To Live Forever

To Milan Panic and all the other fine gentlemen mentioned in “Forever Young”: What is the point of prolonging life in our youth-worshiping society where the elderly are shunted aside like debris? The only person in the article who displayed any sensitivity and questioned the value of all this research, Tom Johnson, speculates that “people might spend 50 years in a nursing home.” But forget the nursing and convalescent homes for a minute; the residents there are already ill. Think instead of the well people, the ones pushed out of the mainstream and living in one-room apartments, as often as not forgotten.

These scientists might alter their priorities slightly if they spent some time with the elderly. They might discover that the physical and mental problems for the total body in this age group are secondary to the emotional.

David R. Moss

Los Angeles