Unit 1: Immortality 2.0 (1ère G1_gr1)

Young Blood, Old Dreams

The document under study an extract from a magazine called Popular Mechanics, published in 2024. It deals with how some scientists would use blood from young people to cure diseases or stay young.

For example, we have learned about a former Stanford Medical student called Jesse Karmazin who created a startup named Ambrosia. He promised that his blood plasma infusions could improve appearance, sleep, strength and even treat diseases such as Alzheimer. One infusion cost $8,000. It shows that this treatment was targeted at the elite, because these people want to look younger to maintain a good image. As a result, the FDA refused his experiment and put an end to his company because there was no scientific proof that it actually worked.

In history, people had already used young blood to cure or try to stay young. For instance, in ancient Rome, epileptics drank gladiators’ blood hoping to cure their disease. Moreover, Pope Innocent VIII drank the blood of three boys to survive his illness.

Alexander Bogdanov died because of his last transfusions at the early age of 54. It shows that the injection of young blood works only on a short term. However, they can destroy your health very quickly and could kill you.

To conclude, J. Karmazin refused to tell the source of the blood plasma he used because, on one hand the donors might have thought that it was for medical reasons and not for cosmetic ones. Moreover, it could create fights between parents and children because as minors, parents should decide for them and the children could be forced to do it, which is illegal, unethical and a form of abuse.

Homework: Learn the lesson.