No life
Crumbs!
How important
Toby Young
Ihave to confess that when I first saw a scientist on Newsnight banging on about the Genome Project I thought it was yet another instance of a man in a white coat mispronouncing a familiar word. The 'g' is silent, I thought irritably. The word is pro- nounced 'rime'. The Gnome Project, I assumed, was a euphemism for the devel- opment of some horrible new weapon, like the Manhattan Project, that would 'crack' our DNA. Once the Gnome Bomb had been detonated we'd all end up looking like Robin Cook.
After last Monday's joint video press conference between Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, I now know better. Or, at least, I know how very, very important the Genome Project is. According to Blair, it's even more momentous than the discovery of antibiotics. Michael Dexter, a director of the Wellcome Trust, added that it meant more to mankind than landing on the moon. Wait. Not even that did it justice. It was more significant, apparently, than the discovery of the wheel. Crumbs! Clearly the Genome Project was up there with the invention of sliced bread.
I was still a little hazy about what this £2 billion enterprise was all about, though, until I heard the words of John Harris, a member of the government's Human Genetics Commission. In a speech on Monday to coincide with the completion of the first stage of the Genome Project, he warned that scientists now had the technol- ogy to increase the human lifespan to 1,200 years. 'Research is being reported which could lead to the indefinite extension of life to the extent, perhaps, that we would begin to think of people who had received such life treatment as immortals,' he said.
Harris seemed to think this was a poten- tially catastrophic development, with all kinds of sinister implications for the human race, but surely it's rather a good thing. It's certainly welcome news for The Spectator, since there will be any number of aging readers with time on their hands. It's also good news for the Tory party. After all, if people get more right-wing as they get older I imagine most 1,200-year-olds will vote Conservative.
I couldn't help feeling that John Harris was missing the big picture. 'We are con- templating a world in which future children would have to compete indefinitely with previous generations for jobs, space and everything else,' he thundered. Well, yes, but we would live for ever. That's more than adequate compensation for a bit of over- crowding. Talk about seeing the glass half- empty! Harris's dire warning is a little like a scientist worrying about increased unem- ployment among his colleagues after they've found a cure for cancer. Curing cancer, by the way, will be one of the spin- offs of the Genome Project.
Personally, I'm rather looking forward to cheating death. As Woody Allen said, I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by living for- ever. When I was a little boy I used to fan- tasise about being granted three wishes by a genie, and my first wish was always that I wouldn't age a day over 35. Of course, in those days I didn't know I'd be completely bald by the time I was 35. But my reason- ing was that if I stopped aging any earlier I'd look too young to do many important jobs. Prime Minister, for instance.
I expect the optimum age to be frozen at, so to speak, will become a fiercely debated topic in years to come when the 'life treat- ment' Harris refers to becomes widely available. No doubt certain Hollywood child stars will elect to receive the treat- ment at the age of eight so that they can go on playing irrepressible little ragamuffins for all eternity. Then again, perhaps the cult of youth will vanish in an era when aging has become a thing of the past.
I expect it'll be some time before we can get the 'life treatment' on the NHS unfor- tunately. Initially, it will only be available to Tony's cronies. We'll just slowly notice that people like Lord Levy aren't getting any older while the rest of us are falling like flies. I can imagine a double-page spread in the Sun featuring two pictures of Baroness Jay taken 20 years apart in which she doesn't appear to have aged a day. The headline will read: Plastic Surgery or "Life Treatment"? Call 0898-743068 to cast your vote.'
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