Fight Aging!

From In Search of Enlightenment: "A person’s interest in remaining healthy and alive does not evaporate as the number of birthday candles they accumulate increases. The aged, like the young, have an interest in remaining healthy and vigorous for as long as possible. When a person over age 65 is murdered or killed in a car accident we conceive of these events as constituting a serious harm. We believe that there is a moral duty to prevent these harms from being realized, if it is possible to do so. Whether these harms come from an external source that we can easily perceive (such as a criminal wielding a gun or a speeding car) or from complex biological processes that are internal to our biology is irrelevant to the stringency of the moral duty to prevent harm. ... the general affluence of a country, as well as its natural resources, profoundly influences the quality of sanitation it can offer its citizens. But in the case of developing an antiaging pill to protect against chronic disease, there is good reason to believe that many of these obstacles will be less of a challenge. Unlike sanitation, the main costs associated with the development of an antiaging pill will most likely be with research and development, rather than the manufacture and dispersion of such a pill. So I believe there is good reason to be optimistic that such an antiaging intervention could be enjoyed by most of the world’s population in a relatively short time from when it is first developed."

Link: http://colinfarrelly.blogspot.com/2010/06/annals-of-ny-academy-of-sciences.html