Level of US Medical Research Funding in 2009
Via FuturePundit, the estimates for recent research funding: "The U.S. invested $139 billion last year in health research from all public and private sources, according to Research!America's latest annual estimate. That amount represents only 5.6% of the $2.47 trillion overall U.S. health spending in 2009 [which] varies no more than 0.2% from 2005 levels. ... We are all growing old. We are all aging and our parts are breaking down and wearing out. A portion of those billions of dollars flows toward science technologies that will eventually put an end to aging. Human bodies will become as repairable as cars. Replacement organs, cell therapies, gene therapies, and even nanobots will, at some point in the 21st century, halt and reverse the process of aging. Will you still be alive when that day is reached?" As has always been the case, funding for research is a tiny percentage of the flows of money in our culture. Funding for aging research is a tiny fraction of the figures given above, and funding for engineered longevity is in turn a tiny fraction of aging research. To fully realize the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence in mice in the laboratory would probably cost in the vicinity of $1-2 billion over a decade or two. Food for thought.