(Part II)

We work to meet life-saving civil and public servants at any point along the road to help secure world health. This broad, but still scope-limited, review is intended in part to provide an initial exposition of some of our alignments and potentials, and in part to include our various stances.

If somebody were to write up a declaration oriented toward life extension and non-communicable diseases (NCD) for people to consider getting behind, then it would be useful in a variety of ways, and could become a beneficial reference point for a lot of us on various issues, including further high-level declarations and summits, and similar endeavors.

Paragraphs that are labeled a.) through r.) are promising action items that can be taken on by people that want to make this happen.

There are groups and various declarations and proposals that advocate for resources and goals to aid the future of health.

Towards a framework convention on global health (FCGH) -http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/91/10/12-114447/en/ - Lawrence O Gostin, Eric A Friedman, Kent Buse, Attiya Waris, Moses Mulumba, Mayowa Joel, Lola Dare, Ames Dhai, & Devi Sridhar:

This paper states that

“By embedding its standards in national law, a framework convention would empower civil society to litigate the right to health.”

That’s right: ensuring inclusivity of health breakthroughs and treatments and the applications that come with them, can in turn help ensure growing international cooperation.

As legal scholar Juliet S. Sorensen writes in Times Higher Education regarding public-health law professor Lawrence Gostin’s textbook Global Health Law,¹

“Global Health Law makes a compelling case that the law’s time in the march towards global health is nigh. ‘The international community would be more willing to provide financing to meet national health needs if it were confident that national governments would invest in health domestically while practicing good governance.’”

A big part of good governance is healthy, open, mainstream world dialogue that everybody can contribute to. It is our intention to open up more discussion, and more inclusive discussion on these potential collaborations and topics to complement and supplement the value of all the tremendous work that has already been done through public and civil-society cooperation and action.

“The convergence of opportunity and need makes now the right time for a global health treaty. The opportunity comes from the present attention to global health and human rights in planning the post-2015 development framework.”

The Post-2015 development framework is an extension – or a renewal, if you will – of the principles declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs were set with a 15-year time frame in mind, for the structuring of policy and completion of goals.



The Framework Convention on Global Health is a proposal that has lost steam as a whole, but is still championed piece by piece by many people and groups, and offers a lot of insight on past and ongoing progress toward the Post-2015 Millennium Development Goals.

“This offers a space within which governments and civil society can debate an innovative new framework and a pathway to its eventual adoption. A framework convention could serve as a unifying platform for civil society campaigns on health priorities such as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and non-communicable diseases, as well as for broader social justice imperatives, such as universal social protection.^”

It would be excellent for people from organizations such as the FCGH, the People’s Health Movement (PHM), the indefinite-life-extension communities, and other health-oriented groups, to team up to head aspects of civil-society initiatives that give even bigger voices and more roundtables and stages to these knowledgeable health insiders.

Movement for indefinite life extension (MILE) activists are ready to facilitate increased discussion. With a few key interests merged through deliberations, this could make a great project for involving indefinite-life-extensionists who are concerned about inclusivity. This is an important aspect of our movement that our ranks have participated in and plan to continue with.

Among the FCGH’s framework are these key points -

5-31-2013- Towards a Framework Convention on Global Health: A Transformative Agenda for Global Health Justice - Lawrence O. Gostin - Yale Law School - Eric A. Friedman - http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1201&context=yjhple:

“2. THE LACK OF COLLABORATION AND COORDINATION AMONG MULTIPLE PLAYERS

3. THE NEED FOR ACCOUNTABILITY, TRANSPARENCY, MONITORING, AND ENFORCEMENT

4. THE NEGLECT OF ESSENTIAL HEALTH NEEDS AND HEALTH SYSTEM STRENGTHENING

5. THE NEGLECT OF VITAL HEALTH RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

6. THE LACK OF GLOBAL HEALTH LEADERSHIP

7. THE NEED FOR HEALTH AND HUMAN RIGHTS LEADERS TO INFLUENCE

MULTIPLE GLOBAL SECTORS TO PROMOTE HEALTH”

We are ready to collaborate on those points in various ways. Our networks stand for fairness and understand the importance of going in with a long-term strategy. Our activists are working for principles such as changing aging’s classification to that of a disease. They can help fill leadership roles in the struggling but great and promising WHO priority declaration and action structure.

There are other solutions argued for in the Dark Sides of the proposed Framework Convention on Global Health’s many virtues: A systematic review and critical analysis - http://www.hhrjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2013/06/Hoffman.pdf:

Authors Steven J. Hoffman and John-Arne Røttingen point out downsides of the FCGH, including the following:

“International law also technically shuts out civil society organizations and private sector companies because they lack international legal personality and have no formal role in adopting or ratifying treaties, even if they are widely seen as vital contributors not to mention the impact of their advocacy on government positions. Legal instruments have a track record of having lots of aspirational statements but few specific or enforceable commitments.”

