GBONEWS: UN’s Little-Covered Debate on Right to Long Life; Mental Health in Long-Term Care; Nursing Home Neglect; Health Journalism Awards to ProPublica, New Yorker, Globe and Mail, Others; Adam Gopnik Book on Mastery in Later Life; Plus MORE
GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS
E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations.
May 17, 2023 — Volume 30, Number 6
EDITOR’S NOTE: GBONews, e-news of the Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), publishes alerts for journalists, producers and authors covering generational issues. If you have difficulty getting to the full issue of GBONews with the links provided below, simply go to www.gbonews.org to read the latest or past editions. Send your news of important stories or books (by you and others), fellowships, awards or pertinent kvetches to GBO News Editor Paul Kleyman. [pfkleyman@gmail.com]. To subscribe to GBONews.org at no charge, simply sending a request to Paul with your name, address, phone number and editorial affiliation or note that you freelance. For each issue, you’ll receive the table of contents in an e-mail, so just click through to the full issue at www.gbonews.org. GBONews does not provide its list to other entities. NOTE ALSO: Some news links below hit paywalls and are inaccessible without subscriptions, although a number of those do allow free access to the first few stories.
In This Issue: Bullets, Blades and Baseball Bats, Oh My. (Anyone for Ballots?)
1. GOOD RESOUCES ON GLOBAL LONGEVITY EQUITY: Debate Spotlights Little-Covered Issue of Who Will Live Long and Prosper, Guest Essay by UN Ageing Committee’s Adriane Berg.
2. THE STORYBOARD: *** “Making Mental Health an Integral Part of Primary Care for Older Adults,” by Selen Ozturk, Ethnic Media Services; *** “The Neglect in Nursing Facilities Is No Accident,” Commentary by Margaret Morganroth Gullette, WBUR Boston Public Radio (May 1, 2023):
3. EYES ON THE PRIZE: *** Health Care Journalism 2022 Awards on Aging From Hospice Hustle by ProPublicaand New Yorker to International Profiles of Ageing by Toronto’s Globe & Mail.
4. THE BOOKMOBILE: *** Adam Gopnik Interview on His New Book About the “Mystery of Mastery Later in Life,” by Rich Eisenberg, PBS Next Avenue.
1. GOOD RESOUCES ON GLOBAL LONGEVITY EQUITY
UN Debate Spotlights Little-Covered Issue of Who Will Live Long and Prosper
Editor’s Note: Among the more crucial and dynamic issues of our times is how the longevity revelation may or may not unfold equitably. Who will benefit from scientific breakthroughs globally? Will health and social policies protect future generations equitably? What is journalism’s role in meeting the public’s right to know against the persistent focus on youth and the continual tropes of ageism in the news and entertainment media?
GBONews asked longtime author and Emmy-winning broadcaster Adriane Berg to provide our readers with an overview of emerging issues around longevity equity in her role as a member of the United Nations NGO Committee on Ageing. Besides hosting/producing Generations Bold, one of the longest-running podcasts on aging, Berg is a UN Representative of International Federation on Ageing. As former executive director of the Kitalys Institute for age-related disease she’s also a strong source for reporters on both international and domestic resources on issues of longevity equity at (201) 303 6517, adrianegberg@gmail.com.
By Adriane Berg
In early April, the United Nations convened an unexpectedly tense meeting of its Open-Ended Working Group on Ageing (OEWGA) to discuss establishing a Convention on the human rights of older people, a kind of treaty among countries agreeing to protect the rights of vulnerable elders.
Although most people would think approving this UN Convention would be uncontroversial, during four stressful days, dozens of nations supporting the proposal, such as most South American countries, Jordan and Canada, faced off over the need for the Convention against Russia, China and Egypt. The latter delegations asserted that a UN Convention is unnecessary because they have their own social insurance programs supporting retirement income and healthcare.
The emerging issue of longevity equity, along with health care equity, heightens concerns about who will benefit from developments such as nutraceuticals, AI, mRNA vaccines and diagnostic breakthroughs that are increasing the potential for a long and healthy life. Yet, this debate about who on earth will get to live a long and healthy life received almost no press attention.
