Greece’s Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis has announced a new regulatory framework for longevity services, along with a new app that will allow citizens to verify the license and permitted medical procedures of any clinic. Under the new law, every medical practice will be required to display a QR code that patients can scan with their smartphone to see “what license this clinic holds and what it is and is not authorized to do.”
The minister also announced a ban on online advertising for longevity services. “Advertisements will be banned for these things — there’s no debate about it. Yes, yes, yes. Everything will be banned,” he stated emphatically.
Georgiadis noted that discussions on the matter had already begun within medical associations, pointing out that the Thessaloniki Medical Association had already submitted a relevant proposal, and that both the Panhellenic Medical Association and Athens Medical Association President Giorgos Patoulis had made the same request — even before the incident involving Giorgos Mazzonakis.
What Adonis Georgiadis said about plasmapheresis
Speaking about the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Giorgos Mazzonakis, the Health Minister stated that the facility where the procedures were carried out held a license for a general practice clinic — not a medical facility. “They put the word ‘clinic’ in the title themselves, in their advertising. This is not a clinic, under any circumstances. It was a simple general practice office,” he said.
According to the minister, medical procedures were performed at the facility that were not permitted under its operating license. “We therefore have a violation of the law and a deception of patients,” he declared. “Plasmapheresis is a very serious medical procedure that carries many risks. One of the possible risks is cardiac arrest,” he added, stressing that “performing plasmapheresis for longevity purposes in a general practice clinic is prohibited.”
“The Athens Medical Association had conducted three inspections”
The Health Minister also addressed the inspections that the Athens Medical Association (ISA) had previously carried out at the facility. “The Athens Medical Association had conducted inspections at this clinic — three times, in fact. Not just once,” he noted.
When asked about the possibility that equipment may not have been detected during those inspections, he commented: “A fraudster can always find a way to evade any inspection.”
He added that “the man died of cardiac arrest,” while noting that laboratory results must still be finalized, as the further investigation now falls under the jurisdiction of the relevant forensic and judicial authorities.
Finally, the minister announced that within the coming days he will convene a meeting with the Panhellenic Medical Association, the Athens Medical Association, the University of Athens Medical School, and other relevant bodies, with the aim of establishing an interdisciplinary committee. The committee, he said, will be tasked with proposing a “highly structured regulatory framework” for longevity services.
Georgiadis drew a clear distinction between organized, scientifically grounded longevity services and practices that, as he argued, are carried out without the required institutional and medical framework. “There is a difference between what is structured, scientific, specific, and rule-based, and what was happening at that clinic,” he stated pointedly.
