The Staggering Ongoing Cost of Failing to Aggressively Pursue the Development of Rejuvenation Therapies

No feasible amount of funding that could be devoted to the research and development of rejuvenation therapies would be too much. If near all other projects were dropped, and institutions radically retooled on a short term basis, then the world might be able to devote $300 billion per year into medical research and development aimed at aging. That is an unachievable upper bound, of course. Given a few decades in which to train new researchers while rapidly and radically expanding existing institutions, then humanity might start to approach that scale of expenditure. Realistically it will take 20-30 years following the first unarguable successes in human rejuvenation for the economic incentives to meaningful start in on the creation of a suitably vast industry. Progress on this scale takes time. The cost of the medical conditions, suffering, and mortality caused by aging, meanwhile, is staggeringly large. Researchers have estimated that slowing aging by one year worldwide is worth $38 trillion in productivity gains. Direct and easily measured medical and productivity costs of aging are more than $1 trillion per year in the US alone. Looking at the common estimates of the economic worth of a human life, the cost of the yearly death toll due to aging is well over $100 trillion, a vast destruction of the value of living individuals, their knowledge and capacity to make the world a better place. No feasible amount of funding devoted to achieving medical control over aging co...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Activism, Advocacy and Education Source Type: blogs