This is remedied in various ways, for example through the calls for ways to make laws more inclusive of civil-society representation from the FCGH, and other calls for efforts such as additional specialized civil-society formation and input at various round-tables. One of the beneficial impacts of clearly stated laws is that they help cut through the litigation, so there is less arguing on that front, and more time and resources to focus on research and direct social infrastructure.

While the atmosphere is still productive and conducive to advancement, as it has been during these productive and prolific decades, let us make sure to capitalize on progress. One of the contributions we can make is to form more teams to take on small projects.

Consider conducting action committees on topics “a.)” through “r.)” as listed throughout.

a.) I call on groups of life-extensionists (many already have) to put their heads together and take up the small project of finding an interested person from a related health organization that supports the UN’s Post-2015 Development Goals agenda to bring to any of various life extension meetings or events. We also want groups to work to get at least one person from their ranks onto the board of another health-oriented organization. Having our voice widely available in these related health declarations and projects is important.

b.) Another of the endeavors that we can collaborate on, and need to do, is to continue figuring out ways to move money away from spending for “defense” and debt-creating subsidies, and into efforts like the Humanity+ movement, the political work for the cause at the Longevity Party, investment opportunities at the Life Extension Foundation, and other projects of research and activism in support of indefinite life extension. Civil-society group and organization meetings can help get agenda items like these onto increasing numbers of mayors’, governors’, and representatives’ desks. Our groups could represent our interests on school boards, in committees and related positions to collaborate on strategy and policy at labs, universities, and think tanks. Once the mandate is drawn up, our peers could team up with civil-society groups, to advocate that it be signed and enacted. We could persuade people to vote favorably during election time regarding issues that affect the prospects for indefinite life extension and to engage in many other forms of activism.

c.) Is it possible to persuade a coalition of doctors to explain the feasibility of rejuvenation research to their patients, and why it’s all right to favor strong health rather than getting so frail that they die? There are countless examples of successful research on these fronts, and more happening on a regular basis. Expect doctors to know how to explain this to their patients, and to stress the importance of contributing. Silence on the matter, with the increasing capabilities and knowledge available these days, can be seen as neglect of health. Research and support around rejuvenation research lead to healthier people.

d.) Another goal that some groups must advocate directly for is the consideration for thorough inclusion by textbook writers and decision makers at schools of a more robust curriculum on aging research and its relation in the big picture of our lives and world.

e.) Groups can work together to create educational videos that explain various aspects of the cause. There is a lot to go over. There are various ways people can elicit good material from one another and make more of their projects happen. What kind of messaging can help persuade a lot of school-board members to consider putting material related to this in their curricula and textbooks? Getting more and more young people to think about the various aspects of this cause as soon as we can is one of the most important and critical goals that needs to be achieved in the immediate future.

There are a variety of life-extension activists that have made videos of various quality, some with great messaging, which alone can suffice, and some with great messaging and spectacular visuals. Some videos are being created by activists and accomplished producers right now. There are still more good projects like them that are ready to go with a modest amount of resources and collaboration. The movement for indefinite life extension, for example, keeps lists of these kinds of projects (videos and other works). An example can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/mile-movement-for-indefinite-life-extension/poll-indefinite-life-extension-projects-which-do-you-choose/815941258426385.

f.) People can make an important impact through initiatives like organizing speaking booths for the cause at county fairs and similar events, arranging rallies, petitioning politicians, setting up booths at general health conventions, among many other possibilities.

In looking for ways to incorporate itself into the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Post-2015 extension declaration, the FCGH also notes that,

“We urge greater participation in developing the goals, targets, and indicators, from slowing the process to enable greater community engagement, designing some targets and indicators to be tailored to country context, and establishing a separate civil society and community committee as part of the UN process that must agree to the post-2015 development framework adoption.”

A separate health framework could benefit us by allowing more control over the fluid, growing future of health care. It can help the health sector retain a workable margin of independence, which could prove critical in making sure that large sections of the world don’t get scientifically and socially shut down at the hands of various forces in the world, from tyranny to bad governance to loss of momentum. When world declarations are in place, it makes it easier to remember where one is and gain one’s focus back after getting distracted with disasters, economic crises, and various other disruptive world situations.

The paper on dark sides of the FCGH also says that,

“Any binding commitment on countries could unwittingly fix their financial contributions to global health at too low a level, or could displace or delay important investments in other sectors[.]”

However, the life-extension movement can use funds for all the researchers in labs and classrooms that can be gotten until the goal is met. A surge of a few thousand more gerontology students every month around the world would be a good start.

