Blood is life, you know. That’s been the lesson from science documentaries like Dracula and Mad Max: Fury Road.
Remember creepy weird Bryan Johnson, the middle-aged Silicon Valley techbro who want to live forever by gobbling down lots of supplements, slathering on the skin creams, and eating a strangely specific diet? Now he has decided that vampirism is the answer.
An anti-aging zealot who spends $2 million a year in a quest to turn back time has dragged his teenage son into being his personal “blood boy.”
Bryan Johnson, the 45-year-old tech tycoon who wants to keep his internal organs, including his penis and rectum, functioning youthfully — enlisted 17-year-old Talmage to provide blood transfusions, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
At a clinic near Dallas last month, Johnson, his 70-year-old dad, Richard, and Talmage showed up for an hours-long, tri-generational blood-swapping treatment, the outlet reported.
Johnson usually receives plasma from an anonymous donor, but this time Talmage provided a liter of his blood, which was converted into batches of piece parts — a batch of liquid plasma and another of red and white blood cells and platelets.
Ugh. This is creepy child abuse — although they did it in Texas, where they hate children, so he’ll probably get away with it. Even if this worked, I wouldn’t ask my children to ever do this for me.
I also notice the icky Elizabeth Holmes-style pose. It’s all quackery.
Alas, it is loosely based upon actual scientific research.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6764071/
If that isn’t enough, there’s that outlier organization, Columbia University.
They only had 9 grants to perform that research.
Effects are, of course, transitory. Blocking IL-1B also had beneficial, if transitory effects.
Still, doing that crap with one’s own child, beyond creepy, abusive and a lot insane, given the transitory effects achieved.
Did I say transitory often enough? I don’t think so.
Even money, my drinking, smoking, high cholesterol ancient ass will outlive him anyway. Better gene pool, despite someone urinating in it and leaving that which is decidedly not a Hershey bar laying at the bottom of it.
As My Gustafson said, “you drink beer, you eat bacon and you smoke cigarettes, and you outlive most of the experts.” ;)
We should really set an upper limit for wealth and send all the “winners” to Mars
SpaceX’s Starship is ready for that right now
BTW, that guy is invested in BMI too (but with a hideous helmet instead of brain surgery
A quick reminder that in Fury Road many of the warboys had radiation-induced blood cancers making them anaemic, hence the transfusions. In short, George Miller (a medical doctor before he started filmmaking) created a dystopic fantasy world that is more scientifically literate than Bryan Johnston’s.
wzrd1, 17-year-old Talmage may in some senses be considered a child, but you’re here denying any agency to him.
So long as they keep it in the family and manage the risks of needless transfusions, no biggie as far as I’m concerned.
(One hopes it does not extend to other bodily fluids)
Isn’t this a slippery slope toward adrenochrome?
Hemidactylus @5:
No, it ism’t. The Aldrich fine chemicals catalog is the slippery slope to adrenochrome.
wzrd1@1–
Unfortunately it’s not clear unless you dig into that paper you linked to, but there’s a powerful argument that transfusion is not the best mode of treatment even if there are therapeutic molecules in youthful blood — in other words, Bryan Johnson is not using this research to find the most scientifically robust method of maintaining youthfulness, he has latched onto a small subset of the research to justify an abusive fetish.
Also, and this is pretty clear from the paper, almost all of the studies showing a benefit to transfusing young blood are small, at best Phase II studies performed by startup companies hoping to be bought out by an established pharmco, and often those studies fail to be replicated. Of interest, one of the more promising agents identified in the paper (by a company named after an alchemical term, I note!) had just completed a Phase II trial that showed really exciting results for a macular degeneration treatment…but for some reason it took three years for that data to be published in a journal despite the abstract containing word-for-word cutpastes from the press release (my point here is that it looks like most of the writing up was already done so why did it take so long to be published?), and there is no mention of any further trials since then, 4 years ago. Also, that paper uses as its outcome measure a method that is common but highly dubious. There are two vastly more reliable measures of visual acuity, and I suspect the reason the BCVA is used so commonly is because it is unreliable, prone to exaggerating changes, and biases towards small improvements in people with minor visual impairment (this, I should say, is a problem with the entire field, not just this study).
This suggests very strongly to me that the molecule is not all that promising, for reasons only the investigators know and don’t want to acknowledge it publicly. And I suspect that it is not entirely coincidental that a few months after that press release the company was bought out by a major Spanish pharmco…which last mentioned the molecule in its 2020 executive report, that is, the year they bought the startup. Not a peep since then, not even an indication that they are proceeding with bigger studies, or a press release when the data was finally published in a peer-reviewed journal. It’s now 4 years since the initial study was reported. If it worked well it would be a major money spinner (a safe, effective, non-invasive treatment for macular degeneration would be worth billions in revenue every year). So why the silence?
