jack9 wrote: post #71
Overtonwindow wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying for blood, and the ethical issues around that, reminds me of pharmacies giving out gift cards and other discounts for flu shots. I recall CVS was giving out a $25 gift card to anyone who got a flu shot, and I imagined a lot of low income and poor people lining up for a shot they may not need, and in fact may be harmful, just to get money to buy food, etc.

> I imagined a lot of low income and poor people lining up for a shot they may not need, and in fact may be harmful That's an interesting spin, which may be true of other types of injection. However for flu shots, it can save lives (the poor are particularly susceptible and potentially focal for infection clusters). In that way the financial incentive is progressive.

Does the flu shot save lives? Various outlets report the vaccine may only be roughly 50% effective [0] which seems little more than a coin toss. They're pushed very hard in these drug stores, every time you check out, signs everywhere, plus the financial incentives. I wonder what the danger would be to a poor person to getting a flu shot multiple times?

[0] http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/16/health/flu-shot-effective-cdc-...

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