Coalition to Extend Life

They have a campaign to collect 1,000,000 signatures for life extension research petition.

http://www.coalitiontoextendlife.org/

Wow...this is the first I've heard of it; how did you find this?

Edited by Biopunk, 01 September 2006 - 03:03 PM.

Heh, I wonder who this is.

I cannot find anything at all on it when I run a search on Google.

This organization was formed by Thomas Mooney and he appears to be familiar with Michael R. Rose (also one of our members) and perhaps others.

http://www.coalition...news.php#letter

I suspect some of our member have decided to form a formal lobby group in DC on the side and I am curious how much Bruce knew about this effort. It must have started while he was still living in DC. Do you know anything about it Bruce?

It is not a bad idea and I think outreach between us is called for. Do to our different structures we serve different methodologies that could compliment rather than compete if the interest exists within both leaderships to try. This appears to be a PAC rather than a non profit.

For Immediate Release
Group Formed To Promote Immortality As A National Priority
The Coalition to Extend Life, (C.E.L.), a recently created organization whose purpose is to build a national movement in support of immortality research and to press Congress and the Administration to create a"Manhattan Project" dedicated to curing the terminal disease of aging, is
announcing that its website www.coalitiontoextendlife.org is on line and its' plan to solicit 1,000,000 signatures of American voters is underway. Founder and Executive Director, Tom Mooney, said "the idea of a political movement to promote the funding of scientific research into the causes of aging and to demand that our elected leaders perceive this as a national priority has become a reality." While the goals of C.E.L. may seem quixotic to some, significant research is being done into the reasons why we age and finally die. It is essential that significant resources be allocated to this field of study in order to extend our lives indefinitely.

C.E.L. will organize around the country and work tirelessly to give a new meaning to the phrase, "pro-life."

Further information about the organization is available on our website:
www.coalitiontoextendlife.org
or call Executive Director, Tom Mooney
202-445-4876

"Immortality research"? No politician would touch that with a ten foot pole. Successful lobbying will need more saavy than that.

No politician would touch that with a ten foot pole...

Perhaps the majority of politicians would not, but I myself would not generalise like that and say absolutely no politicians. However if the word "Immortality" were to be replaced with, say, "Life Extension", alot more would take the idea on board.

"We want to live forever, and we're getting there"

Who said that?

"We want to live forever, and we're getting there"

We are though aren't we?

No politician would touch that with a ten foot pole.

I tend to agree. Even with a million signatures collected, politicians will be wary. A million signatures, or even a million marchers, is not sufficient to make an issue touchable. If a million people marched on Washington and called for the imprisonment, torture, and eventual extermination of a certain class of people (race, religion, height, whatever), politicians wouldn't touch it. That's only 1% of voters. If the other 99% are strongly against it, or at the least if they aren't apathetic, then the issue isn't touchable, regardless of how motivated the 1% might be. The politicians would find an excuse to be on the other side of the country when the march occurred.

However, a million signatures will show enough support to make a less outragious position supportable. Right now, it's okay to talk about another 5-10 years. As a politician, if you see a million signatures of valid registered voters, who claim to want to cure aging and seek "physical immortality", then it might become okay to talk about another 15-20 years, and pushing the research to get us there. This would tie in nicely with the Longevity Dividend and the September 12th Congressional hearing, although I doubt a million signatures could be collected by then. But I'm sure that Olshansky and the others will have to go back to Congress at some point, so perhaps by then these petitions will have made an impact?

I think it's almost always great when somebody tries something rather than nothing. We don't know what works either.

I like this one

C.E.L. will organize around the country and work tirelessly to give a new meaning to the phrase, "pro-life."

Yeah I think they should have gone with Life-Extension rather than Immortality, but I think that it is good that something like this is even being attempted, and if there is ever a march or meeting down here in Tennessee you can count on me attending.

However, I think before trying to tell everyone about "Immortality" which makes most laugh, I think that they should first focus their efforts on trying to get the government to better educate citizens or at least provide them with an easy means of doing so, more primary and secondary school materials need to be produced on the subject, and with that, also spend more money on fixing school lunches... has anyone seen on of these hideous things? Pizza dripping with grease, Chicken that has the same consistancy as weather stripping, and hamburgers which can't possibly be good for you... they need to clean up their act in schools first and provide a more healthy selection of foods and they to start their work in schools preparing kids for this stuff when they are most impressionable.

No politician would touch that with a ten foot pole.

How about an eleven foot pole? [lol] , never lose hope.

In all seriousness, I kind of said this in a recent post; It is up to the scientists to educate them and push for funding into anti aging research and that is exactly what I am seeing, i.e. the event coming up on the 12th. The United States is a rich country, just a fraction of the money spent so far in Iraq, I think approximately $300 Billion to date, could help cure so many diseases which are derived from/associated with etc. the aging process.