Public debate about technology and lifespan usually emphasizes the high-tech procedures of crisis medicine and the relative merits of their use. Human interest stories about individual children saved at very great expense by the miracles of modern medicine keep the public convinced that all is well at the leading edge of health research. Simultaneously, controversy rages about the delivery of life-prolonging technology at the other end of life. There is not enough money to deliver the current "miracles'' to everyone. The political purveyors of the politics of envy argue, therefore, that no one (except themselves) should be allowed to utilize this technology just because he can afford it or because he can afford old-age medical insurance. Hence, the current "plan'' that puts all older Americans under a government system that either rations medical care directly or else delegates this rationing to corporations. Technology does have a major impact on lifespan, but this effect is largely unrelated to expensive medical techniques. The lifespans of most of the citizens of Ancient Rome were entirely independent of age. Figure 1, from the 1995 Taylor Lecture by A. M. Kellerer,
Entwicklung der Mortalität
. In: Mannheimer Forum 85/86. Mann-heim: Boehringer, 49-94 (1986), Figure 1 gives the probability of a five-year-old child reaching a specified age.Half of the five-year-old children in Ancient Rome were dead before the age of 20. Their lifespan curve decays with a constant probability of death so high that few people achieve ages where physiological deterioration limits their lifespans.
The life-extending technology that these Romans lacked was primarily related to hygiene and simple procedures for the control of disease epidemics. All roads led to Rome, and the diseases of the ancient world traveled those roads. In the Roman colonies where there were fewer such roads and a lower population density, lives were longer. They were still short, however, compared with the USA today, where technology provides hygiene and other improvements in life.
These technological gifts are reversible. Russian State Statistics as given by Michael Specter of the New York Times News Service show a decline in the life expectancies for Russian men from about 64 years to about 57 years between 1990 and 1994. This drop in lifespans parallels the sharp drop in Russian technological output. See, for example,
Access to Energy 22 No. 8, p 4, concerning the increase in epidemics of disease during recent Russian chaos.Within the United States itself, the average lifespan of homosexuals is about 40 years (see
Access to Energy 22 No. 6 p 3). AIDS is estimated to be causing a 3-year drop in homosexual life expectancyfor those afflicted. Lack of hygiene, increased exposure to diseases, and the drug culture which are predominant in this community (not, of course, for all individuals) are probably causing the rest.
Figure 1 shows that lifespan in the United States is now being limited primarily by time-dependent increased probability of death from physiological causes - aging. Still, the area in the figure above the USA line includes many younger people who are unnecessarily deprived of many years of life along with the older citizens who should be living productive, healthful lives to greater ages.
We say "unnecessarily deprived'' because technology now makes possible some low-cost major advances beyond hygiene and epidemic disease control. For example, routine metabolic profiling coupled with individualized nutritional and lifestyle modifications could add many productive years of life.
The key is low individual cost. High-cost crisis medicine reaches fewer people and is of less benefit to each person than is low-cost preventive medicine.
Why then are most of our technologists working on high-cost techniques and neglecting low-cost ideas? The reason is tax-financed government failure.
First, most non-profit health research is now government funded or controlled. Cost is a very unimportant concern to the mindless bureaucracies that determine health research priorities based on fad and fashion within the review system. As research priorities sink to the lowest common denominator of government review committees, expensive methods seem to predominate.
Second, government overregulation of the private health industry is also biased toward high cost. With several hundred million dollars and years of red tape required for FDA approval of one new product, private industry cannot develop low-cost products. Very high costs are necessary to pay government-imposed regulatory expenses.
So - we have government bureaucrats rationing health care and deciding who shall live and who shall die because expensive modern medicine cannot be afforded for everyone. Meanwhile, the development of low-cost technology for the further extension of lifespan through preventive medicine is retarded and left largely to the under-funded and chaotic "alternative medicine'' subculture where good and bad ideas alike seldom receive adequate evaluation.
Imagine where we would be if the National Institutes of Health and the FDA controlled the development of computer technology.
This is a life-and-death matter that confronts every one of us. Wealth is no protection. Undeveloped medical technology cannot be purchased at any price, and high-cost crisis medicine is a poor substitute. Most of us will have shorter lives filled with substantially greater personal suffering as a result of tax-financed inhibition of technology.
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Vol. 23, No. 3
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Issues Issue/No.: Vol. 23, No. 3 Date: November 01, 1995 01:17 PM Title: Technology and Lifespan
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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