Last week, we discussed whether everyday hospital death was a medic's fault. The overwhelmingly negative response received to the question posed opened up another Pandora's Box that I hoped to discuss on this forum today: Should ageing be treated like a disease?
"Ageing is a disease"
The statement attempts to put forth the notion that ageing is not a disease and hence should not be treated like one by the health care profession. An adherent of the utilitarian philosophy would support the above statement by arguing that the £176.5 billion available to the NHS is dwarfed by the insurmountable needs of the public- Consequently, funds need to be allocated towards the treatment of people who will benefit most greatly: people most likely to pay the greatest amount of taxes after recovery, people most likely to contribute greatest to the economy, people with incomplete lives with a lot to live for. These prerequisites are fulfilled by younger people more than older people. Furthermore, it could be argued that technically, a disease is defined as “a harmful deviation from the normal structural and functional state of an organism.” Is the condition of a 90-year-old suffering from muscle wastage a ‘deviation’?
On the other hand, opponents of the above would argue that ageing is a disease because it can be reversed; if ageing can be reversed, then the age-reversed organism becomes the new ‘normal’ and as a result all aged organisms would be considered ‘deviations.’ Research by Michael Klass managed to pioneer methods to alter the genes of C. Elegans so that their lifespan increased tenfold. Treating ageing as a disease may allow the lifespan of humans to increase in such an exponential manner as well. Furthermore, if ageing of the heart that leads to cardiovascular disorders and ageing of the nerve cells of the brain which leads to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s can be classified as diseases, why cannot the general ageing of the body be classified in the same manner? Finally, a consequentialism adherent would argue that classifying ageing as a disease would invariably lead to increased funding for its ‘cures’? Since everyone is already undergoing ageing, the consequences of this research will then affect virtually everyone.
To conclude, I believe that while the concerns of utilitarianists of how the capital spent on ‘curing’ ageing could be spent on treating more patients has merit, it also cannot be ignored that whatever discoveries are made regarding stopping ageing would impact virtually everyone: if everyone benefits from a cure in the end, what is the harm in investing in such a magical formula?
What do you think? Let me know by answering the question on the side!
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