Jerry Gardner had his eyes done twice, maybe three times. He thinks it's three. He had two face lifts; but they didn't get rid of his chin hang. So he had liposuction. Then he had an eyebrow lift. Then he had the scars done. He had shots of collagen in his lips. Then he had a chemical peel on one half of his face. About a month ago, he had a chemical peel on his neck. Then he had one eyebrow done again. He'll do the other one as soon as he sees how the first one comes out.
"I feel like death is around the corner," he says. A wistful grimace reveals a neat row of caps - upper and lower. "I don't have energy; I don't have any sex drive. I'm going downhill fast. They don't tell you when you're young; but believe me, things start slipping and they can't be stopped."Then Gardner, the 59-year-old owner of several apartment buildings in LaPorte, Ind., saw a 15-second TV spot on the El Dorado Rejuvenation & Longevity Institute, a beachfront "clinic" in Mexico that advertises injections of human growth hormone as "an antidote to the ravages of time."
Following in the jet stream of nearly 200 other Americans, Gardner made his way to the El Dorado doorstep, one more moneyed guinea pig anxious to be young again. He left, like the others, with synthetic human growth hormone (HGH) in his bloodstream and a three-month supply of the drug to use at home. A potpourri of other drugs filled his overnight bag, all of them substances, like HGH, that are not approved for use in the United States by healthy adults but promoted by the clinic as "anti-aging products." They may or may not work. "You feel old enough," says Gardner, "and you really don't care."
He spent nearly $5,000 at the clinic before he left the country. For two more shipments of hormone, the bill will reach $10,000, not including the cost of medical supplies and other drugs recommended by the clinic. "Plastic surgery is cheaper," reflects Gardner, "but then this might be a small price to pay for a miracle.'
There is little or no medical evidence to support claims that any drug in the El Dorado pharmacopeia can delay or reverse aging. But the clinic operates outside the purview of the Food and Drug Administration and under Mexican law it can dispense more than a half-dozen drugs touted as anti-aging elixirs that are considered experimental in the United States.
Clinic clients make few demands for scientific documentation. Where the data is thin, experimental studies and testimonials seem to suffice. In fact, El Dorado is perhaps the only "medical" facility founded on the strength of a short article in the New York Times.
The item, published in 1990, described the results of a clinical trial led by Dr. Daniel Rudman of the Medical College of Wisconsin. Twenty-seven healthy men between the ages of 60 to 80 were given daily injections of synthetic human growth hormone. At the end of six months, they had gained lean body mass, lost body fat and increased muscle mass. Their skin thickened and the size of certain organs that shrink with aging, like the liver and the spleen, increased in size. Rudman concluded that HGH had taken 10 to 20 years of aging off their bodies. The subjects of the study claimed psychological benefits as well. In short, they felt like a million bucks.
Rudman and other doctors took care to warn that the results did not constitute a discovery of youth serum. Effects of the hormone supplements faded quickly when the men stopped the injections and there were serious side effects.
El Dorado now operates out of a sleek rented home, complete with two swimming pools and languorous iguanas in the garden. The clinic is run by Dr. Carlos Rodriguez de la O. A Mexican physician who once specialized in pediatrics, Rodriguez examines clients and prescribes drugs in the firm belief that aging is an illness that can be cured.