X-Message-Number: 22935
From: "Reason" <>
Subject: Article: Activism For Healthy Life Extension
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 00:29:19 -0800

The latest article from the Longevity Meme, which might be of interest to
readers here:

http://www.longevitymeme.org/articles/viewarticle.cfm?page=1&article_id=16

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Activism for Healthy Life Extension

by Reason and Devon Fowler

150,000 people died today, from age-related conditions that we should be
working harder to cure. I'm sick of the way in which society ignores this
horrid toll. Each life is precious: an individual, complex human being;
wishes, desires, knowledge, experience...all gone, destroyed, 150,000 times
over every day. The apathy with which we greet this ongoing holocaust is
shocking. Think about that for a moment; spend a little time thinking about
you, your family and your friends suffering and dying because we cannot
rouse ourselves to spend the necessary funds on anti-aging medical research.
Don't push it out of your mind - get angry instead! A longer life and
lasting, excellent health are rights worth fighting for, and this essay is a
little meditation on what you should be doing in order to obtain both of
these things.

In the course of my life to date, I have met a good number of the unfocused
and apathetic people in the world. They drift with the currents, follow the
distractions of the moment, and are afraid or unable to take a real stand on
issues. Lives are affected and changed, often for the worse, because people
didn't stand up to make a difference when they had the chance. They
certainly don't want to think about the falling of the ax, 150,000 times
each day. They hide from this unpleasant, ugly reality. It's easy to take
life too lightly - after all, the ability to kick back, joke and
procrastinate in the face of adversity is a form of defense against stress -
but people let real, serious issues pass by without challenge: issues such
as working to fight the ravages of aging and increase healthy life span.
This problem can also be seen as a form of collective apathy and lack of
focus in the media and society at large. Too many chances to make a
difference, to fund serious research into aging and extending the healthy
human lifespan, are let slip by, year after year.

Don't be one of these people! It doesn't matter who you are or what your
background is, there are ways in which you can make a difference to your own
healthy lifespan and the pace of medical research. It is a truism that you
have to work for what you want in this life, as individuals or a society.
Nothing is free and no goal is reached without corresponding effort, but by
working together we humans can build great, lasting and ingenious monuments.
Widespread activism and advocacy - the small contributions of countless
individuals - have always been a vital component of human progress. They
continue to be so today, especially in enabling the advance of medical
science.

Funding for the many different fields of medical research ebbs and flows
with public opinion, media exposure and the work of dedicated activists.
Persistent publicity for a cause - such as fighting AIDS, defeating heart
disease, funding cancer research and now healthy life extension - directly
influences the money and time devoted to research. Cancer research received
billions of dollars in funding precisely because public and media opinion
loudly and overwhelming favored the search for a cure. It takes hard work to
frame, place and keep a medical issue front and center in the mainstream of
present day culture, but it unlocks purses far and wide. Venture capital,
charitable, philanthropic, corporate, and government organizations all
answer the popular call to fund medical research. Each group has their own
reasons for doing so, but in each case, the call must be strident and
widespread. If a need is shouted loudly enough, funding will be directed to
answer that need.

Widespread demand for each new step of medical progress - however laudable
or obvious it might be - doesn't spontaneously appear from nowhere, of
course. As noted earlier, most individuals (and society as a whole) will let
the most serious and pressing medical issues and opportunities pass them by.
Support for medical research must be cultivated through activism, education
and raising awareness: it is the advocates and public speakers who start the
wheels of progress turning and help to overturn roadblocks as they emerge.

Bearing all this in mind, I can't help but feel that fundamental priorities
are all mixed up for the bulk of humanity. We worship celebrities, money and
sports. We eat unhealthy fast food and indulge in simple, pointless, trivial
things that divert us from vital issues. Important matters such as ensuring
greater quality and length of life fall to the wayside in the face of a
mountain of details and distractions. For me at least, working towards a
longer, better, healthier life is far more important determining who looked
best at the Oscars, and far more rewarding than obsessing over sports
scores.

In my eyes, healthy life extension is worth fighting for. I work to help
make far longer, far healthier lives a reality. I may not be a scientist,
but through writing I can convince people to feel as passionately as I do
about this mission. In these early days, I can make a big difference by
educating people about the possibilities and potentials of medical research,
and of the need to support advances in real anti-aging medicine. I can help
to kick-start and organize serious, large-scale activism, education and
fundraising for life-extending medical research. It would make me happy if I
lived in good health to 150 or more, but I've pledged not to become
apathetic even if it proves to be impossible: there are too few years in
life right now - and too great a promise in the latest medical research - to
quit or lapse into despondency.

There are many others who feel the same way as I do. Despite widespread
apathy, disinterest and ignorance of science in our society, there has been
a real growth in size and sophistication of healthy life extension
communities in the past few years. The Life Extension Foundation, the
Immortality Institute and the Longevity Meme are but a few of these. We can
thank the Internet, reports of new breakthroughs in medicine, and the
actions of a core of motivated early leaders for this blossoming. Interest
is growing as the first inklings and discussions of the future of
life-extending medicine appear in the mainstream media. As a group united in
our vision for a better future, we have come to the point of being able to
say: "We want to live healthily for longer. We want real, meaningful healthy
life extension therapies. What shall we do to make it all happen?"

