The Press Journal 10/07/2014, Page A05

How old is too old? Certainly way past 75


Key health care adviser to president offers controversial admission in The Atlantic

In a controversial article in the October issue of The Atlantic, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel writes,Seventy-five. Thats how long I want to live: 75 years. The controversy is not strictly because of the sentiment he expresses; many people feel the same way he does about growing old. Even Psalm 90 describes a similar lifespan:The days of our years are threescore years and ten (70); and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years (80), yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Nor does Emanuel draw cheap attention to himself by advocating for legalizing euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. He has always been against those movements and in favor of improving endof-life care.

But his remarks are provocative because he is one of the most influential doctors in America a key health adviser to President Barack Obama, and brother of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. When he advocates life past 75 is not worth living, at some point there may be public-policy implications.

Ezekiel Emanuel writes:The fact is that by 75, creativity, originality, and productivity are pretty much gone for the vast, vast majority of us. It is true, people can continue to be productive past 75to write and publish, to draw, carve, and sculpt, to compose. But there is no getting around the data. By definition, few of us can be exceptions. Before consigning everyone over 75 to the fate of Soylent Green (if you're under 50, Google that reference), Emanuel should be reminded what his world might look like were it not for those exceptional people over 75.

When he was over 75, President Ronald Reagan gave his famous speech challenging Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. No speech was more crucial to ending 20th century European communism.

While Emanuel, a Democrat, may hold no special fondness for Reagan, he need only look at Edward Kennedy, the longtime Democratic senator from Massachusetts. In 2008, when Kennedy was over 75, he compared Obama to his brother, President John F. Kennedy. The senator then made the momentous decision to endorse Obama for the Democratic nomination for president at the expense of Hillary Clinton. Without the Kennedy endorsement, Obama might not have won.

In his 80s, British leader Winston Churchill completed one of the 20th century's greatest historical works,A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. Astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, became the oldest person to fly in space at age 77. In a remarkable and underreported life, adventurer Barbara Hillary, having survived cancer, became the first African-American woman to reach the North Pole at 75. Four years later, she made it to the South Pole, becoming the first African-American woman to visit both poles.

In The Atlantic, Emanuel despaired of the declining contributions of elderly scientists. Yet when he was 88, Dr. Michael DeBakey, Americas greatest heart surgeon, supervised Russian cardiac surgeons who performed bypass surgery on Russian President Boris Yeltsin. DeBakey practiced medicine, lectured and wrote well into his 90s. His medical career alone spanned Emanuels natural lifespan of 75 years. Barbara McClintock won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine when she was in her 80s for her groundbreaking work in genetics.

If any group has the right to take issue with Emanuel, it is attorneys. When he was 78, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. issued an opinion, familiar to every law student, that outlined the limits of free speech: He wrote that the First Amendment would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.His colleague, Louis Brandeis, served on the court for 23 years, well into his 80s. Four of the nine current Supreme Court justices are over 75.

Great authors including George Bernard Shaw and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe did some of their best writing after they were 75, and two of the immortal artists of the Renaissance, Michelangelo and Titian, worked prolifically until they were nearly 90.

But put aside all the accomplishments of the extraordinary elderly. Emanuel has overstepped his bounds for reasons other than those exceptions. Simply consider ordinary people over 75all the love and affection they give to others, as well as all the love and affection others give to them. Imagine how much poorer our country would be without that love.

Emanuels ostensibly common-sense advice that people should not live past 75 brings to mind what the philosopher Bertrand Russell once wrote,This is one of those views which are so absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them.Russell happened to be 87 when he wrote that.

Dr. Cory Franklin, a Wilmette, Illinois, physician, wrote this for the Chicago Tribune.

CORY FRaNKlIN

GuEst Columnist


Fred

Emanuel is like the rest of barry's homies.

Play the hand you're dealt, and play hard until you can't. How old is too old? That number is different for each individual.

I was reading about B. B. King yesterday, about as good a blues guitarist as ever there was one. At 89 he just cancelled the last eight stops on his latest tour after becoming ill, and having trouble in an earlier concert this year.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/06/...-cancels-tour-dates/

Everyone will hit the point where they can't go on; some much earlier than others. I won't be satisfied with 75; not the way I feel now.

I will be 74 next month. I don't regret my current lack of creativity and productivity. I spent many years successfully being both. So, I read, hunt, reload, swap stuff, fish, kayak, garden, cook, and sit in the sun on cool days....and in the shade on hot days. I hope for many more years of this. When it ends, I am going to be REALLY PISSED!!!

Say what you will about his Presidency, this man doesn't let age define him, and as an ex-President he's done more for humanity at the ground level than any ex-President I know. I hope I'm as sharp, mentally, as Jimmy Carter. He's not too old at 90.

http://www.dallasnews.com/news...tat-in-oak-cliff.ece

Depends on a bunch of things:

This doesn't cover all the bases, but is an example of some things which determine how long anyone will live...

1. Where you live. There are still places and societies where 45 is old.

2. Your genes. If you have a genetic predisposition to certain illness, your chances of being toast by a relatively young age go up immensely.

3. Your occupation. Certain kinds of employment lead to higher death rates for persons who otherwise might live much longer.

4. Your personal habits. What you habitually eat, whether you smoke or don't, whether you do drugs (either recreational or otherwise) and your personal hygiene, all influence your longevity.

5. Your avocations. What a lot of people are into are sports or other hobbies which are very dangerous.

6. Luck, good or bad.

7. Natural body aging. As we age, some types of cells necessary for life quit replacing themselves fast enough to sustain a viable life.

And so on.

IF (and that's a big if) you are healthy, 75 or any other age is somewhat irrelevant.

I think maybe the lesson from all that is that we need to continue being useful and enjoying life as long as we can, with a clear understanding that for most of us death will come as a surprise, when we may least want it to happen.
and we ALL will reach that surprise party sooner or later.

He should avoid the rush and go now. And take his brother with him. We'll all be better off.
btw My handyman is 88, one of my attorneys is 83, and they are more useful than Dr Emanual

My Mother turned 86 this past July. She is thinking about retirement. She has said that for the last eight or nine years. She also says this time she is serious...

Rich

It's how you handle the end-game that shows the real quality of the person, not the number of years.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/14/...index.html?hpt=hp_t2