Living to 115
The UN adopted its first convention on the human rights of older people 20 years ago, the Madrid International Plan of Action (MIPA). But few experts then could predict how scientific breakthroughs would also emerge with concerns about longevity equity.
Discoveries in geroscience promise incredible advances toward reaching the age of 115 as a norm—but for whom? Who will have access to preventive aging measures, including diagnostics, devices and pharmaceuticals? Who will have the means to access the social determinants of healthy longevity, like education, childhood nutrition, exercise, and biophilia, in age-healthy environments?
While Conventions have the laudable aim of upholding the rights of specific groups in areas such as inclusion, education or healthcare, they come with oversight by the UN and sanctions for violations, such as with the Convention on the Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
One hopeful scientific development has been the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) recently funding a study of the effect of Metformin on healthy adults to prolong healthy aging. Metformin is a sixty-year-old drug prescribed for Type 2 Diabetes. Geroscientists, including Dr. Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at New York’s Montefiore Hospital, have been championing its use as a longevity drug.
Right now, although insurance covers the drug for diabetics, it is only available to non-diabetics who can afford to pay up to $100 a month out of pocket. If the FDA study determines that the drug meets its required endpoints, it may be covered by private insurance, insurance at work, Medicare, or Medicaid for those who don’t have diabetes. The Targeting Aging with Metformin (TAME) Trial is a series of nationwide, six-year clinical trials at 14 leading research institutions across the country that will engage over 3,000 individuals between the ages of 65-79.
In other recent research intended to reverse aging or prevent age decline, blindness, such as from age-related macular degeneration and glaucoma, was reversed in mice. Stem-cell therapy for longevity, genetic and epigenetic research, and the impact of good nutrition and access to exercise and cognitive stimulation are under study to keep people healthy for longer.
These research breakthroughs, along with work by scientists like Dr. Daniel Belsky of Columbia University Aging Center on the social determinants of longevity, have increased healthy life expectancy. They have addressed various issues, such as childhood nutrition, early life education, supportive parental relationships, and behavioral health in eschewing addictive drugs, smoking, and excessive alcohol use. The FDA is considering a lifestyle protocol prescription that Medicaid and Medicare would eventually cover.
Longevity’s Haves and Have-Nots.
In tandem with today’s pressing issues of health care equity, such as access to the fascinating scientific breakthroughs covered by science writers worldwide, are findings in longevity research and accompanying public health policy. Together the health care and generations beats form 360-degree coverage revealing the impact of both the future of geroscience and the reality of how we age, when we age, the cost of longevity, and, indeed, who will age healthily.
The United Nations has declared the 2020s as the Decade of Healthy Aging. But it has focused on personal habits and access to curative healthcare.
The possibility of preventive healthcare and how local and national governments can increase healthy aging is recently under discussion as a potential human right. Thus, the issues of an international Convention on the rights of older persons and the advent of geoscience breakthroughs have become linked.
In the United Kingdom, the All-Parliamentary Group on Ageing and Older Persons seeks to establish practical policies that would increase the healthy life expectancy of every citizen by five years by the year 2030. According to a benchmark study in Health Affairs, “The economic value of delayed aging is estimated to be $7.1 trillion over fifty years. The greater investment in research to delay aging appears to be a highly efficient way to forestall disease, extend healthy life, and improve public health.”
Recent developments in Singapore and Sweden have affirmed that preventive medicine, a culture of exercise and inclusion of older adults, age-friendly cities, and intergenerational spaces contribute to an atmosphere where longevity and health span could become accessible to all. For example, Singapore’s National Silver Academy and the SkillsFuture Programme promote adult learning and economic independence to thwart the loss of both social networks and paychecks.
Nevertheless, there is a cost to healthy longevity, especially as efficacious breakthroughs add potent components to the possibility of a longer life, all at a price. In Sweden, health expenditure represents a little over 11% of its GDP, emphasizing preventive medicine.
Great stories can be written on nutraceuticals like NMN, an anti-aging molecule, fortified foods like juice with added vitamins and minerals, and regenerative farming, which rebuilds the soil so crops are more nutritious. Or on longevity policy. For example, the FDA is rethinking its policies on what clinical trials must show to reach the drug approval stage.
