Biogerontology paper "Online first"

My latest journal publication titled "Responsible biology, aging populations and the 50th anniversary of the “War on Cancer”" is now available as an "online first" piece in the science journal Biogerontology.  A sample:

Kitcher (2004) argues that responsible conduct in science extends beyond obvious professional ethics like dealing honestly with colleagues, not misreporting lab results, etc.; it also applies to critically scrutinizing the underlying intellectual suppositions of scientific research itself (e.g. what the appropriate “ends” of basic science are) and science policy decision-making (e.g. the investment and allocation of research funds). More specifically, Kitcher argues that the following three theses are an integral part of what he calls “responsible biology”:

1. (1)

   Scientists have an obligation, individually and collectively, to reflect on the ends—not just on the means—of scientific research.

2. (2)

   scientists should conceive of themselves as artisans working for the public good, whose efforts are directed toward an ideal of well-ordered science; and

3. (3)

   this ideal of well-ordered science should be understood in a global and democratic fashion (Kitcher 2004).

This essay examines the details of what is entailed by responsible biology, as this ideal pertains to biomedical research in a world of aging populations. Since the rise of epidemiology in the nineteenth century, the primary “ends” of biomedical research, for both public health and clinical medicine, have been the elimination of specific diseases (through both prevention and treatment). In the early twentieth century in the United States this end was successfully applied to a wide variety of infectious diseases that were responsible for early-life mortality. But in the late twentieth century the focus on mitigating the proximate causation of pathology had been expanded to include targeting chronic diseases like cancer. The question this article is concerned with is as follows: Does responsible biology sanction the continued fixation on disease control in today’s aging world? The answer advanced—after considering (1) the successes and limitations of the past half a century of the war on cancer in the United States, as well as (2) findings from the biology of aging (biogerontology) concerning the limits on human longevity and the malleability of the inborn aging process- is “No”. Rather than continue to prioritize the goal of extending life via disease elimination for populations reaching the upper limits of human lifespan, the more important goal of public health, medicine, biotechnology, and the health sciences should now shift toward delaying and compressing the period of the lifespan when frailty and disability increase substantially (Olshansky 2018).

Cheers 

Colin