Creepy Boomers

Creepy Boomers creep everyone out. That's why I endorse Generation Jones instead:

"We can't sit still. We don't have the time to do that," bellowed Bill Faloon, the 63-year-old former mortician addressing them from the stage. To his left and right, giant screens projecting government actuarial tables reminded the group of the "projected year of our termination." Men of Faloon's age could expect to die in 2037. Any 83-year-old women in the room? They've got until only 2026.

"Take that initiative," Faloon urged his audience of about 120 people who had flown in from as far as California, Scotland, and Spain. How? Paying to participate in a soon-to-launch clinical trial testing transfusions of young blood "offers the greatest potential for everyone in this room to add a lot of healthy years to their life," Faloon said. "Not only do you get to potentially live longer … but you're going to be healthier. And some of the chronic problems you have now may disappear."

STAT got an inside look at this $195-a-head symposium, held last month in this wealthy beachside community. It offered a striking view of how promoters aggressively market scientifically dubious elixirs to aging people desperate to defy their own mortality.