“Seventy-five. That’s how long I want to live: 75 years.” States Ezekiel Emanuel, the most prominent member of former Vice President Joe Biden’s “Public Health Advisory Committee.”  Ezekiel Emanuel, Atlantic, 2014

The in-depth interview continues: “We should focus on giving all terminally ill people a good, compassionate death…I think this manic desperation to endlessly extend life is misguided and potentially destructive.”

“Living too long is … a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. By the time I reach 75, I will have lived a complete life…my approach to my health care will completely change. I won’t actively end my life. But I won’t try to prolong it, either. At 75 and beyond, I will need a good reason to even visit the doctor and take any medical test or treatment, no matter how routine and painless. And that good reason is not “It will prolong your life.” I will stop getting any regular preventive tests, screenings, or interventions. I will accept only palliative—not curative—treatments if I am suffering pain or other disability.”

Dr. Emanuel sums up his interview: “Are we to embrace the ‘American immortal’ or my ‘75 and no more’ view?”

The Spectator, April 9: Last February the good doctor returned from a conference at the World Health Organization (WHO) where, he said, “most people are thinking that there may be a bit of an overreaction by many, maybe even our own country.” (In January Trump had already closed travel from China and declared the coronavirus a public health risk).  Now, seven weeks later, Emanuel insists that the U.S. must stay locked down for 18 months: “We will not be able to return to normalcy until we find a vaccine.”  

Following Dr. Imanuel’s 18 month lockdown will the cure be worse than the problem?

New York Times, April 13^th “It’s a public health crisis that should be recognized,” said Colleen Galambos, a committee member and a gerontologist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “People who normally wouldn’t be considered isolated or lonely are now experiencing it.”

“Seventy Five,” this from the man who will be advising the putative president of the United States, Joe Biden.  If that is his viewpoint, why should we spend all this time, all this money, all the fuss to save some old and already medically compromised buggar from the coronavirus?  Hey Joe, let’s get our citizens back to work again.

ED. I am writing this at the age of 81-an old buggar!