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LONGEVITY MEME NEWSLETTER
February 10 2003

The Longevity Meme Newsletter is an infrequent e-mail containing news,
opinions
and happenings for people interested in life extension: making use of
diet,
lifestyle choices, technology and proven medical advances to live
healthy,
longer lives. To subscribe or unsubscribe from the Longevity Meme
Newsletter,
please visit http://www.longevitymeme.org/newsletter/.

______________________________

THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS BAD PUBLICITY

Or is there? There has been some discussion on mail lists and in
forums
regarding comments made by Michael Jackson during recent television
spots. The
pop star (and very rich person, according to some sources) wants to
live
forever; something he briefly spoke about in a very matter-of-fact
way. This
cropped up as a couple of throwaway lines in many, many articles. The
following
link is representative of many:

http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,11228,00.html?tnews

The actual quote:

"Elsewhere, in the ITV documentary, Jackson ruminates about life and 
death--actually, mostly about life. Jackson's not big on dying. 

'I would like to live forever,' he tells Bashir."

As you should all know by now, I'm very big on publicity and public
awareness
for live extension. Given the low profile that life extension has, I'm
all for
the possibility of life extension being put forth in any way in the
mass media.

Was this Michael Jackson thing good, bad, or a non-event? I have no
idea.

I sometimes look at this whole situation from the marketing director
point of
view: life extension is a wonderful product with no downside that
everyone would
want if they only realized just how great it actually is. When you
have a
product like this, you are in an enviable position: there really is no
such
thing as bad publicity. If people lambaste your product as a terrible
thing, all
they are doing is spending their money to educate more of the public
of the
existence of your wonderful product!

That is what I would like to believe, in any case. It would make it
easy to
dismiss comments of the sort that show up near the end of this
Washington Post
article:
 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39931-2003Feb7.html

Look for the section entitled "The President's Ethicist." Dr. Leon
Kass,
Chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics is in fine form as
usual,
decrying life extension technology in any number of ways. 

Unfortunately, we cannot dismiss Kass. While he is helping (in his own
backwards
way) to raise awareness of the possibilities of life extension, he and
his
bioethicist cronies have a real ability to damage and hold back
research in the
US. He offers the justification for legislation currently under debate
that
would shut down or criminalize vast swathes of anti-aging research in
this
country. France has already done this: it's not as though we can
pretend that it
can't happen here.

WHY IS PUBLICITY IMPORTANT?

Research and research funding ebbs and flows on public awareness and
public
opinion. Government funding is usually a small amount of the whole if
a field is
popular or well known. If the market sees a dollar to be made by
selling people
what they want, then companies will bloom and research funds will pour
forth.

Life extension, aging and anti-aging research is currently seriously 
under-funded in comparison to, say, cancer, heart disease or AIDS
research. When
you stop to think about it, this is a very strange state of affairs.
After all,
everyone ages. Almost everyone is prepared to pay money to slow or
halt the
progress of aging. Witness the success of vendors claiming to supply 
"anti-aging" products!

So why is anti-aging, aging and life extension research languishing?
One answer
is that the wider public really doesn't understand the possibilities
that life
extension research could bring in the near future. This isn't an
insurmountable
barrier, however. We can look at what happened in the 80s and 90s for
AIDS
research, for example. Activist groups were well aware of the
possibilities that
future research could bring. They worked long and hard, and raised a
great noise
to the heavens. Lo and behold, the flow of money to AIDS research
increased
dramatically. Today, AIDS in Western countries is almost a manageable,
chronic
condition rather than a death sentence. This happened in only 20
years. When
political and economic barriers are overcome, AIDS patients elsewhere
in the
world will enjoy the same benefits.

So something like this could – and indeed should - happen for
aging. We need to
organize, speak up and make ourselves heard.

FIN

And that's all for this newsletter. See you next time.

DISCUSSION

Have comments for us, or want to discuss the newsletter? Visit the
Longevity
Meme forum at http://www.longevitymeme.org/forum.cfm, or send e-mail
to
newsletter@longevitymeme.org.

Reason
reason@longevitymeme.org
Founder, Longevity Meme
 
______________________________

RECENT NEWS

Stepping Towards Regenerative Medicine (February 09 2003)
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/SciTech/reuters20030209_211.html
ABC News carries this report on the first gene-engineering of human
stem cells.
This would seem to be significant research; it promises far greater
control over
the tissues formed by stem cells, and thus a greater range of medical 
applications.

Managing Cancer (February 09 2003)
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/Health/story_42294.asp
It seems that the scientific community is getting tantalizingly close
to turning
cancer from a killer into a managed or curable condition. We're seeing
a lot of
announcements similar to this one recently; it's very exciting!