I don’t necessarily advocate for having more laws, but in this case let’s come together and cooperate. If there are going to be international declarations guiding the future of our health, then – whether one prefers them or not, whether one is right-wing, independent like me, left-wing, libertarian, or of another persuasion – let us strive for a cooperative, robust infrastructure within the current system. Let us integrate as much as possible so that the system is on track to work in a unified manner toward the completion of the shared goal of prolonged healthy life. We can help strengthen what is here and still fight for overall change to the system behind it over the long run. Note that part of the point of our focus on aging is that you can’t reform government when you’re dead.

Fighting for life is a cause that everybody can get behind, to honor our ancestors, for the sake of our living generations, and for the future of us all.

Will the struggle for health equity and social justice be best served by a Framework Convention on Global Health?

http://www.hhrjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2013/06/Haynes-FINAL.pdf

“Indeed, it would be better if international aid for health care was recognized as an obligation arising from global solidarity rather than as an instrument for achieving global stability and national security. However, failing to challenge the underlying power relations between the givers and the receivers, and failing to consider who decides how such transfers are governed and managed, will not serve the broader purpose of building solidarity around health for all.”

We agree with this sentiment and have resolved to help work to bring access of life-benefiting inventions to all worthy people. If the have-nots are not included, then they will inevitably fight for their lives. If most of us act together, then the tasks can be more effectively divided into manageable increments, and this enormous goal of eradicating non-communicable diseases can reach completion faster. This could end up proving crucial in increasing the speed at which we get to the goal of indefinite life extension. Furthermore, it would enable us to avoid the worst kinds of possible confrontations arising from situations where the gap between the haves and have-nots grows unsustainably large.

“However, the experience of the PHM is that campaign initiatives that are structured around relatively abstract and distant reforms, such as an FCGH, have limited inspirational power in terms of movement-building, even if cast in terms of the right to health.”

Indefinite-life-extensionists and supporters of Humanity+ specialize in and focus on inspiring people to join projects working on sustainable, equitable, distant health reforms.

Haynes et al. also remind us that,

“In the desperation to achieve a modicum of progress in UN negotiations, the Framework Convention on Climate Change was so watered down to suit the interests of powerful countries and their corporations that hardly anything was left of the original policy intentions. A similar outcome for an FCGH could be predicted.”

This is further reasoning for why people should begin thinking about this and preparing for it more in various big and small ways now. Let’s go in strong with a network of support and well-argued reasoning and come out with significant wins for indefinite life extension.

g.) One action item needed from an interested activist is writing up a paper of where the climate-change negotiations at the UN went wrong, in the context of lessons for a potential indefinite-life-extension campaign to analyze and learn from. A small gathering of longevity activists looking for a small, meaningful project to take on for the cause could do a nice job in an effort like that.

Haynes et al. point out that,

“Campaign initiatives that inspire community activists are focused on the priorities of their communities, promise a direct response to those problems, and offer real access to the levers of change.”

MILE workers concur with these kinds of principles. One of our main purposes is designed to serve that function and to support a variety of organizations and initiatives that are built to help do that. An overview of some of our activism goals can be found at https://www.facebook.com/movementforindefinitelifeextension/info?ref=page_internal. Our networks include numerous committees and think tanks, member-driven referenda, board-guided strategies, crowdfunded projects, supporter-chosen initiatives, and other undertakings. Among us are writers, politicians, reporters, health experts, and insiders to various fields. Activists from many areas join our round-tables and think tanks, and all are welcome. Chime in with your ideas and concerns in indefinite-life-extension article comments and Facebook groups, answer back through articles, talk about it on the radio, help us make sure that the discussion is robust and thorough at our websites and forums. We welcome almost all inquiries of collaboration and constructive, critical dialectic. Cooperation and progress are driving components of our discussions. If you want to be added to one of our community activist think-tanks that we hold via Skype, then find me and ask me to add you. You can ask questions and discuss issues in this ongoing 24-hour-per-day discussion with over 100 participants and growing.

One of our main objectives is to drive up awareness of the importance of supporting the war on non-communicable diseases proportionally to the toll that these maladies take on the world. Two thirds of our daily human-capital loss is through aging. Two thirds of all of our combined deaths come from miscues in a biology that people have already fathomed and tamed in many ways, and continue to pioneer and figure out on an often daily basis. A strong, united declaration of policy on an expedited world priority of fighting the diseases of aging and death to the end of every relevant peer reviewed research project can stop this daily, hourly cataclysm.

