International Day of Older Persons

Today is International Day of Older Persons. Created in 1991, this day is a special day to recognise the contribution of seniors and to bring greater attention to the changing demographics of humanity.

In that spirit, I thought I would link to my recent posts on the importance of retarding human aging. I can't think of a better day to make the case for investing in the science that would promote the health of seniors than on International Day of Older Persons. Today is the day to ask yourself, and our politicians: "What are you doing to improve the quality of life for our seniors?"

(1) Sage Crossroads Podcast on Longevity Science
(2) Are You Guilty of Gerontologiphobia?
(3) Are You Guilty of Gerontologiphobia? Part 2
(4) Bioethics Paper on Equality and Retarding Aging
(5) Longevity Genes (and Being Inspired by George Burns)
(6) Op-ed on Longevity Science
(7) BMJ Articles on Tackling Aging (Update)
(8) Rose on Evolutionary Biology and Aging
(9) Inequalities That Really Matter (but we seldom think about)
(10) More on Risks of Death and Priority Setting

*UPDATE: The World Health Organization has a useful post here, detailing the significance of changing demographics (like the fact that there will be almost 2 billion seniors worldwide by 2050, most of them living in developing countries).

Sadly, a Google News search for International Day of Older Persons reveals how little the press is paying attention to this. No major American news organization has a hit that I could find. But if you do a News search for "bail out wall street", the points I made yesterday start to look pretty persuasive (at least to me, but heck, I'm the one who made them! :))