This is the key question!

Healthy life extension, aging and anti-aging research is currently seriously
under-funded in comparison to, say, cancer, heart disease or AIDS research.
Progress is slow, since progress depends on funds. Slow progress means
little media attention and public awareness, no matter how serious the
cause, which in turn tends to mean little further funding will be available.
It's a vicious, self-perpetuating circle. As of 2003, no healthy life
extension or anti-aging medicine fundraising groups exist that are
comparable in size, renown and success to the large cancer research
non-profits. When you stop to think about it, this is a very strange state
of affairs: everyone ages, and almost everyone is prepared to pay money to
slow or halt the detrimental effects of aging. Witness the success of
vendors, mystics and conmen claiming to supply "anti-aging" products of all
sorts! Why is it that - with a billion dollar industry showing that people
will pay for any old junk marketed as "anti-aging" - research on real
anti-aging science is languishing?

One answer is that the wider public really doesn't understand the
possibilities that could be opened up by well funded, near future medical
research. Most people simply don't believe that aging can be beaten, and
beaten soon. They have lived with the holocaust, 150,000 deaths every day,
for so long that it is accepted and hidden as an immutable part of reality.
Nothing could be further from the truth of course: aging is a medical
condition, and as such is open to research, treatment, prevention, and,
ultimately, a cure. Public confusion and ignorance isn't an insurmountable
barrier - just recall what happened during the 80s for AIDS research. AIDS
activists and educators at the time were well aware of the benefits future
research could bring. They worked long and hard, and raised a great noise to
the heavens. Lo and behold, the flow of money to AIDS research increased
dramatically over the years. Today, AIDS in Western countries is almost a
manageable, chronic condition rather than a death sentence. Tremendous
medical advances took place across a span of only 20 years, a progression
from unknown, untreatable deadly disease to vaccine trials and effective
medications. When political and economic barriers are overcome, AIDS
patients elsewhere in the world will enjoy the same benefits.

This same sequence of events could - and indeed should - happen for aging
and its attendant life-threatening degenerative conditions. We need to
overcome apathy and distractions, reorder our priorities, organize, speak to
the media, educate the public and make ourselves heard! Medical advocacy is
nothing new or revolutionary, and we have many past examples and a great
deal of experience to draw upon. The strategies of fundraising and education
for charitable causes are well known and well understood by the public - we
will be following a well-trodden path while help researchers find a cure for
aging.

Working hard for a cause can be difficult, especially in the medical field
when tangible results can take years or decades to arrive. But I would argue
that healthy life is priceless, and it is worth passionately fighting for
every extra day we can get. I want to live in good health for as long as I
possibly can, and I will stay as passionate and proactive as I can about
healthy longevity no matter what the end result may be for me personally.
Even if I eventually die from accident or disease, working for healthy life
extension is still well worth it. I will have helped to gain additional time
for each and every one of us, a gift beyond value.

You can help too. Keep reading.

It's worth taking a moment to think about how medicine gets better.
Scientific progress is a wonderful thing; the hard work of advocacy,
education and research, building the technology to make life longer,
healthier and better. Progress means that we live in modern houses rather
than crude huts. Progress means that we live in comfort rather than
hardship. We must never forget that the vast majority of human beings who
ever lived slaved just to stay alive for a few short decades, living amidst
filth, ignorance, suffering and disease.

We are lucky, and we owe our longer, healthier lives to scientific and
medical progress. Many people do forget the lessons of the past, however.
They discount and belittle the tremendous benefits that medical science has
brought to humanity. In fear of change, and at any cost, they would shackle
the engine of progress and halt the advance of science. These people -
luddites, conservatives, greens, bioethicists and others - have existed
throughout history, but have always been defeated. A good thing too!
Unfortunately, defeat often seems to mean that the next generation will live
better, longer lives while fighting hard to prevent their children from
enjoying the fruits of further advances.

Today, humanity stands on the brink of real, meaningful anti-aging medicine.
Scientists talk of 200-year life spans, of defeating cancer, heart disease
and Alzheimer's. Far longer, far healthier lives are possible. Readily
available therapies to repair and prevent the cellular damage of aging could
be twenty years away with the right funding and research choices. Yet,
people in positions of influence and power - President Bush, Leon Kass of
the President's Council for Bioethics and Francis Fukuyama, to name but a
few - devote their time to blocking research and speaking out openly against
extended health and life. We cannot dismiss these efforts. While Leon Kass
is helping (in his own backwards way) to raise awareness of the
possibilities of healthy life extension, he and his politician cronies have
demonstrated a real ability to damage and hold back medical research. Kass
and other bioethicists offer the rubber stamp justification for
legislation - under debate in 2003 - that would shut down or criminalize
vast swathes of anti-aging research in the US. Politicians in France,
Germany and other EU nations have already done just this: it's not as though
we can pretend that it can't happen elsewhere.

