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Anticipating the anti‐ageing pill
Author(s) -
Lucke Jayne C,
Diedrichs Phillippa C,
Partridge Bradley,
Hall Wayne D
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
embo reports
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.584
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1469-3178
pISSN - 1469-221X
DOI - 10.1038/embor.2008.251
Subject(s) - pill , life expectancy , argument (complex analysis) , life extension , longevity , bioethics , psychological intervention , medicine , psychology , environmental ethics , gerontology , law and economics , political science , sociology , law , population , philosophy , psychiatry , pharmacology , environmental health
Throughout history, the prospect of extending the human lifespan—with the ultimate aim of living forever—has been an attractive fantasy. Now, some researchers argue that it will soon be possible to increase our average life expectancy to at least 100 years, if not more, by slowing down the processes of ageing (Guarente & Kenyon, 2000). There are several potential methods for life extension interventions (Lucke & Hall, 2006), but perhaps the most likely is an anti‐ageing pill, possibly one that mimics the well‐described, life‐extending effects of caloric restriction (Everitt & Le Couteur, 2007; Michalow, 2008). Let us assume, for the purpose of argument, that a pill could be developed in the next couple of decades that extended the average human lifespan to around 150 years.> Cultural values have an important influence on the acceptability of innovations…The development and distribution of an effective anti‐ageing pill would have significant societal impacts that could easily catch many parties unawares, including governments, medical practitioners and legislators. A useful way to anticipate what these impacts might be is to look at the history of two other innovations that profoundly changed society: the oral contraceptive pill (OCP; Asbell, 1995; Marks, 2001; Tone, 2001; Watkins, 1998) and hormone replacement therapy (HRT; Watkins, 2007). Such analogies are a useful tool for the bioethical analysis of new technologies (Hofmann et al , 2006) and therefore we propose to address the issue of human life extension by applying this approach.Since its creation more than 50 years ago, the OCP has been heralded as one of the “greatest miracle drugs” (Goldin & Katz, 2002), a “medical milestone” (Djerassi, 2007) and the first “lifestyle and designer drug” (Junod & Marks, 2002). It was the first virtually fail‐safe contraceptive method that women could use independently, and was controversial as …