The Wrong Perspective
A good example of absolutely the wrong way to look at what is happening in longevity and medicine can be found at Newslink: increasing longevity is "happening" and we must marshall our resources to "address" it. This is nonsense - we humans are making our own longevity, creating additional years of healthy life through investment in medical research and development. We don't need to run around babbling about society and organization and coping. Instead we should recognize that people are dying of aging in vast numbers each and every day, and that it is well within our power to make the present slow inroads into fighting aging proceed a great deal more rapidly. "While life expectancy continues to increase at its current rate, we must wake up to the fact that we are living a 29-hour day. have 24 hours to use now, and we are putting by five hours away for later." This is nothing compared to what we know to be possible in the decades ahead - but we won't get there by thinking that longevity just happens, and that longer lives must be "addressed."
Link: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/press.office/newslink/?ref=1177503543