This isn't an isolated disagreement over research, nor is it merely a matter
of distaste in some quarters for advances in medicine and healthy life
extension. These political battles are part of a bigger war against change
and scientific progress. We see it in the globalization debate and arguments
over genetically modified foods, stem cell research and therapeutic cloning.
Politicians and influential, well-funded factions are working to stop or
even turn back the clock of health and progress for everyone. While they
could live as they choose in their own lives, they should have no right to
force their views - and shorter, less healthy lives - on the world. Alas,
they continue to try.

For my part, I say that we humans have spent more than enough time being
self-destructive and afraid of change, striving to tear down scientific and
medical advancement. Our history - thousands of years of terrible wars,
horrible plagues, short and brutish lives - should have us seeking to be
better than that. Tens of thousands die today, and every day, for want of
cures that might already exist if there were less opposition and more
resources devoted to extending the healthy human lifespan. For the sake of
the dying, for our own sake, we simply cannot afford to lose these battles
over medical research. Cures for cancer, regenerative medicine for nerve
damage, working anti-aging medicine, and all the other possible medical
miracles in the near future are by no means a done deal. Human science is
capable of achieving so much that has simply not been done. We could have
built permanent bases on the Moon, visited Mars, irrigated the Sahara,
reforested the Americas and catalogued all life on the deepest ocean floor
over the course of the last four decades. We have not. Likewise, there is no
guarantee that advances in medicine will bring healthy life extension
rapidly enough to help those of us reading this now.

This is why we must stand up and support the future that we believe in: more
funding, more medical research, better medicine and far healthier, far
longer lives. Too many people today, like Leon Kass, seem to worship death,
but I know that each human being also possesses a strong instinct for life.
Between public apathy and political opposition, we can't afford to look at
healthy life extension as simply a cool health trend, or as hobby activism.
It is a necessity, and the more I learn about it the more I feel that this
is true. Healthy life extension encompasses everything we do as individuals;
without health and life, we cannot enjoy any of the things we value -
friends, occupations, interests, and so much more.

If you feel lazy, apathetic or distracted about the future of your health
and longevity, snap out of it! Live runs out on us all too quickly. Healthy
lifespan is shorter still, but you, I and everyone else can devote a little
time to enabling longer, healthier lives. Activism for medical progress can
have real results in these days of rapidly advancing science. So do
something to support this cause! Read the Longevity Meme; join the
Immortality Institute; follow the latest news; send a supportive message to
an advocate or researcher; write angry letters to anti-research politicians;
post to healthy life extension forums online; sign up for the Life Extension
Foundation; donate to the Methuselah Mouse research prize. Perhaps most
importantly, talk to your friends and convince them to help you.

Active advocacy groups don't exist in a vacuum: they are the sharp edge of a
larger supporting community. The Longevity Meme, the Life Extension
Foundation, A4M, the Immortality Institute, the CR Society and other diverse
healthy life extension organizations, commentators, and online communities
didn't spring into existence from nothing. They interact with and are
encouraged and supported by many overlapping communities interested in
healthy life extension. Every extra person who contributes directly
increases all our chances of living a much longer, healthier life. Everyone
can help, and it doesn't take much effort. Every wall is built one brick at
a time. Have you mentioned healthy life extension to your friends today?
Show the Longevity Meme to a neighbor, introduce someone to the Immortality
Institute, or mention the Life Extension Foundation at the office. Post
Longevity Meme newsletters to bulletin boards and online groups. Go ahead!
You'll be helping people and helping yourself.

There is no question as to the importance of healthy life extension - it may
not be a matter of life and death for you today, right now, but it is for
many people. One day, all too soon, you will one of them. Personally, I've
grown sick of the distractions. I want more individuals to look at this
problem head on and say: "Too many people suffer and die in this country,
let alone the world. I'm angry because people who should be alive today are
dead. Aging and death are an ongoing tragedy, a horror that we must fight."
I want to see this said on CNN and the BBC, a loud acknowledgement of this
unpleasant reality that we can - indeed, must - work to change.

The huge increase in AIDS research funding in the 80s and 90s is the
crowning victory of this sort of grassroots activism and organization. In
comparatively few years, AIDS moved from obscure disease to the center of
media attention. The floodgates of research funding opened and AIDS
progressed from death sentence to manageable condition for those with access
to treatment. We can repeat these same successes in the fight against aging!
In short, healthy life extension is not a niche or an oddity anymore, and
hasn't been for a while. Fighting aging - fighting to stop the horrid
ongoing toll of suffering and death - can produce real results in your
lifetime. So let's stop avoiding the subject! If I can do it, so can you:
stand up and take part in ensuring your future is long and healthy. Join the
healthy life extension community and talk to your friends about this serious
issue. Unending health and an unlimited, rosy future could be ahead...all it
would take is for everyone to join in and help make it happen.

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Copyright C 2003 Reason and Devon Fowler. Based on a piece by Devon Fowler
that appeared originally at Transhumanity and the Immortality Institute.

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