| Last year there was an explosion of media attention focusing on the idea of extending life span, an explosion that has spilled into 1998. Just about every day, there's been at least one story in the mainstream media on how vitamins can protect against lethal diseases, how nutritional therapies are effective against "untreatable" diseases, and how breakthroughs in anti-aging research and medicine are leading to a longer, healthier human life span.
 We've reported on some of these stories in Life Extension magazine. They demonstrate that the world is finally catching on to the profound implications of the radical advances in research, health care and medicine that the Life Extension Foundation has been documenting for the past two decades.
Now, the idea of attaining physical immortality- which has always been our ultimate goal-has become a major focus of attention in the entertainment world. In this issue, we review a new book, The First Immortal, by James L. Halperin, that describes a plausible scenario for the achievement of an indefinitely long and healthy human life span in the 21st century. A major producer, Robert Halmi (The Odyssey, Gulliver's Travels, Lonesome Dove), is developing a Hallmark Hall of Fame mini-series on CBS-TV based upon The First Immortal, expected to air within the next year. A three-hour movie on the quest for immortality, called Virtual Obsession, was shown on ABC-TV in February.
Immortality as a theme isn't new, but the approach today is very different. Traditionally, the quest for immorality is depicted as an affront to the gods, and those who have pursued it suffer terribly. Immortality as a theme in fiction usually carries the message that it is wrong or futile for humans to seek to live forever, and those who dare to "go too far" will suffer the consequences. Now, however, in some cases the theme of immortality is being advanced by immortalists rather than "deathists." Recent stories about characters who seek to become immortal depict them as rational, intelligent and attractive individuals who are very much in love with life, and who want to experience and enjoy the remarkable benefits of the future. These characters are being shown as valiant and noble rather than vain and desperate, and their quest for immortality is being depicted as healthy and natural rather than twisted and pathological.
Finally, they're being shown to succeed in their quest for immortality, according to the blueprint that we've been proposing since 1980. That blueprint includes the control of human aging through advances in nutrition, neuroendocrinology, genetic engineering and nanotechnology, and the achievement of suspended animation to transport dying mortals into the future to enable them to benefit from the advanced medicine of future immortals.
The Foundation is our bridge to immortality. Everything we do is aimed at overcoming the limitations that make us mortal, at conquering the forces that imprison us in our aging bodies, and shortening the pathway to an indefinitely long and healthy life span.
In The First Immortal, aging and death are not totally defeated until the latter part of the 21st century. We believe this is unduly pessimistic. We're confident we have the intellectual power and tools to pursue these goals right now, and that, with sufficient funding, we can achieve physical immortality in the first part of the 21st century. Join us today! You have nothing to lose but aging, disease and death.
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We've reported on some of these stories in Life Extension magazine. They demonstrate that the world is finally catching on to the profound implications of the radical advances in research, health care and medicine that the Life Extension Foundation has been documenting for the past two decades.
