Longer life span, mainly for the affluent

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32566, 27 March 1971, Page 13

Longer life span, mainly for the affluent

(By

WALTER SULLIVAN)

If efforts to understand and alter the ageing process are pursued full tilt, by the end of this century the “useful” life span of some individuals may be extended 20 to 40years, a scientist predicted in Washington last month.

The scientist, Dr. Leon ,R. Kass of the National Academy of Sciences, based this prediction on clues recently obtained in the study of aging. He said this study' was now in the “puberty” stage. Dr. Kass expressed concern that when greater longevity is achieved it will be available chiefly to those who can afford It

Science, he said, is offering ever more ways to gratify simple desires, be they for longer life or pleasurable mental conditioning. Yet, he said, society is unprepared to cope with temptations toward “voluntary self-degradation.” Dr. Kass is executive secretary of the academy’s Committee on Life Sciences and Social Policy, which is concerned with such problems. He spoke at the opening session of a. three-day seminar for science writers on science and public policy. There are already hints from animal studies, he said, that ageing can be slowed by diet, drugs and perhaps even by the lowering of body temperature. “Medicine,” he said, “seems to be sharpening its tools to do battle with death

as though death were just one more disease.” But the emphasis is on prolonging life, he added, not on improving its quality, particularly in the later years. The elderly, not the youth, he said, “are the most alienated members of our society." Without fear The young generation of today, he asserted, is the first to grow up without fear of lethal childhood diseases. Hence its members, as a whole, have neither faced death as a real threat to themselves nor seen it take a certain number of their contemporaries? he said. Dr. Kass argued that people were therefore becoming less and less conditioned to accepting death as a natural and merciful way to terminate the ageing process. Furthermore, he expressed fear that an extended life span, made possible by such .techniques of modem medicine as organ transplants and artificial pacemakers for the heart, would become a privilege of the rich. “Who is likely to be able to buy it?*’ he asked.

His basic thesis was that limits must be set on the development of new "biomedical technologies.” He said he would not limit the search for basic knowledge, but rather the manner in which such knowledge was developed into usable forms. The limitation could be imposed, he said, by the scientific community, by legislation or by restrictive allocation of funds. Cause for concern He listed a number of emerging biomedical technologies that should cause concern. Human eggs can now be fertilised in the laboratory and raised to week-old embryos. Work is progressing on an artificial placenta that should ultimately make it possible to produce babies without human gestation. In a pleasure-seeking , society, one can expect women to choose this course, rather than the discomforts and inconvenience of normal childbirth, even though it would be one more step in the "dehumanising” process, Dr Kass said. He said new techniques were making it possible to identify an increasing number of birth defects and other characteristics, such as sex, early in pregnancy. Recessive trait Under liberalised laws, a defective fetus can be aborted. But what if couples use this method, or laboratory culturing of embryos, to select children for their sex,

eye colour or other arbitrary characteristics? he asked. Suppose, Dr Kass said, that it becomes possible to identify in any fetus the socalled "recessive” hereditary trait responsible for cystic fibrosis. It has been estimated, he said, that on the basis of such screening the aborting of 17 million fetuses would extirpate cystic fibrosis. But suppose each medical practitioner attacked his “favourite enemy” in this manner? Dr Kass asked. The implication was that few babies would ever be bom.

Drugs “more tempting than Eve’s apple,” drugs that will induce “instant gratification” are within reach, Dr Kass said. He cited experiments in which electrodes are placed in the brains of monkeys' so that, when the monkey presses a button, the electroduces stimulate the brain’s “pleasure centre.” The monkey characteristically presses the button, ignoring all other stimuli, including hunger and sex. Dr Kass doubts that people are prepared to assist such temptations. He forsees a "brave new world” in which the arts have perished and people no longer read, write, think or govern themselves.

To avoid such a fate, he said, men must reject the fatalistic idea that they cannot control the development of knowledge and its uses. A vital first step is to educate the public on the' meaning and the limitations of science and technology. Dr Kass said.—Copyright. “New York Times” news service. ’ •