Michael,
Im glad your in the corner of the ring with us on this. We know this set of avenues is good, but the recommendation you gave months ago on the importance of this has helped, me at least so far, to be more confident in the power of getting through to the government.
One small pointed effort to this effect we have done and can build from for part of this, is
this. Another we are working on is gone over in part
here. Some general things we have had in mind to write about are the things you go over, to petition for more NIH money from the Government, more NIA money from the NIH, and more ending aging support from the NIA. Also like Alan Russell said, we just have to increase the NIH’s appetite. No matter how obstacle filled and slow going that may be, we can at least put the pick axe to that wall and start chipping away.
Alan Russell:
“And I'm going to finish up with a quote, maybe a little cheap shot, at the director of the NIH, who's a very charming man. Myself and Jay Vacanti from Harvard went to visit with him and a number of his directors of his institute just a few months ago, to try and convince him that it was time to take just a little piece of that 27.5 billion dollars that he's going to get next year and focus it, in a strategic way, to make sure we can accelerate the pace at which these things get to patients. And at the end of a very testy meeting, what the NIH director said is, "Your vision is larger than our appetite." I'd like to close by saying that no one's going to change our vision, but together we can change his appetite. Thank you.”
Indeed there are things we can do that can change that appetite. We just have to keep trying and working with and honing in ways to make it happen. I’ve asked Leonid Gavrilov and Tom Mooney for suggestions on what to write.
Leonid brought us a great example of something to petition for when the bill for the NIH’s billion dollar funding was on the floor. Some of us sent out letters, but we need more examples of things like that to coordinate letter drives for in a team structure for this, we are working to set something like that up through efforts like outlined in
this topic. He also referred me to Butlers Longevity Revolution book, and this useful passage for a citation, from an interview with himself:
“
What is the current state of aging research? How can we improve on ongoing research efforts to understand and intervene in human aging?The current state of aging research can be described as a paradoxical one. On the one hand, almost every month we hear in the mass media about exciting new discoveries in aging studies. This creates an impression that aging studies are flourishing. What we do not hear in the news is how many interesting research opportunities are lost because of insufficient funding, and how desperate scientists are in their attempts to get research funding for aging studies. Currently, only 10–20% of research projects on aging are funded, so many promising ideas remain unexplored. Much more generous funding of aging research is a key issue now, if we really wish to improve on ongoing research efforts to understand and intervene in human aging. Consider, for example, our research team. Currently we have to spend more than half of our professional time on paperwork, just to get research funding. The amount of professional time and effort being wasted on paperwork is alarming. Our group now has three promising research projects on aging and longevity that fall into the “high risk/high gain” category, and therefore have no chance of receiving funding from conventional sources. We would be delighted if private philanthropists like Bill Gates or George Soros would consider these projects, if they were ever to choose to support aging studies. Also, with the support of private foundations such as the MacArthur Foundation, so many interesting projects on aging could be accomplished! ”
From this article, page 260:
http://longevity-sci...erview-JAAM.pdfAs for Leonids reference to The Longevity Revolution, that’s just another example of an appeal to the compression of morbidity. That would be like civil rights participants protesting to get better accommodations in their segregated areas.
Tom recommended a generic template along the lines of, (to summarize and paraphrase) “Please look in to the promising ending aging work picking up pace. Your support can help this science go a long ways.” What this confirms to me at least is that just getting the idea out there, even with out topical pointed things to lobby and petition for, is important too, as Tom points out.
Tom also has, amongst other things, a petition we are in the process of proposing to update and help with, he has given copies of Ending Aging to all of Congress, he has a proposal for a short film about the cause pending, and is currently working vigorously on a book about the politics of indefinite life extension. So hes got a great start but he needs more hands on deck. If we start setting up more local satellite offices we can coordinate later for sure. We can start an effort here and synergize with that, or combine them. We go over that a bit in this topic:
http://www.imminst.o...ion-t28551.htmlWhat we also need, still need though of course is pointed topical things to write about. Ive asked Leonid and Tom both that specifically, we might have missed some potential sources here and there, but beyond what Ive gotten so far, neither has found the time for this. An example of something we need is, there has to be a variety of ways we can be kept up to date on where we can influence where that NIH money trickles down to. We also need to know in a pointed focused way, with a list of reasons why, about the varieties of other funding sources there must be, grant foundations, U.K. health funding etc… Im going to go over your references - restrictions, cloning ban, Dickey-Wicker, Obamas promises etc..
Ill see if me and a primer team can catalalyze a more equiped team to execute a list of general tasks in a team structure.
Many of us think that Agevivos ideas on toxicity studies and longevity effects sounds like an awesome concept we can work toward too. One way it seems we can start in on working with that in conjunction with this lobby the government part of the cause is to start a petition for it. We also need to find out the names of the people that have their fingers on the buttons that stop and start the time lines of the tests. We’ll want to come up with more ways as we go. One thing this team will do is work to recruit people that specialize more in this or that, like grant writing, petition writing, lobbying etc… Ill put all the details from this dialogue in a starter outline and either merge it with what
Don, DJS, has been working on, or, if he doesn’t have much (not sure where hes at with that), then this can serve as a structure to recruit for volunteers for.
As for stem cell research, thats another good one to write about of course. We need to know about more stem cell bills and provisions and ear marks and the like, time frames for when votes will be coming up, and things like that for us to aim for. That was one thing I was hoping Mooney and Gavrilov could help with directly, or point me to in the form of either a text source of updated bill status type things, or a person familiar with that kind of stuff who could help.
The Longevity Dividend is a good piece on getting through to some target crowds, especially ultra conservatives, but its just like the Longevity Revolution, its for the compression of morbidity. Compression of morbidity is great and all, but that’s not what we are after.
Indefinite life extension is what we are about. Its what we are working on putting in to the main stream, and if we do to much beating around the bush over on the shore we are just going to end up with a beat up bush, more 90 and 100 year old corpses. We need to be pushing this indefinite life extension boat further out in to the currents of the mainstream too.
Don’t go to far and use words like Immortality, right, but at the same time, don’t cut ourselves to short and trumpet the compression of morbidity. We don’t have to be afraid of what we are about, indefinite life extension. It can, will and continues to get through to the hearts and minds of entrepreneurial dreamers, advocates, and researchers in many areas. Remember, billions of doctors, lawyers, judges, rocket scientists - as well as warehouse, gas station, and ditch digging workers alike continue to believe in things like invisible deities, and committees of deities in the sky, and reincarnated frog masters and all kinds of stuff like that,
by the billions. They believe those big
illogical things when people tell them about them, they can, will and do come to support this big
logical cause in much greater numbers as we continue on in this quest to inform and equip the world.
Thanks a million for the ideas and leads. Im going to see what kind of basic structure we can form off this all, compare notes again with Don and Tom and go from there.
Edited by Michael, 04 September 2009 - 07:47 AM.
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)-writing to Representatives and Senators, and also to the President. (Most of what follows is within the US context, where budgets are huge and special interest lobbies are even huger; please adapt to your local political scene for internationals).
