X-Message-Number: 21369
From: "Mark Plus" <>
Subject: US Bioethics Council Targets Life Extension
Date: Sun, 09 Mar 2003 09:12:37 -0800

http://www.betterhumans.com/News/news.aspx?articleID=2003-03-07-5

US Bioethics Council Targets Life Extension

Betterhumans Staff

[Friday, March 07, 2003] In a move that's sure to concern life extension 
advocates, the US President's Council on Bioethics has made age retardation 
the focus of an ambitious new agenda.

The council has produced one report since it was established in 2001.

Headed by Leon Kass, who is known for opposing life extension, the council 
has announced that it will this year analyze non-therapeutic uses of 
biotechnology for improving bodily function or retarding aging.

Science and ethics

The council held a meeting yesterday to discuss the ethics of anti-aging 
biotechnology interventions, which Kass kicked off with the question, "Is it 
reasonable to think that the biological processes of aging are rightly 
regarded as analogous to a model of disease, to be studied and modified?"

Most members agreed that aging is not a disease.

A working paper used for the meeting, "Age Retardation: Scientific 
Possibilities and Moral Challenges," discusses such therapies as caloric 
restriction, genetic manipulation, antioxidant therapy and telomere repair.

"The retardation of aging is among the most complex -- both scientifically 
and ethically -- of the potential 'non-therapeutic' uses of biotechnology, 
involving several different scientific avenues, and raising deeply 
complicated questions for individuals and society," it reads. "The case for 
living longer hardly needs to be made, and the desire to live longer speaks 
powerfully to each and every one of us. But the full consequences of doing 
so may not be quite so obvious."

Such consequences, the paper says, include people losing engagement with 
life, people having lower aspirations and people having less interest in 
children. Older generations may also not make way for younger, it says, and 
this might have a negative impact on innovation and change.






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