Aging is excluded from WHO work program. Please react!
Ilia Stambler
Dear friends,
I wanted to bring to your attention an important and urgent issue for aging care and research.
It turns out that in the forthcoming work program of the World Health Organization (WHO) for the next 5 years – 2018-2023 – the issue of aging and aging-related ill health is excluded completely! This means that, within the next 5 years, according to this document, the World Health Organization is not obliged to do anything to care for the health of older persons or to improve their health, not to mention conduct any research and development to create new therapies and technologies for improving the health of the aged, or any kind of longevity research. The issues of aged health are not in the WHO work program! This is the essence of ageism in health care and health research!
http://www.who.int/about/gpw-thirteen-consultation/en/
Currently, the WHO conducts a public consultation about the draft Work Program. Please use the link below to participate in the consultation! Please explain to the World Health Organization that the issue of Aging is important, and the care and improvement of health of the aged, also through increasing biomedical R&D of aging, are important! The consultation fields are easy to fill in, and even a couple of sentences, with your affiliation, could help break the ageist wall! The consultation takes place until November 15. Please also spread the word in your circles. Thank you for your action!
http://www.who.int/about/gpw-thirteen-consultation/en/
In the words of Jane Barratt, Secretary General of the International Federation on Ageing (IFA) that brings this issue to the highlight of global public discussion: “We urge the WHO to rectify the glaring omission of population ageing and older people in the draft 13th General Programme of Work. It is a striking oversight that will diminish its credibility among all of us. Make your voice heard bit.”
Sincerely,
Ilia Stambler, PhD
On behalf of Vetek (Seniority) Association – the Senior Citizens Movement (Israel)
http://www.longevityisrael.org/
Longevity for All
Ilia Stambler, PhD
Outreach Coordinator. International Society on Aging and Disease - ISOAD http://isoad.org
Chair. Israeli Longevity Alliance / CSO. Vetek (Seniority) Association – The Senior Citizens Movement (Israel) http://www.longevityisrael.org/
Coordinator. Longevity for All http://www.longevityforall.org
Author. Longevity History. A History of Life-Extensionism in the Twentieth Century ; Longevity Promotion: Multidisciplinary Perspectives http://longevityhistory.com
Email: ilia.s...@gmail.com
Tel: 972-3-961-4296 / 0522-283-578
Skype: iliastam
Rishon Lezion. Israel
Ilia Stambler
Thank you Lincoln!
Here I prepared a statement for the consultation, on behalf of our organization – the Vetek (Seniority) Association – the Senior Citizens Movement (Israel).
Please see the link:
It is summarized in the title: Include specific tasks and goals to improve health of the global aging population into the WHO 13th General Programme of Work (GPW13).
The statement is short, but not very short, as I believe should be a statement on behalf of an organization. But I do encourage you to make statements of any length, individually and/or on behalf of your organizations! It could be a thorough analysis or just a statement like “The WHO should care for the health of the aged. Please include the issues of aged health into the WHO work program”.
http://www.who.int/about/gpw-thirteen-consultation/en/
You are welcome to reuse any of the statements in our appeal, and/or create your own (perhaps better to have multiple voices). Also joint commenting and petitioning for several organizations may be possible (may need to coordinate).
If you can talk with any journalists you know that could help raise this issue in public discussion – that could also help make the impact, even regardless of WHO’s operations, even just to increase publicity for biomedical aging research.
Thanks. Yours,
Ilia
Thank you, Ilia. I submitted a simple statement that may be helpful for others to use:"Please revise to include the issue of aging and aging-related ill health."
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Ilia Stambler
Just to add. We do need to increase publicity about this outrageous issue of the exclusion of aging health from the draft WHO work program. For example, the facebook post below reached over 30,000 people. But generally, the coverage of this global scandal has been next to zero. So in case you did not yet, please do respond to the WHO consultation (in the second link below, until Nov. 15). Please demand that aging health is included into the WHO work program. If possible please engage journalists, bloggers, high officials that you know. It will be a shame if aging is excluded from the WHO work program. For one, it will tell the governments that aging is not an issue. And practically, many existing and future health care and health research programs on aging can be eliminated. Thanks for your action.
