Press
FEATURES
ABCNews.com: The Conversation
MarketWatch: Anti-Aging Scams Can be Costly and Dangerous
Chicago Tribune: Anti-Aging Treatments: Profits Are Real, But What About the Claims?
Toronto Star: Extreme Hormone Makeovers
San Antonio Express-News: Exploring Anti-Aging Claims
AARP Bulletin: The Dangers of Trying to Live Forever
The Observer (UK): America’s $88bn Anti-Ageing Industry: Dangerous and With No Scientific Backing
The Times of London (subscription required): Elixirs of Youth: The Top Five Myths
Boomer-Living.com: Arlene Weintraub, Making a Difference for Aging
The University of Pennsylvania Gazette: Habitat for (Aging) Humanity
US News & World Report: Beware Free Trials of Anti-Aging Products Sold on the Web
RADIO APPEARANCES
Southern California Public Radio: Patt Morrison
South Florida Public Radio: Topical Currents
Wisconsin Public Radio: Conversations with Joy Cardin
Santa Fe Public Radio: The Journey Home
New Hampshire Public Radio: Word of Mouth
CBS Radio St. Louis: Total Information AM
WJBC Illinois: Ron Ross Show
Radio New Zealand: Nine to Noon
CBC Radio Canada: The Current
KVOI AM Tucson: Too Jewish Radio
WebTalkRadio: Your Health Rocks
News-Talk WHBC Canton: Wriggling in the Middle
Bolder Broadcasting: Growing Bolder Radio
Talk Radio KHOW Denver: The Caring Generation
REVIEWS
Publishers Weekly:
“This hard-boiled exposé probes not serious anti-aging research but the hucksterism in one seamy corner of the longevity industry: the booming field of hormone replacement therapy, whose physician-entrepreneurs prescribe human growth hormone, testosterone, and a medley of female reproductive hormones to help oldsters build muscle mass, restore libido, and go surfing. Weintraub, a former senior writer for BusinessWeek, portrays the hormone replacement sector as a cesspool of unproven claims, unacknowledged side effects, and marketing scams….Weintraub mixes acute reportage with a censorious tone.” (Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.)
Fast Company:
“Wrinkles, fat, and low libido start to sound pretty good after reading this unnerving exposé of America’s $88 billion anti-aging industry by journalist Arlene Weintraub. Her elixir of deep research and smooth storytelling delivers a sometimes-gag-inducing dose of reality about the seedy pseudoscience of growth hormones harvested from cadavers, injection spas in Mexico, and bogus anti-aging cocktails (urine, anyone?), as well as the physician entrepreneurs and whack Internet pharmacies now burgeoning to make a buck. Our advice: Take her medicine, not theirs.” (Copyright © 2010 Mansueto Ventures LLC.)
Bloomberg BusinessWeek:
“Weintraub offers a soup-to-nuts accounting of how an $88 billion industry grew out of baby boomers’ vanity.”
More here: The Old and the Beautiful
AARP Magazine:
A “powerfully seductive syllogism of the ‘anti-aging industry.’”
The Week:
“Business Book of the Week: The ‘desire to defy age’ isn’t exactly a new phenomenon, said Paul Harris in the London Observer. But, as Arlene Weintraub reveals in her meticulously reported book, over the past decade the revenue of the ‘anti-aging industry’ has ballooned to an estimated $88 billion worldwide.”
New Scientist:
“By medicalising [sic] the process of growing old, sellers of anti-ageing “medicine” have made fortunes based on unfounded claims, [Weintraub] argues. Time and again, vulnerable people are spun a yarn and relieved of their cash. Some of the stories are shocking … her scepticism [sic] will be food for thought for anyone tempted by promises to turn back the clock.”
Smithsonian.com
“The anti-aging industry is making a killing off of people who are trying to stay young. But many of these treatments aren’t just doing damage to our pocketbooks; Weintraub discovered that some are downright dangerous.” More here: Nine Science Books I Wish I’d Had Time to Read This Year
Scientific American:
“Recommended reading”
Red Hot Mamas:
“This book belongs on the bedside table of every woman past the age of 40 and is a must read! Selling the Fountain of Youth: How the Anti-Aging Industry Made a Disease out of Getting Old — And Made Billions provides comprehensive, honest and accurate information about the anti-aging industry, it’s “miracle cures” and treatments. It includes detailed and crucial information, the latest research, and is written in a clear, concise manner. As founder of Red Hot Mamas Menopause Management Education Programs, as well as a member of the aging baby boom generation, I clearly recognize that knowledge is power. To enjoy optimum health at menopause and beyond we need to become aware of certain anti-aging marketing pressures. I thank Arlene Weintraub, the author of Selling the Fountain of Youth for her dedication and hard work in writing this groundbreaking book.” (Copyright © 2010, Red Hot Mamas North America, Inc.)
Bitch Magazine:
“The book is most enjoyable when Weintraub examines the consumer culture of the 1990s and 2000s that propelled the industry to billion-dollar success: an aging baby-boomer population; an obsession with all things natural/organic/vegetarian; a media-driven, Hollywood-centric obsession with beauty and agelessness; and the appeals to feminism and choice often used by the anti-aging industry in product copy and media coverage that trumpet a woman’s right to choose alternatives to Big Pharma. Superbly researched and written, Selling the Fountain of Youthtells an intriguing story while providing readers with a timely consumer report.” (Copyright © 2010 Bitch Media)
Charleston Post and Courier:
“Armed with Weintraub’s excellent investigative work, and the knowledge that few truly medically sound (i.e., controlled, double-blind, placebo, statistically significant) studies have been conducted on most of the anti-aging therapies in the marketplace, the consumer is likely to find herself feeling a little less hopeful but also a lot less foolish.” More here: “Selling” Cuts Through Veil of Anti-Aging Industry
Tucson Citizen:
“Selling the Fountain of Youth is a wild, disturbing look at the anti-aging industry, an industry that Weintraub believes could be triggering one of the biggest medical hoaxes in history.”
The Commercial Appeal Memphis:
“Weintraub’s book is serious journalism, packed with specifics, and not for the casual reader. But it should be required reading for baby boomers and others who have been sucked into the anti-aging industry to the tune of $88 billion a year.” More here: 2010 Fashion Books Tackled Topics From Weighty to Frivolous
Examiner.com Cincinnati:
“It may be hard for many people to swallow, but this book shows that there is no such thing as a fountain of youth. Carefully documented and covering the ever expanding sources of hormone replacement therapy, the book shows that although there may be short term advances, there are no long term changes, and there are definite risks to such therapy. Read the book.”
Duke University Fuqua School of Business, Ford Library Blog:
“From its humble beginnings in the 1990’s to today’s $88 billion industry, author Weintraub takes the reader through the gamut of hopeful treatments, including injections with HGH and Botox, and the more natural dietary supplements, such as elixirs made from acai berries and resveratrol pills, distilled from red wine.”
California Bookwatch:
“Fads, trends, international marketing, and legitimate players as well are considered in a thorough investigation of the economic and cultural impact of anti-aging medicine….”
Metapsychology:
“Substantively, the discourse of Weintraub is very notable for its critical and informative nature. Readers digging diligently in the soil of the text, moreover, will likely unearth many probing questions. The question raising nature of Weintraub’s thoughtful discourse indeed fortifies the book’s substance with very considerable intellectual strength.”