Two of the main areas to highlight when it comes to convincing a person to support life extension are the pain and opportunity costs that come with aging and death. If you are good at arguing and like to do it, help lead the way in engaging in those discussions so they can have a chance of becoming prominent in the awareness of the mainstream of the world. Do we want to do nothing about terrible pain and potentially infinite opportunity cost when there are demonstrable actions that can be taken to work toward eradicating the diseases of senescence? Many of the concepts involved are naturally still going to be new to a lot of people, and their transmission needs to be expedited. Let’s actively challenge people to think about these concepts. This has been happening, groups continue to do it at a growing pace, and this pace can be and should be quickened.

In India, the Union Minister of Health, Harsh Vardhan, said at a 2014 summit on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) that,

“Non-communicable diseases constitute a very large spectrum of the overall disease scenario of the country. The diseases that come within this gamut are diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart diseases and cancer, which to a large extent are preventable. There are already 60 million diabetes patients in India and in the next 15 years this number can go up to a 100 million. We can certainly control these diseases if we know the preventive strategies and early diagnosis is key. The healthcare delivery system can be improved if everyone contributes.”²

We agree with this statement with regard to the diseases and afflictions of aging. It is important to work to avoid group-thinking-limited NCD targets as a theme. Our effort is about research plans that can stop aging, not only because similar research has already been successful, but because aging claims the most deaths of all NCDs by a staggering margin. There is a variety of ways that strategies in development or underway could stop aging. If efforts are moving in that direction, support joining streams with them and work together to engulf our biological flaws with innovation and determination to arrive at effective remedies. Work together with us on initiatives like getting biological aging classified as a disease. We need this to happen in order to bring more resources in to work to defeat aging in a timely manner.

A Million Voices: The World We Want - A Sustainable Future With Dignity For All - http://www.worldwewant2015.org/millionvoices - states,

“Reducing the burden of major NCDs should be achieved by focusing on cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes (the four NCDs causing the most deaths), and mental illness. Some targets could be based on the World Health Assembly resolution of a 25% reduction in deaths due to these four NCDs by 2025. Other targets could be aimed at reducing morbidity and disability from NCDs (including mental illness) at all ages, and reducing the prevalence of related risk factors.”

These are great goals, but it is up to delegates from the life-extension communities to meet with people involved with the WHO, various counsels and societies, and related parties, to make sure that the world covers the full scope of this work to significantly fight back NCDs, with the ultimate objective of stopping as many of them as possible. We look forward to working with world health players on goals oriented more strongly and directly toward the eradication of involuntary death from biological malfunction, like the transhumanist goal of beating death completely by 2045.

As Juliet S. Sorensen further writes in her review of Lawrence O. Gostin’s Global Health Law,

“[Gostin] notes that although the World Health Organisation has called on rich countries to devote approximately 0.1 per cent of their gross national income to development assistance for health, in 2010 official development assistance for healthcare from Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development member states was less than 0.05 per cent of their gross national income.”³

These are the kinds of small victories that longevity advocates can collaborate toward. If 0.1% increments forward can be achieved, we will be well positioned to advocate for subsequent incremental gains as these health movements come together, shape the social atmosphere, and evolve in their approaches to health-related issues like these.

Gostin and Sorensen remind us that “challenges to public health are not overcome by science alone” and that regardless of our potential disdain for regulation, we must understand it in order to work with it in safeguarding our health.

In the Dark Sides article, Steven J. Hoffman and John-Arne Røttingen write that

“Claiming that all international laws are beyond usual priority-setting processes and tradeoffs is not only unrealistic but hardly ever justifiable. Basic human rights and jus cogens norms may be among the only exceptions, the latter of which are peremptory norms so important that international law forbids their violation by all states no matter whether or not states actually agreed to adhere to them. Examples of jus cogens norms include genocide, slavery, torture, and wars of aggression.”

Our most painful and costly aggressor – given the world’s general state of low awareness about the importance, feasibility, and practicality of indefinite life – is allowing aging to rampage recklessly across the world on a daily basis, claiming two-thirds of all casualties. It dwarfs the terror of jus cogens violations like genocide and slavery. Aging is torture imposed upon our most prized generations for decades at a time. Humanity doesn’t even sentence murderers to that kind of punishment. Together, our unified health-supporting voices can help to popularize sentiments that are equal to the magnitude of devastation caused by aging and by far the leading volume of involuntary death that it causes.

Hoffman and Røttingen further point out that

“[T]he FCGH proposal’s focus on defining and realizing the right to health could petrify in perpetuity a certain kind of idea of what is needed to address rapidly changing global health challenges and freeze the basic package of health care services included as part of this human right.”

We encourage the gathering of insight in areas such as the kinds of bad policy that people don’t want to see frozen in place at the wrong times. We also think that there can be great value in decisions like freezing a broad right-to-life policy in place.