Premature Aging Disease Caused By Short Telomeres (February 07 2003)
http://www.lef.org/news/aging/2003/02/06/eng-medinews_biotek/eng-medinews_biotek_105954_5027383175694399455.html
The Life Extension Foundation News notes that researchers have linked
shortened
telomeres with a condition that produces the effects of premature
aging. Very
interesting, especially in the stated connection to stem cells, but
far too
early to comment on significance.

Legislative Battle Continues (February 06 2003)
http://www.betterhumans.com/News/news.aspx?articleID=2003-02-06-4
Betterhumans covers the latest round in the legislative battle over
theraputic
cloning. A new bill that restricts but does not ban theraputic cloning
is
proposed. It's not exactly wonderful, but it's better than
criminalizing the
research.

Drinking Water to Lose Weight (February 05 2003)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/02/030205073358.htm
ScienceDaily has this article on how drinking water really does help
you to eat
less without feeling hungry. I post it because I recall how much this
trick
helped me when I first started on a calorie restriction diet; the CR
Society
lists are a great place to pick up help and tips like this.

The Genetics of Fly Longevity (February 05 2003)
http://genomebiology.com/pressreleases/pressrelease30jan03.asp
Flies have been used in a large number of life extension studies; they
have
short lives, so research moves more rapidly. There is a lot of genetic
similarity between flies and humans (funnily enough). Genome Biology
posts this
article on recent basic research on the genetics of fly longevity. 

French Criminalize Theraputic Cloning (February 05 2003)
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=%5CForeignBureaus%5Carchive%5C200301%5CFOR20030131g.html
(I know, I'm a few days late on this one). CNSNews reports that the
French
senate has passed a tough blanket ban on all forms of cloning
research. This
includes potentially lifesaving theraputic cloning. Let's hope the
French
government comes to their senses, and that other governments choose
not to
follow this path.

Slow Aging by Preparing Early (February 04 2003)
http://www.newsnet5.com/aging/1952986/detail.html
Here's a short piece that really nails one of the essential pillars of
contemporary life extension. This is how we use common means currently
at our
disposal: start early with the proper diet, lifestyle and exercise.

Radical Life Extension Week At Betterhumans (February 03 2003)
http://www.betterhumans.com
Betterhumans is running articles on radical life extension this week,
including
Why Physical Immortality? by Bruce J. Klein of the Immortality
Institute and
Boom Time For Longevity by George Dvorsky. Take a look!

Interview With Dr. Gavrilov (January 31 2003)
http://www.src.uchicago.edu/~gavr1/Interview.html
The transcipt of a wide-ranging interview with Dr. Leonard Gavrilov
can be found
at his website, and the Immortality Institute offers commentary and
links to an
audio download. Dr. Gavrilov's comments on the future, current state
and recent
history of life extension and aging research are especially
interesting.

Ammo For Telomere Aging Theories (January 31 2003)
http://www.infoaging.org/news_article.html?SMContentIndex=0&SMContentSet=0
InfoAging is covering a telling study that would seem to add weight to
some
telomere aging theories. (A telomere primer is also found at
InfoAging).

Christopher Reeve Stands Up For Theraputic Cloning (January 31 2003)
http://www.betterhumans.com/News/news.aspx?articleID=2003-01-30-3
Betterhumans notes that actor Christopher Reeve is standing up for
theraputic
cloning. It offers hope for a near-term cure for disabled people like
Reeve. He
has been a powerful advocate for the disabled in the past, and I
certainly hope
he will continue to speak out on theraputic cloning.

Folding@Home, Helping Medical Research (January 30 2003)
http://folding.stanford.edu
There are many small ways in which we can all help to support
important medical
research. One of the easiest is to download and run the Folding@Home 
screensaver. It crunches away at important protein folding
simulations, vital to
advanced research on diseases such as Alzheimer's. Click on the link
to read
more about the Folding@Home project, run at Stanford University.

Theraputic Cloning Legislation Update (January 29 2003)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030129/hl_nm/cloning_senate_dc_1
Yahoo! News is carrying an article on the continuing efforts to
criminalize
theraputic cloning research. Our elected representatives want to shut
down basic
research in regenerative, anti-aging medicine and cures for a wide
range of
conditions. Time to write angry letters again, I think.

Bush Renews Call To Ban Cloning Research (January 29 2003)
http://afr.com/world/2003/01/29/FFX2J1FMIBD.html
A short snippet of an article, but I thought it worth noting that
President Bush
used the State of the Union address to reiterate his call for a
complete ban on
cloning research. This includes important theraputic cloning research
for
regenerative medicine. Not good.
______________________________

Do you have comments for us, or want to discuss the newsletter? Visit
the
Longevity Meme forum at http://www.longevitymeme.org/forum.cfm, or
send e-mail
to newsletter@longevitymeme.org.