Beware Silicon Valley’s Bullsh*t Biohacks
The blood of the young is just one way our sleepless, fasting, raw-water-loving tech titans maintain a superstitious belief in an optimized existence.
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty
Last week, the FDA was out for blood. The blood of the people out for the blood of young people, that is.
In a scathing statement, the administration slammed companies offering a treatment known as parabiosis—transplanting the blood of the young into the bodies of the old. The FDA wrote that it had “significant public health concerns” about the the sci fi-like practice with “no proven clinical benefit.”
While Silicon Valley wasn’t named directly in the FDA’s statement, the implication was obvious. In recent years, startups across Palo Alto have been fighting to plant their foot in the industry. Valley billionaire and venture capitalist Peter Thiel has repeatedly expressed his interest in the treatment—and is even rumored to have tried it. Blood transfusions even made it on an episode of the HBO’s satirical comedy Silicon Valley.