Ilia Stambler
Just an update.
Please note that the deadline for the WHO public consultation was extended until Nov. 23. So more people can be involved, well up to the meeting of the WHO executive board on Nov. 22-23. Please keep demanding, in the link below, that WHO includes aging health, including biomedical R&D on aging, into its Work Program (where this topic is currently absent….)
http://www.who.int/about/gpw-thirteen-consultation/en/
In addition to responding to the consultation, please help spread the word – share, forward, post, contact journalists, officials.
And here are also some points that could be mentioned. Thank you!
Ilia
Ilia Stambler
Another update (apparently the last one in this batch, as the WHO consultation and executive committee meeting end tomorrow - Nov. 23). Toward the WHO meeting, a joint position statement has just been published, entitled:
“Aging health and R&D for healthy longevity must be included into the WHO Work Program”. Aging and Disease. 9(1):1-3, 2018. Available on line:
http://www.aginganddisease.org/EN/10.14336/AD.2017.1120
http://www.isoad.org/Data/View/745
The signatories include leaders of the International Society on Aging and Disease (ISOAD), American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR), International Federation on Ageing (IFA), International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics - IAGG (European Region and Asia-Oceania), International Longevity Center - Australia, The Gerontological Society of the Russian Academy of Sciences, African Society for Ageing Research and Development (ASARD).
Welcome to reference this document in your advocacy efforts!
In case you have not yet done so, you can still respond to the WHO consultation through November 23, demanding that aging health and R&D for healthy longevity are included into the WHO work program. You can still spread the word and increase publicity about this important issue! Many thanks to everybody who already participated! I hope we succeed!
http://www.who.int/about/gpw-thirteen-consultation/en/
https://www.facebook.com/longevityforall/posts/1466226320080764?pnref=story
Thanks!
Ilia
Ilia Stambler
Dear friends and colleagues.
Many apologies for the many messages (and possible repetitions)! But the issue is significant for everybody engaged in aging health care and aging health research.
I just wanted to update you that it looks like our joint advocacy efforts with the WHO had some effects. About 90% of the responses (of over 400 by Nov. 19 and more are coming in) were about the lack of aging in the WHO program. And following those comments, as the “proposed action” WHO apparently plans to commit to including WHO’s earlier “Global Strategy and Action Plan on Aging and Health - GSAP” in its work program (including GSAP strategic objective 5 "Improving measurement, monitoring and research on Healthy Ageing").
(Of course, that is just partial information, mainly according to the WHO Presentation
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/events/2017/executive-special-session/executive-board-slides.pdf?ua=1
It is still too early to make any definite conclusions. We will still need to watch the process for the long run, and respond accordingly.)
But apparently some contribution was made. Thank you very much for your involvement and effort!
That is just a start. We can still advocate with WHO for the strong emphasis on aging health and R&D for healthy longevity through May 2018 (when the work program is submitted to the WHO assembly).
Even now you are welcome to continue responding to the WHO consultation, and emphasize the importance of aging health and biomedical aging research, as the deadline was again extended through Nov. 29, if you have not yet done so. http://www.who.int/about/gpw-thirteen-consultation/en/
Please also spread the word (also in the media and social media, as mass media ignores this topic, even though this issue relates basically to everybody). We have to make the need to promote aging health overwhelmingly clear to WHO (>95%)!
Thanks again!
Ilia Stambler, PhD
Outreach coordinator. International Society on Aging and Disease (ISOAD)
http://www.aginganddisease.org/EN/10.14336/AD.2017.1120
http://www.isoad.org/Data/View/745
Longevity for all
http://www.longevityforall.org/aging-is-excluded-from-who-work-program-please-react/