In HBO’s tech industry send-up “Silicon Valley,” tech billionaire Gavin Belson is accompanied by a “blood boy,” a younger man he keeps on hand to infuse him with young blood to keep him sprightly. This vampiric medical idea — that being infused with young people’s blood can help slow aging — is not a fabrication from creative TV writers, but rather inspired by trends in the tech world — including a real-life startup in Monterey, called Ambrosia, which offers transfusions of human plasma harvested uniquely from young adults. Ambrosia claims these infusions will help promote longevity for those who can afford their expensive service.

Unfortunately for its patrons, opportunities for the technorati to suck the blood of the young may have just dried up. On February 19, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a statement cautioning consumers about receiving plasma infusions from young donors in order to treat aging, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease and more.

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“Because we let people sell a wide range of ‘health related’ stuff without any proof of efficacy (or safety). . . . Part of that is because if they qualify as dietary supplements, FDA has very little power over them,” Henry Greely, Director at the Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford University, told Salon in an email. “What brought Ambrosia down is that blood products all [fall] inside ‘real’ FDA jurisdiction (as biological products, not as barely regulated dietary supplements) and so need to be shown to be safe and effective.”