Should the United States fund a "War on Aging"?

The US shouldn't fund anymore "wars on" anything. Bad metaphor, bad approach.<p>But a nice targeted NIH funding campaign on ameliorating age-related diseases sounds a great idea.

Questions to which the answer is no.<p><a href="http://blogs.independent.co.uk/tag/headline/" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.independent.co.uk/tag/headline/</a>

Why isn't this part of the national defense budget? You know, we've sunk &#62;$1.5T over the past decade into preventing our citizens from becoming casualties of "terrorism", which account for ~0% of all fatalities in a given year.<p>I don't know about you, but I'd feel much better about our leadership if that money would have been spent on something more relevant to the health of the average citizen, such as anti-aging research.

7 billion people on the planet already, and you want us to fund keeping them alive longer? What a fantasically stupid idea. You're given a decent amount of time on this Earth, already make it count and move on.<p>Not to mention the idiocy of calling it a 'war on' anything. That pretty much guarantees it'll fail, like all of the other 'war on' something efforts.

Even if the United States funded anti-aging. Would the results of its research trickle down to the masses. Or would it stay with the upper tier of society?<p>It could create a greater class divide.<p>I am in no position to speculate who actually makes money of our wars. I would love to know. Transparency should be a greater topic of debate.

Instead of starting a half-baked "war on aging" we should perhaps consider trying to improve quality of life for people of all ages. Quality not quantity, people!

A war on aging would be 1000 times more constructive than our current 'wars'. The war on terror cost us fundamental rights and the war on drugs didn't change the percentage of people who abuse them.<p>It would have many positive outcomes; technology, healthcare, jobs and understanding of the human body. Even if it doesn't reach its goal of extending lives.

I'll take 60 years of a sharp mind and body over 40 years of productivity and 50 years of senility any day.<p>What exactly is "aging" in the context of the OP? Would this "War on Aging" actually solve the right problem? Would it even be the right problem to solve for everyone... or even just a majority of the population?

I'm pretty sure that would just worsen our budget problem unless we focus on lengthening the period of time when people can work so that we can raise the retirement age. If we have people retire at 65 and live until 120, they will only have spent 40-45 of those years working. That is unsustainable.