Monday, July 14, 2014

Too Much Online, July 14, "A New Game Plan For Taking Down Privatizers"


What’s going to happen, a top science editor asks, if our wealth gap turns into a longevity gap, if our wealthy start living twice as long as the rest of us?

That prospect, Discover magazine’s Linda Marsa noted last week, no longer rates as pure science fiction. Labs are now developing expensive new compounds that “could potentially extend our productive lifespan into our hundreds,” Harvard geneticist David Sinclair observes in Marsa’s just-published research survey.

Marsa shudders at the “rage-filled conflagration” lurking ahead should average Americans start facing death in their 60s while the rich who can afford new medical wonders live to 120 “and more.” Asks her new analysis: “Will anyone just accept that the haves get two lives while the have-nots barely get one?”

We do, of course, have an alternative to this nightmarish future: greater equality. We need societies where chronic stress no longer limits lifespans and science truly does serve us all, not just the phenomenally rich. In Too Much this week, a look at some advocacy that just might help bring this glorious goal somewhat closer.  


Read the complete issue free at Too Much Online.

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