Indefinite-life supporters put together a list of actions that would benefit us all. It is a dialogue draft, for discussion, and from what I can see of various parties that have expressed interest in and worked with this kind of initiative, our communities can hammer out and agree to a worthy final product.

Regardless of what kind of mechanisms are best and might be chosen, we offer below a list of some of these basic indefinite-life-extension fundamentals that need to be considered for incorporation into broader potential policies and objectives:

Classify aging as a disease. This has been discussed and championed by various people over the years.

Replace x% of all world military budgets with identical-sized indefinite-life-extension biology research budgets in the name of national defense and stopping aging’s war of aggression on our grandparents and parents.

Add sufficient related curriculum on topics like the sociology and research of aging, in most able schools around the world.

Offer sufficient classes related to anti-aging research in universities. Have state and private colleges spend more time advertising those programs using comprehensive and accurate core philosophy and persuasion.

Create a UN member contribution of x% for the war on aging.

Current programs must be more inclusive in the selection of delegates on NCD issues. Put life-extensionists and H+ supporters onto more major health platforms for collaboration, and strengthening networks.

Make sure that unnecessary greed doesn’t kill people. Life-saving information must be available without licensing for appropriate circumstances. Life-saving medical charities, businesses, and related enterprises need to have reasonable public access to life-saving tools and information.

We want affordable treatments. Price should come down by increments every year until to a manageable range.

Provide community funding of an office for a coalition between the NCD Alliance, the movement for indefinite life extension, and the International Longevity Alliance – in collaboration with Health and Human Services departments where it is sustainable – and work to help make it sustainable more widely.

There are numerous people and groups who provide reasoning for most of these needs. Join us in advocating for their implementations more widely.

Groups like the Commission on Social Determinants of Health also state that educational institutions and relevant ministries should ”make the social determinants of health a standard and compulsory part of training of medical and health professionals.” and “increase understanding of the social determinants of health among non-medical professionals and the general public.” Those are some good ideas.

As a December 2013 position statement of the NCD Roundtable on Non-communicable Diseases and the Post-2015 Development Agenda - http://www.ncdroundtable.org/wp-content/upload

s/2013/12/NCDRT-Post2015-Position-Statement.pdf - states,

“NCDs account for more than 36 million annual deaths, 80 percent of which occur in low- and middle-income countries. In the face of inaction, NCDs will be the leading cause of disability by 2030 and will account for 69 percent of all global deaths. NCD risk factors perpetuate a dangerous cycle that begins to take hold early in life and continues across the lifespan, with compounding negative costs to human and socio-economic development. Further, disabilities from NCDs represent a significant barrier to full social and economic growth.

NCDs form a deterring undercurrent to achieving all the current Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), in particular the current MDGs (goals 4 and 5) centered on health.

WHO estimates that each 10% rise in NCDs is associated with 0.5% decrease in annual economic growth.”

This is an important facet of the destruction that is caused by disease. The fight against NCDs is also a fight for economic sustainability.

“The NCD Roundtable believes progress in combating NCDs and their risk factors can only be achieved through a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach. We support an overarching health goal that maximizes healthy lives at all stages of life, advances a health in all policies approach, and leverages existing and planned interventions to strengthen health systems. The NCD Roundtable is committed to putting the thought leadership, shared experiences and human resources of its members to the task of working with senior government leaders in support of public/private partnerships. The Roundtable stands ready to actively engage in such efforts and contribute the strengths of its members to maximize the opportunity of future generations living longer, healthier, happier, and more productive lives.”

They conclude with an example of a job well done and another great example of the kind of issues that groups of life-extension advocates can take action on.

“Ensuring inclusion and prioritization of health and NCDs within the post-2015 development agenda is a major focus of the NCD Roundtable. The Roundtable’s membership is committed to preventing and controlling NCDs, both individually as organizations and companies, and in partnership with other stakeholders, as well as through a variety of policy and programmatic channels, including ongoing United Nations processes. The NCD Roundtable is actively engaged in working with U.S. government representatives and global leaders to support the WHO NCD Global Action Plan and facilitate public dialogue on the issue, including co-hosting the Side Event "Healthy Planet, Healthy People: Building Synergies for Sustainable Development” in cooperation with the U.S. Government, CARICOM, and the NCD Alliance before the opening of the September 2013 Session of the U.N. General Assembly. Investment in NCDs across national governments and globally will create a new norm in unleashing human potential and driving socio-economic capital. This investment is an under-valued opportunity that underpins our well-being and success as individuals, families, communities, and nations.”

Hoffman and Røttingen’s Dark Sides paper further states that

“Successfully embedding FCGH content into the post-2015 development framework, for example, could be more influential and impactful than any kind of legal instrument.”

