For eight grand via PayPal, a startup called Ambrosia will infuse aspiring death-thwarters over thirty-five with a liter of sprightly young blood (or two liters for the low, low price of $12,000). According to its founder, Jesse Karmazin, the anti-aging remedy — which, because it’s a blood transfusion, is legal as an “off-brand” treatment already approved by the Food and Drug Administration — will bless those who receive it with improved focus, memory, muscle tone, and appearance.

Ambrosia is reportedly operating in five US cities, where clinics purchase young blood from blood banks and shoot it into their clients. The company claims to boast a waiting list of would-be participants eager for the rejuvenating injections (unruffled, apparently, by the lack of peer-reviewed studies to back Karmazin’s lofty claims or the fact that he isn’t a medical practitioner).

If the idea of ultra-rich people harvesting youthful plasma in their quest for longevity seems dystopian, it is. But it’s not as sharp a departure into sci-fi territory as it may seem. Ambrosia’s unsettling business model is entirely consistent with how health inequalities already work in America: in a country where the rich outlive the poor by some fourteen years, a gap that has doubled since 1980 — money literally buys longer lifespans.