Unfortunately this is typical of the current pharmco environment. It’s not that people aren’t doing good work, but the management and reporting is geared towards financiers instead of healthcare. One great example is that Grifols executive report I mentioned boasting about how they acquired that startup which has ‘already identified more than 8,000 separate proteins, some of which could result in new treatments…’ Now to me that’s an indication that they have not yet done the work to identify good candidate molecules among the noise. Logically, it’s like saying ‘our patented polling system has identified 300 million people who might one day be US President.’ But it looks good to investors who don’t understand the casino rules.
Anyway, TLDR, the point is that it doesn’t surprise me that a modern venture capital billionaire would justify a truly spectacular idée fixe et mauvais by selectively latching onto reports that were pumped up to appeal to venture capitalists.
brucej @ 6, never priced it before. A bit cheaper than I expected, but not by that much. It’s only oxidized epi, after all.
chrislawson @ 7, a small and as I repeatedly said, transitory benefit, if that. It’s all so dicey, that I’ll stick with the surer thing – a balanced diet and exercise.
And whiskey and cigarettes to counter those.
All things in moderation, including moderation. :P
If there’s any real and modest benefit, it’d likely be a protein or ten that aren’t quite as misfolded as the elder issue model. Even that’s stretching things beyond the abilities of supergumby.
John,
Yes, this is much more ethical than ransacking the Blood Bank or diverting poor people from avenues that help the entire community, and yes at 17 the son would be expected to have adult capacity to consent, but I can’t agree that it is ‘no biggie’ for a 17-year old to be donating blood to enable his billionaire father’s self-deceptive health beliefs. There are big red flags aplenty here.
This is a common ethical problem in organ donation, where family members are often the best donor candidates. And there are very strict guidelines around organ donation (to quote Australia’s NHMRC) to ‘safeguard donors and their families from exploitation and harm, and engender community faith in the system.’ Do you really believe that a clearly narcissistic and delusional billionaire has done all he can to protect his son from exploitation?
Reminds of Blade II where vampires own blood banks.
Sure. There’s that element of creepiness.
But, pragmatically, if the son was donating just as much blood to a blood bank, it would have the same effect upon him. Needless transfusions with their attendant medical risks, however, do lack merit.
A billionaire’s son, to use your own quantifier.
Presumably with a rather good education, with rather good access to information, with the best medical care and nutrition and whatnot.
Modern-day nobility, basically. Born to rule.
I find your phrasing interesting, BTW.
You did not ask whether I really thought he had exploited his son, but whether he had protected him from exploitation.
I will say that I think that close relationships, family dynamics, that sort of stuff to which we are not privy is a fraught subject for speculation.
And, you know, sometimes people rationalise creepy stuff for a greater good.
There is no reason to believe he does not think he is not protecting his son; on the contrary, there is good reason to believe he is founding a dynasty.
John Morales, there is the power dynamic of parent-child to create an ethical issue. To deny that is to deny similar instances of position of power being abused to rape someone of lesser capacity.
And abusers typically believe that they are protecting their victim. At a minimum, such things should be examined, rather than allowing a minor child to be used as a tissue bank for the adults who they answer to.
John, my choice of phrasing was to echo the NHMRC quote. Definitely the problem is whether he is exploiting his son. And here’s a big red flag that slipped past all the reporting…
The standard donation at the Blood Bank is 450-470 ml and then you have to wait 2 months before they will accept another donation. But here the jabronis took 1000 ml of blood. That’s 20% of his circulating volume instead of 8%. This is not safe practice. It will shift him from Class 1 to Class 2 shock on the Advanced Trauma Life Support classification system. This is not life-threatening in an otherwise well person, but it’s definitely not done with the health of the son in mind and it will take him around 6 months to replenish his iron stores. And why did they take 1000 ml? So that they could have a photo op of his blood being used to ‘treat’ two people.
This is exploitative even for someone born into elite wealth who will likely grow up to perpetuate the usual crimes of the elitely wealthy. And it’s part of teaching the cycle of abuse that keeps transactional monsters at the top of the money and power pile.
chrislawson, I hear you.
Can’t dispute the circumstances, or the science.
I do question the veracity of this claim: “But here the jabronis took 1000 ml of blood.”
(Have you looked into the provenance of that specific claim?)
And finally, just to show that this is a medical fetish and not evidence-based practice, consider that Bryan Johnson has a colonoscopy every month. This is not only excessive, it’s actually harmful. The risk of perforation during simple screening colonoscopy is about 0.05%. Which is not very risky unless you keep repeating it. If he has one of these procedures every month over the next ten years, he has a roughly 6% chance of having a perforation which will require emergency surgical repair. What he should be doing is annual FOBT/FIT tests, which are non-invasive, and proceed to colonoscopy if he gets a positive. (With exceptions if there is a high familial risk of colon cancer, or if there is an observed rectal bleeding event.)