“[this must be] further articulated, analyzed, and assessed along with its virtues and in comparison to competing proposals for global governance reform[.]”

We think so, too, and want people to give us their reasonable and progressively minded perspectives and forecasts on the various matters related to these objectives.

The FCGH wants policy that,

“would be grounded in the right to health and close national and global health inequities. Its basic principles are contained in the Manifesto on Global Health Justice and a Framework Convention on Global Health ( http://www.jalihealth.org/ ). Our post-2015 recommendations build upon but extend beyond universal health coverage (UHC).”

We agree with the above, and with the Manifesto on Global Health Justice’s statement that

“The world fails nearly 20 million people every year, and fails billions more people whose lives are shattered by want and deprivation. To address at least a part of this injustice, we are launching a global campaign grounded in the human right to health, where governments assure the conditions in which everyone can be healthy.”

The FCGH writes that

“Whatever individual health services are available, if a person does not live in a jurisdiction with strong – and effectively implemented – tobacco control measures, measures to control locally-relevant disease vectors, and policies to facilitate healthy eating, true universal health coverage does not exist."

A vital component of true universal health action is the growth of community efforts like chapters; research fundraisers; educational, inspirational, and informational speeches and lectures; class and workshop opportunities; event-planning teams; and other methods of organization that enable the choice to participate in contributing to longevity extension and the war on aging.

Our camps generally agree: health care availability should include the alleviation of underlying detriments to health for all people.

“However structured, the post-2015 goals should include ensuring all people health care – including health systems capable of ensuring universal, quality comprehensive primary health care services; public health interventions, and; underlying determinants of health.” (FCGH)

Our support increases the recognition of the need to fight NCDs at virtually all levels. The current main mechanism, the World Health Organization, can make sure that these therapies reach the world. Via this mechanism, it would be possible to set up clinics to produce and deliver the therapies in affected peoples’ local areas with money from an international fund if locals can demonstrate they can sustain funding or make money doing it. Some areas will have to focus on the more basic improvements, like water and sanitation, first, until they gain a footing to be able to sustain infrastructure like life-extension clinics. Indefinite-life-extensionists are ready and willing to participate with those kinds of longevity projects, too. Many of us work in these areas already.

“A robust initial level of health services available to all people to avoid the risk that countries will themselves define UHC so as to exclude services critical to their population’s health yet considered too expensive or insufficiently cost-effective, or that presume that all services should be affordable within domestic resources.” (FCGH)

It is important to make sure that our work to get aging the attention as the top priority of world health does not get diluted by other agendas and accidental policy shape-shifts as it works its way through various decision-making processes.

Let’s align and coordinate resources to secure our place here in this world of opportunities.

“[A] UHC goal should incorporate the concept of continued progress, for instance, expanding the scope of health services covered as part of UHC guarantees after states achieve a certain initial level of health services for all people. ‘The highest attainable standard of physical and mental health’ to which people have a right will continually elevate as health systems strengthen and medical sciences advance.10 This will also make the goal applicable to all countries.” (FCGH)

That is a good way to help ensure priority in funding, and to give people at the bottom more hope in holding on. At the end of lifelong struggle in still-impoverished areas of the world, there can be hope for sustained strong health and opportunity. It is a dream that can be had and a goal that can be achieved.

“A comprehensive strategy on health system accountability might not exist at all without post-2015 indicators, and the associated global recognition of the importance of such strategies. This presents an important opportunity for the post-2015 goals to have a transformative effect.” (FCGH)

When people look for world opinion, and where world opinion shapes the landscape, our people do what it takes to make sure this cause is represented. It doesn’t always happen right away, but in setting goals and working to reach them, there is increased ability to make gains.

Many life-extensionists are vocal about their support for the following general criterion:

“9. Forward-looking: UHC should be framed and realized in a forward-looking, dynamic manner. This has at least three implications. First, newer health goods and services within the scope of UHC must be available to all people. The new health goal should incorporate the human rights guarantee that the benefits of scientific advancement – including new medicines, vaccines, diagnostics, and other medical products and technologies – should be genuinely accessible to all people.

Second, research and development needs to develop medicines that respond to existing and emerging health needs to enable a universal coverage that responds to people’s major health needs to the best of science’s ability. A target could relate to R&D funding directed to the global burden of disease (particularly in developing countries, where market mechanisms will be least effective in driving necessary R&D) where existing interventions are insufficient. Sub-targets or indicators could relate to diseases most prevalent among the poor.” (FCGH)

That kind of target can help us on one of the critical main points of uniting the world behind stopping these deadly diseases. There is plenty of room for us to disagree, too, but it is appropriate for most people to set aside their differences while executing high-stakes strategies on pressing sine qua non goals. After success, there will be plenty of time for debates over mugs of beer, and at podiums and elsewhere around the world for us to hash out the rest of life. It all starts with life, which must be secured.

