Arguing the Feasibility of Longevity Medicine
Another good transcript from Future Current: biomedical gerontologist Aubrey de Grey was asked "to present a case for the feasibility of defeating aging, but of course within the context of the discussion that we are having today overall about the longevity dividend and perhaps more generally about the way we might influence political thinking and public policy in this general area. There is a good deal of dispute among mainstream gerontologists not only as to whether the things that I think are feasible are feasible, but also whether - even if they are - we should really talk about them. I'm going to try and address both of those issues today. ... We all know the study of the biology of aging has consequences for biological disease and suffering. The amount of the bang for the buck, so to speak, that one would get by even very modest interventions to postpone aging is vastly in excess of what is represented by the something in the region of 3% of the public biomedical budget that goes towards the study of aging. If you have a more careful definition as to what is being done to understand aging with a view of doing something about it, then the proportion of public funding that is going toward that is absolutely negligible."