This week we read several articles suggesting that with ten years there would be a cure for aging. Many of the diseases associated with aging would not exist, like arthritis, alzhemers, hardening of the arteries etc. In magazines as prestigious as Scientific American, the chemical product telemerase was described as being able to reverse aging. And I mean completely.
The only impetement  to use is the delivery system and that is a problem of technique and not discovery. Telemerase is fragile and breaks down in the bloodstream. Most problems like this are solved by a concerted and systematic effort within a fairly short time period. One of the articles written by John G Cramer theorizes that this breakthrough will be available in less than ten years. In the same breath he suggests that a magic bullet for cancer is the flip side of this process. So if this innovation comes to pass there will be no more aging and no more cancer. By the way, John G Cramer has a wonderful web
site with lots of Alternate View columns that he has written at www.npl.washington.edu/av.

Now we feel that such landmark development needs to be discussed a lot more than whether or not you can clone yourself. There  are certainly ethical considerations involved. Here is a list of questions that may help us get a handle on how different segments of our populace feel about a cure for aging:

1. If you were ruler of your country how would you regulate this product?
 
a.    Let whoever wanted to take it do so
b.    Forbid anyone to take this treatment
c.    Allow it to be sold but make tax the drug to make it very expensive
d.    Create a national lottery and limit the number of recipients
e.    Make it an award to be given only to worthy candidates like the nobel prize.
f.    Regulate severely, to be given only to sufferers of severely sick individuals like
 those with HG syndrome.
g.   Create laws that allow consenting people to duel to the death for the treatment.
 

2. Would you take this elixir of immortality long term effects
can not be ascertained in such a short time?
 
a. Yes
b.  No

3. Knowing that you have a minimum of 300 years ahead of you would you make major changes in your current romantic arrangements or marriage plans?

a. Yes
b. No

4. Would proof of this wonder medicine affect your career choices or current
employment situation ?
a. Yes
b. No

5. With the introduction of some sort of telemerase treament what do you think would happen to the birth rate and the population?
a. continue more or less as it does now constantly increasing
b. birth rate would go sky high as retired people once again become fertile
c. Birth rate might initially rise but would eventually drop to almost zero.
d. don't know

6. Would you consider this news to be :
a. hallelujah
b. good news
c. not interesting
d. disturbing
e. a tragedy

7. In your opinion, how would the status of children change ?
a. improve greatly since everyone would have time to take care of them correctly
b. improve a little
c. unchanged
d. slightly worse
e. drastically change for the worst since no one would care that much about them since
they could always produce a few more kids

8. If you were in charge how would you change retirement policies?
a. leave them exactly as they are
b. force people to leave the workforce at a certain age whether they still can do the work or not
c. push the age of retirement way back to reflect the monetary, social, and physical changes that
   would take place if these articles are correct.
d. let no one retire
e. don't have a clue as to what to do

9. Do you think there is a limit to the amount of memory that you can store in your brain?
a. yes
b. no

10. If secretly, on your own, discovered a way to deliver telemerase to all of the cells
in a human body would you :
a. just use this on yourself
b. post the formula on the web
c. keep for friends and family only
d. give the data to your government
e. other
f. don't know
 

Since this questionnaire would like to know if there is any differences in opinion between generations, genders, religions, on this subject could you be sure to fill out the remaining questions:
 
First are you:

under twenty
twenty or over 
thirty to thirty nine
forty  to forty nine
fifty or over
sixty or over

a. Male
b. Female

If you were to classify yourself religiously which would you choose?
a. Buddhist
b. Christian
c. Moslem
d. Other

Do you consider yourself :

a. very religious
b. some what
c. don't care
d. not at all

Are you from :
a. Africa
b. Asia
c. Australia or Micronesia
d. Europe
e. North America
f. South America