For those who want the maths:
r = risk of perforation per procedure
n = number of procedures
p = risk of at least one perforation = 1 – (1 – r)^n
given r = 0.0005 and n = 120, then p = 0.0582, or 5.82%
This is probably an overestimate as the risk increases with age and Johnson is still younger than the average colonoscopee. But the principle of repeat risk exposure still applies.
wzrd1:
Hm. What I can say is that I once was 17, too.
Not that pliable, not that amenable at the time.
Hardly exceptional in that.
(Obs, I’ve mellowed out. But I will never deny agency to a person because of their age or relationship, absent solid evidence)
Really? I very much doubt that.
In my estimation and experience, they give typically not a single fuck about their victims.
Such (false) specificity!
Well, given that fact, surely legal proceedings will proceed, no?
(Tissue bank! Oh my!)
John@15 — it’s from para 4 of the New York Post story PZ linked to: ‘Johnson usually receives plasma from an anonymous donor, but this time Talmage provided a liter of his blood.’
A billionaire’s son, to use your own quantifier.
Presumably with a rather good education, with rather good access to information, with the best medical care and nutrition and whatnot.
There’s lots of people with “rather good education, with rather good access to information” and all that, who still end up getting bullied, manipulated or guilted by spouses or parents into positions where they can be exploited or worse. Letting a rich person get away with this sort of thing because “presumably” he’s taking good care of his kids at all other times, is not acceptable.
chrislawson @18, that’s the direct citation, not its provenance.
(I myself looked at that link and a few levels further, and I’m not convinced)
But, pragmatically, if the son was donating just as much blood to a blood bank…
He wouldn’t do so, because blood banks don’t let anyone donate that much blood at one time.
PRAGMATICALLY, if you don’t know what you’re talking about, maybe you should just shut up and stop pretending you have anything useful to say here.
I’m not sure what better provenance I can give without personal use of a TARDIS.
Raging Bee, you missed the point.
Yes, dad is a billionaire, but son is a billionaries’s son. Ineluctable corollary.
Not without resources.
Again: modern nobility. Born to rule.
Letting anyone get away with this sort of (alleged) thing is not acceptable, but it’s very notable you have to specify “rich”, as if somehow that were worse.
That, again, was not the issue anyway: the issue was whether the son has any agency.
If you and others want to characterise him as a naive, clueless, oppressed, exploited, helpless young child, I can’t help that. But I can note how speculative that is.
chrislawson:
Let me help you. What source(s) did the New York Post cite?
(Iterate, you’ll end up where I did unless you spend more than a few minutes’ worth at it)
Letting anyone get away with this sort of (alleged) thing is not acceptable, but it’s very notable you have to specify “rich”, as if somehow that were worse.
YOU are the one “presuming” his kids are well cared for and have agency, because their dad is rich.
Raging Bee, you missed the point.
Actually, no, I didn’t miss any of the points made by people who seem to know more about this subject than you do.
Raging Bee, again, you really are missing the point.
“Letting a rich person get away with this sort of thing” is what you wrote.
It was not “Letting a person get away with this sort of thing”.
(Why be so specific, unless you somehow thought it was salient that he is rich?)
But hey, here is (well, was, but you evaded it) your chance to clarify that it’s not OK whether the parent is rich or not.
Be my guest ;)
Raging Bee, you really want to do this?
Seem to, eh? Well, then, no worries. You didn’t miss their points.
(I was talking about my points, not theirs, but it seems (heh) you missed that particular point)
Anyway, such acrimony! Not for everyone. So.
Recent news [OT technically] which is kinda the converse:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-22/australian-first-uterus-transplant-patient-kirsty-bryan-pregnant/102376488
FWIW, that photo is revealing.
Young one, normal and a fine specimen.
Older one, a visitor from Uncanny Valley.
Of note: Penis is an internal organ?
Honestly, the state of this. In the past, I’ve called Morales the longest tolerated troll in the history of Pharyngula.
And he’s like, hold my beer.
[meta + OT]
No, Bobby the Unsilent: I’m like, “Will the bobiferous ever post about the topic at hand, rather than obsess over me?”
(PS I also predicted that you would persevere with this silly accusations,years ago now.
So far, so vindicated am I)
Silentbob–
I take a troll to be someone who sets out to cause anger and frustration, and by that definition I don’t think of John as a troll. What he is, is disruptively pedantic.
This puts me in mind of the various myths about parents devouring or sacrificing their children. It does seem to be a consistent theme of humanity. Fits well with the Republican fascination with bringing back child labor, for example, as well as the general fact that old men send young men off to war.