“Third, the scope of UHC should be flexible, able to respond to emerging needs, such as new diseases, or diseases new to a particular country or region due to climate change. Such flexibility could be incorporated through guidelines that accompany the post-2015 framework.” (FCGH)

Final resolutions on the FCGH’s points from Section 9 should ensure that this wording supports flexibility in efforts like potential future indefinite-life-extension treatments too.

Big-picture accountability is important so that dynamic and encompassing aspects of death are covered. I don’t think anybody would argue that we should only take part of the picture into account when developing world goals.

We have these points in common, too:

“The post-2015 development goals should also address the role of all actors affecting health. Responsibilities of non-state actors, including corporations, towards the right to health should be clearly defined. These responsibilities should cover their roles as producers and deliverers of good and services and as employers. UHC should include workplace measures to prevent injury and illness.” (FCGH)

Overall we believe the FCGH’s time-rationing expediting approach needs serious consideration. This is the sort of large-scale effort that is needed to complete this goal on its urgent timetable.

“A post-2015 indicator could assess whether countries have a comprehensive public health strategy incorporating health-in-all-policies and features including an inclusive process in developing and monitoring the strategy[.]” (FCGH)

Let’s gather more good ideas on viable ways to do that. You could make it an agenda item for a meeting.

“The UN must engage communities, especially marginalized populations, to ensure a democratic formulation of the post-2015 goals.”

“Official country delegations during post-MDG negotiations should include members of civil society and diverse communities of marginalized populations. A process could be developed to nominate civil society and community representatives to a community and civil society committee with a role in the formal negotiation process, and whose consent to the goals could be a prerequisite for UN adoption of the goals.” (FCGH)

We agree.

“Civil society and communities, including organizations representing, and communities of, marginalized and vulnerable populations, should have a formal role in developing these plans of action and in monitoring their progress. Such plans might be enhanced through peer review of neighboring countries or other processes (e.g., joint assessment of strategies, with both national and external participants). These processes should be part of the post-2015 framework.” (FCGH)

That sentiment is a big part of the reasoning for writing this assessment. Combining efforts gets us further, especially under conditions conducive to progress, as exist now.

“Given the many factors that affect healthy life expectancy, and time lags for this impact, additional indicators remain critical to identify progress with respect to specific factors affecting people’s health, and to monitor and efficiently respond to policies influencing health outcomes.”

So, as suggested by the FCGH, let us keep our minds open to finding new ways to create indicators of progress toward goals that can bring about indefinite life extension in our lifetimes.

Health in the post-2015 UN development agenda -http://www.who.int/topics/millennium_development_goals/post2015/en/

“In support of this process, the United Nations Development Group is leading efforts to catalyse a ‘global conversation’ on the post-2015 agenda through a series of global thematic consultations and more than 50 national consultations.

The Governments of Sweden and Botswana, UNICEF and WHO co-convene the health thematic consultation.”

The consultations ended and implementation dialogues have since been conducted with reports made.Some of the key messages from these discussions highlight an insightful cross-view of people’s stances on core health-maintenance issues.

“Key Messages - The findings of this global conversation contain important messages for governments as they seek to agree on a new development agenda.

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  People demand to play a role in shaping and changing their world.

  
  


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  The fundamental areas covered by the MDGs remain critically important. At the same time, there is a call to strengthen ambition and urgency.

  
  


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  People are indignant at the injustice they feel because of growing inequalities and insecurities that exist particularly for poorer and marginalized people.

  
  


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  The challenges are complex and interlinked, requiring a sustainable development agenda that is integrated, holistic and universal, applying to all countries and all people.

  
  


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  People call for a new agenda built on human rights, and universal values of equality, justice and security. Better governance underpins many of their calls.

  
  


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  The focus on concrete, measurable goals should be retained but measurement of progress needs to be improved. A data revolution will support an accountability revolution.”

  
  

Our supporters bring urgency, and are inclusive and holistic. We are joined in declaring the need to build adequate health security and expedite measurably progressive actions.

Non-communicable diseases are one of the few top concerns in the summary report from the December 14, 2012, Informal Member State Consultation on Health in the Post 2015 Development Agenda from the World Health Organization Executive Board Room - http://www.who.int/topics/millennium_development_

goals/post2015/summary_informal_consultation_memberstates_20121214.pdf:

“Several new priorities need to be addressed: ageing and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), the health impact of climate change, human mobility and refugees. The links between health and sustainable development, as made explicit in the Rio+20 sustainable development report, need to be made clear.”

