'She Lost Her Sight. Her Billionaire Father Bet On a Daring New Treatment.' (msn.com)
- Reference: 0185481404
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/09/07/0036234/she-lost-her-sight-her-billionaire-father-bet-on-a-daring-new-treatment
- Source link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/she-lost-her-sight-her-billionaire-father-bet-on-a-daring-new-treatment/ar-AA2bEZF4
> The hedge fund manager did what any good father would do — at least, any father with vast financial resources and what friends describe as a "Mr. Fix-It" tendency. He sprung into action, getting her topline care at New York City's Mt. Sinai Hospital and consulting a network of well-connected friends all over the world. He helped her access a novel cell therapy that has been gaining traction among longevity enthusiasts, who are seeking ways to prolong human life. And then — motivated by a newfound desire to accelerate scientific research — he vowed to spend more than $400 million to launch an institute dedicated to longevity and brain health... He posted this week that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in May, gave his daughter Lucy's medical team a first-time emergency authorization to transplant mitochondria — the energy-producing part of human cells — from her leg muscle to her eyes, in the hopes that the tiny cell powerhouses would facilitate healing in her optic nerves and perhaps even restore her vision.
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> Ackman's story highlights the increasingly prominent role of the ultra-wealthy in making expensive medical bets on longevity treatments and other novel therapies, altering the direction of research as federal funding for science declines in the second Trump administration. But his saga is a deeply personal one, spurred by his daughter's medical crisis. The focus on longevity by Ackman, who [2]made billions on Wall Street as a hedge fund manager, is aligned with similarly ambitious efforts from some of Silicon Valley's biggest names. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has backed Retro Biosciences, a start-up whose goal is to add 10 healthy years to the human lifespan through cellular reprogramming. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is reportedly a funder of Altos Labs, which focuses on cellular rejuvenation and resilience... Billionaire investor Peter Thiel, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison are also deeply invested in life-extension methods and attempts to rewrite the biology of aging...
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> The therapy given to Ackman's daughter Lucy, known as mitochondrial transplantation, is of great interest not only to people who have suffered injuries, but to longevity-focused scientists who believe that mitochondria may hold promise for reversing some of the effects of aging... In recent years, scientists have discovered that mitochondria have many other functions beyond converting food into energy. They serve as clearinghouses for damaged cells, opening up the possibility that they can help with cell regeneration and healing, said Daria Mochly-Rosen, professor of chemical and systems biology at the Stanford University School of Medicine and co-author of " [3] The Life Machines: How Taking Care of Your Mitochondria Can Transform Your Health ."
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> "I am one of those who believes that focusing on mitochondrial health is a way to address many human diseases, including aging itself," she said. "It's exciting."
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/she-lost-her-sight-her-billionaire-father-bet-on-a-daring-new-treatment/ar-AA2bEZF4
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/10/bill-ackman-end-dei-industry/
[3] https://amzn.to/4ytEyat
Do we need to infect the children of the 1% (Score:2)
Because if the only way we can get the money to cure diseases, then I wonder will this start to happen?
Have a rare disease? Only hope is for you to and intentionally infect the son/daughter of the wealthy.
The entire idea of taxes is to take the money from all - including the wealthy - and use it for the common good. We should NOT have to pray the wealthy becomes interested enough to do it on their own.
Ah yes (Score:2)
The good old "I will only pay to save my own arse" adage.
The sooner china and singapore and those guys take over the rest of the world the better.
Re: (Score:2)
The rest of the world figured out that providing healthcare for citizens is a massive benefit to the country.
Asking for empathy when on is given (Score:2)
Is what this story is about or trying to do. Good people should still feel empathy for this woman who suffered something of no fault of her own and was able to find relief, we are all supposed to be emphatic about that right?
Of course a little difficult when the man funding that has a an almost psychological lack of empathy to where he supports with his time, thoughts and dollars a man, his people and a government that has the least amount of empathy in modern American history. One that routinely mocks th
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> Is what this story is about or trying to do. Good people should still feel empathy for this woman who suffered something of no fault of her own and was able to find relief, we are all supposed to be emphatic about that right?
> Of course a little difficult when the man funding that has a an almost psychological lack of empathy to where he supports with his time, thoughts and dollars a man, his people and a government that has the least amount of empathy in modern American history. One that routinely mocks the very idea of empathy for your fellow man, one that espouses the idea that some humans are undeserving of empathy itself, that they deserve torture and punishment and derision.
> Anyway fuck Bill Ackman, a man who through his actions supports the idea that anybody poor shouldn't have access to medical care. Only his podcast cronies really deserve it.
Sad for his daughter, would have been better if it was Bill himself, but at least these stories illustrate the one way in which those douchebag billionaires are the same as everyone else. To the rest of the human race his daughter's life is worth exactly the same as a starving child in Sudan. I'm sure he and his friends think otherwise, but none of the rest of the world does. In any case there are some things all the money in the world can't fix, and that occasionally brings these people down to the same
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> They still suffer and grieve like everyone else, and that is a good thing.
No they don't, not the same as everyone else. Someone else would have to trudge into work the next day because their job offers no bereavement time. Someone else would be facing mountains of medical debt. Someone else would not be able to private jet the rest of their family to a tropical resort for an entire month to try and meditate around their loss.
Just pointing out the obvious fact that death is a great equalizer means little when the living are anything but close to equal.
If Bill comes out of this
Allocation of resources (Score:2)
Of course, doing a large investment in health research is by itself a good thing. However, having just 1 person decide vast amounts of allocation of where our top experts spend their time ultimately means that those experts will spend less time on other items. Medical research expertise is a finite resource and letting a couple of rich people hoard it instead of deciding as a society where we want to invest in them ultimately is not efficient.
Just think (Score:2)
We could be doing this on a federal level if we weren't spending all our money on ballrooms, arches and wars that no one asked for.
It's he and other people like him (Score:2)
Had not just spent the last 100 years holding back human civilization and development and if I want to go back further 2 millennia doing the same so that they could hold on the money and power then we would be way more advanced and this would not have been an issue.
Some people will make the point that the 1% "only" have 20 trillion dollars to their name. Why that's not even enough to pay off the American national debt right?
That completely ignores how they retard society and the economy.
Good exa
Re: (Score:2)
This article reads like pro-billionaire corporatist propaganda.
It's unfortunate that progress often needs something personal for it to happen, like the politicians who openly opposed gay rights until their children came out.
Ooo its a paradox (Score:2)
Should I be pleased she might get healed, yes, but only because capitalist pig rich daddy could help? I bet he has posters of Trump on his wall taking in it the backdoor from Putin looking buff in his judo suit.
One meaningful end to the tale is it doesn't work, she remains blind and daddy learns a valuable lesson on the limits of money, seeks redemption from his selfish, greedy life and sets up a charitable trust to fund research into fixing the makeup of helpless rich daddy girls.
Another end, it does work
Re: (Score:2)
What should he have done? Go running to Medicaid? You would have done the same thing in his position.
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That is nowhere near the point anyone is making including the person you are responding to.
What I would say is Medicaid should be funded and universal enough that the amount of money your daddy has shouldnt matter whether someone daughter can get treatment, a position Ackman holds the opposite of.
I can be glad his daughter found relief and still think Bill is a repugnant piece of human waste who deserves no empathy or gratitude because he has actively stripped medical care from other Americans and is glad t
Re: (Score:1)
The bot's incessant bullshit notwithstanding, it's not at all ironic that she could have fought off a 99.87% non-lethal illness entirely naturally.
Stupidity is as stupidity does.