I’m not sure why people so easily forget the other part of those myths, though: The part where such behavior inevitably leads to the young rising up and brutally murdering the old.
In the movies, “…Silent Bob rarely speaks. When he does, he often has something eloquent or logical to say…”
At 45 Johnson ought not be falling apart, yet. He’s within the zone where diet and exercise, and a bit of botox and whatever’s that orange shit smeared on his face – he’ll look fine for a while yet. Also, photographers know everyone looks 10yr younger if you shoot them straight on with a big softbox like in the photo above.
I expect outward denial and inner freakout in another decade or so when his ageing shows.
As I have mentioned before, he needs bowhead whale DNA (lives to 200) instead of primate blood.
The set-up reminds me of “The Hunger” with Susan Sarandon, David Bowie and a French actress (Devenue?) . That also had only transitory advantages.
There have been instances of the all too human urge to deny death (sensu Ernest Becker) results in religions. See Christianity and Transhumanism.
Doesn’t pop epigenetics hold we can change expression of our genome with diet and supplements? Never mind most of our genome is junk and doesn’t give a rat’s ass what we put into ourselves.
Eh, it’s gross but it’s also none of my business what someone consents to put in or take out of their bodies.
Bodily autonomy cuts both ways. The liberal justification for abortion (incidentally the correct one), allows for witnesses to refuse blood transfusions and for rich assholes to engage in these weird transfusion experiments.
The question is, WAS there really meaningful informed consent here? Even at the age of 17, or even older, is one really able to say no to one’s own mother or father when they’re asking one to do something that will (allegedly) help their parents to live longer? I had a decent upbringing with good schooling too, but I’m not sure I would have been able to say no if my dad had really tried to pressure or manipulate me into giving my blood for some quack treatment he’d been counting on to stave off death. And even if I’d been able to resist the “c’mon, you’re helping your dad to live longer!” angle, there’d still have been the “I’ve given you all this good suburban upbringing and the best schooling, how can you be so ungrateful as to say no to your parents?!” angle.
And no, beholder, “the liberal justification for abortion” does NOT also allow people to refuse blood transfusions — not when it’s minors refusing in accordance with their parents’ religious teachings. Just like it doesn’t allow parents to have “consensual” sex with their teenage kids.
There may not be a LEGAL remedy for parents roping their kids into participating in dangerous quackery or con-games; but we really shouldn’t just use “meh, bodily autonomy, not my concern” as an excuse to ignore instance of dangerous manipulation or abuse within families.
#31 bkrapcha
Well, yes, kinda? The penis has a root deep into the body. I dunno if that’s what they meant though.
@42 Raging Bee
I remain unconvinced by “won’t someone protect the children?”. In Texas jurisdiction the age of consent is 17, so that part doesn’t apply. You can make a moral argument for having the age of consent be higher — whether it’s 17 or 21 or 35 is an arbitrary distinction. Still, this ethical dilemma includes medically unsound transfusion experiments, conscientious refusal of blood transfusion, conscientious dietary restrictions, illicit drug use, participation in dangerous sports, implantation and/or augmentation, puberty blockers, HRT, conversion therapy, etc. If we didn’t use autonomy as the evaluation here we would be denying agency, or worse, forcing unnecessary treatments on people because the parents gave their approval and the patient did not.
So yes, I think it’s gross, I wouldn’t want to have the procedure done on me, but ultimately meh, not my concern what someone chooses to transfuse out of their body in Texas. I don’t think it will harm anyone involved.
Oh my god, John, either contribute to the discussion, or SHUT THE FUCK UP.
Chigau — our Bob isn’t quite so silent.
SilentBob — please stop poking the hornet’s nest with John, it’s disruptive.
Now, ON TOPIC, I have one word, and that is: NOPE.
Whatever doctor or medical person is performing this transfusion is breaking medical ethics.
If rich people want to live longer they should donate to research to eliminate senescent cells in the body.
Does this magic still work when the “blood boy” loses his virginity?
birgerjohansson: Are you kidding?! We can’t let just anyone be immortal — that would upset the Natural Order of Things!
Chigau: I’m pretty sure that — in this loony’s quackmage cosmology at least — only “blood girls” have to keep their virginity.
Poor kid, sounds like he’s going to be parted out until his dad gets himself some clones.
Haven’t the rich been trying this for centuries now with absolutely no effect?
Why am I thinking of Elizabeth Bathory ?🤷🏽♀️ This whole issue is creepy. And yes I think the son is being manipulated into harming himself . I had a narcissistic parent , they do things like that
According to the very dubious “Diary of the City of Rome” by 15th Century writer Stefano Infessura, Pope Innocent VIII tried to halt ageing and death by having the blood of boys put into him. It didn’t work.