“A long-term strategy is needed that integrates new issues into the MDGs.”

Our ranks are eager to engage in united discussion and action.

”Mainstreaming health across high-level goals may be desirable, but separate high-level health goals are also needed. The health goal itself needs to be broad. Simplicity is key for a top-line quantitative goal. It should also be achievable and cover equity and social determinants as well as health systems.”

That is one of the reasons why the movement for indefinite life extension goal is designed as it is. Speed and progress across the board are essential.

“While keeping the health MDG targets, the increasingly apparent challenges of NCDs and their risk factors should also be included, with clear indicators.”

“Most of the discussion focused on two types of possible overarching goals: (healthy) life expectancy and universal health coverage (UHC).”

That is an important statement: 38 member states of the United Nations were present and couldn’t decide whether or not their Post-2015 concerns should focus on non-communicable diseases or Universal Health Care more.

In other words, which goal is more important and which one do we pursue: “ObamaCare” for the world, or a fully coordinated and funded public/government collaboration to move toward the eradication of NCDs, which could end up including aging? Look at how close the outcome can get to going either way on this issue. This is the kind of reason that makes it important for indefinite-life-extension delegates to take part in these type of meetings and development goals.

“The adoption of a resolution on UHC at the UN General Assembly in New York in December 2012, sponsored by over 90 Member States, was marked as a significant event that will have an impact on defining future health goals.”

Ninety of them already agreed on UHC.

The 64th session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe (RC64) -http://www.euro.who.int/en/countries/malta/news/news/2014/09/highlights-of-day-1-focus-on-more-equitable,-sustainable-health-for-europe - on September 15, 2014, shows support for NCD focus from places like the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and from Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, with report on progress with statements like the Ashgabat Declaration on the Prevention and Control of Non-communicable Diseases.

The showing wasn’t strong. We remind people that the original Millennium Development Goals stressed worthy goals with AIDS and Malaria but didn’t even prioritize non-communicable diseases. As we see it, it’s not that the will to stop NCDs isn’t there; it’s that we need to make sure that they are more deliberately represented. There is a strong base of support to be capitalized on by people that can put indefinite life extension and post-2015-conducive language together. We urge for the inclusion of strong support for indefinite life extension through efforts such as campaigns against NCDs.



Health equality is a major theme of the MDGs, and an even stronger theme of the Post-2015 Development Goals. To all the people that are especially concerned with the have-nots being excluded from indefinite-life-extension treatments, you can help make sure they are encompassed if you put in the work meeting with the civil societies and committees of these world development goals.

Many people of the industrialized world who are being killed by these diseases that force their way upon them, don’t want to worry about equality first. Let’s stop our common killers. Find our equality in our shared contributions to helping increase the volume of good research that is directly or indirectly related to the goal of achieving indefinitely sustainable health. Prioritize the fight against non-communicable diseases above Universal Health Care in leading countries around the world. Suggesting that NCDs are the most important focus in some areas does not mean ending other programs or forgetting and ignoring other important goals. When parts of the world are concerned and calling for focus on an important issue, we should be sure to help arrange the tools and circumstances to make good use of that unity in goal and that determination to get it done. We are life-extensionists because we are humanitarians. When life-extension goals are reached, humanitarianism continues to move forward, and vice versa.

Once those tasks get done, everybody would put most of their focus into the next most pressing big projects until they get done as well.

Every one of us has real appointment with our executioner. This isn’t pretend. There isn’t compelling evidence for an afterlife or any other imaginable outcomes. Since we are in a position to do so, it is our responsibility to seize the opportunity to see if we can end aging and any upper limits on lifespans. Aging destroys every single one of us. The fighters against aging are doing a tremendous service to humanity. People who argue and suggest that this cruel, lengthy death sentence imposed upon our richly seasoned minds is insignificant or less important than other goals, are wrong.

As stated in the final report from the Commission on Social Determinants of Health, Closing the gap in a generation - Health equity through action on the social determinants of health -http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2008/9789241563703_eng.pdf:

“These inequities in health, avoidable health inequalities, arise because of the circumstances in which people grow, live, work, and age, and the systems put in place to deal with illness. The conditions in which people live and die are, in turn, shaped by political, social, and economic forces.”

The areas that engage people, projects, and organizations working directly and indirectly toward indefinite life extension encompass, in large part, these factors, like campaigns to expedite awareness, selling people on the value of research projects and getting more of them funded, political petitions, meetings and initiatives that various people work on, and so forth.

These community projects are where this movement can grow the roots it needs to expedite the goal of removing the threat of NCDs.

“In the spirit of social justice, the Commission on Social Determinants of Health was set up by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2005 to marshal the evidence on what can be done to promote health equity, and to foster a global movement to achieve it.”

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