As the past executive director of The Kitalys Institute for the Delay and Prevention of Age-Related Diseases, I have seen a change in thinking at the FDA that may consider therapies aimed at increasing longevity as a target for clinical research, which may result in approving drugs, devices, and diagnostics that expand life expectancy, not necessarily cure a disease.
Also, academia is including longevity equity in discussions and recommendations regarding public policies in health care, workplace health regulations, lifelong learning, the built environment, environmentalism, and the training of doctors and other medical professionals considering the possibility of a 100-plus year life.
Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Policy recently hosted a presentation on the future of longevity and health with Dean Linda Fried and Dr. Victor Dzau, President of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
The fascinating topics and rich resources around longevity science and its potential inequities raise critical questions for our time. What, exactly, is this country’s policy on longevity? New lobbying organizations are being formed to press for a US longevity policy, but with what agendas? What are they proposing? Who leads these efforts, and what are the funding sources? Will a range of older people provide input into longevity goals? How does the US model compare with international legislative models like the UK and Singapore? Will longevity-equality advocacy result in successful or failed efforts regarding gender, LGBTQ+, and racial equity?
As for the fervent debate over approving the new Convention, on the final day of April’s meeting members of the Open-Ended Working Group on Ageing agreed to document key gaps in international law needing to be addressed as a step toward adoption.
For journalists, the themes of medical advances, lifestyle decisions and related social policies, the United Nations context of a global convention concerning the human rights of older people offers writers a way to frame these fascinating developments in broadly compelling terms.
2. THE STORYBOARD
*** “Making Mental Health an Integral Part of Primary Care for Older Adults,” by Selen Ozturk, Ethnic Media Services (May 4, 2023): The Dek: “With a quarter of Californians aged 65 or older by 2030, the state is looking for ways to better meet the mental and behavioral health needs of its older adult population.”
The Lede: “San Francisco resident Fancher Larson has spent much of her career advocating for the rights of people with mental health challenges. An older adult, she was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and now worries what will happen to her adult son if she’s unable to care for him.”
What: Larson “spoke during an April 27 roundtable discussion . . . organized by the California Department of Aging (CDA). . . The gathering is part of state-wide efforts to improve services for older adults under California’s Master Plan for Aging, a 10-year blueprint aimed at enhancing state- and local-level support in five key areas: housing, healthcare, social equity, caregivers, and financial security. Fifteen percent of California residents are aged 65 or older. That number is expected to rise to 25% by 2030.”
Where: CDA Director Susan DeMarois said the goal of the roundtable – the first of four, with three more in Fresno, San Bernardino, and Ukiah – is to garner community input . . . around meeting the behavioral health needs of older adults, who have seen a spike in physical and mental health problems since the start of the pandemic.
Ethnic Disparities: “’Mental health is still a taboo in many communities of color,’ said Michelle Fonseca, . . . a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. ‘With all of the disinformation around COVID, many seniors didn’t want to be vaccinated,” Fonseca continued. “In my neighborhood, it was community members knocking on doors, speaking Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, that gave these folks that sense of security to go and get the vaccine.’”
LGBTQ+: “’People are much more likely to overcome their fears if someone like them is sitting across the room or is on the other line,’ said Dr. Marcy Adelman, co-founder of the LGBTQ+ senior resource center Openhouse SF and a member of the California Commission on Aging. Adelman, along with On Lok Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ben Lui, both stressed that mental and behavioral health support needs to be better integrated into primary care services.”
*** “The Neglect in Nursing Facilities Is No Accident,” Commentary by Margaret Morganroth Gullette, WBUR Boston Public Radio (May 1, 2023):
Humiliation: Gullette, who is working on her latest book on issues in ageism, titled American Eldercide, wrote, “My mother, a healthy 83-year-old, had broken her hip. . . I flew to Florida for support. . . Around midnight, she called and woke me up. The call-button had produced no result . . . A bedpan that arrives 15 minutes late is a humiliation. . . People lie dehydrated and unwashed in soiled beds, leading to urinary tract infections and skin problems. Others whose needs were ignored too long may need hospitalization, or even die in their beds. One woman died outside in the cold.”
COVID: “After the first year of COVID, a survey by the National Consumer Voice For Quality Care found that 87% of families had noticed similar deteriorations. To add insult to injury, in a report called ‘Broken Promises,’ the Long Term Care Community Coalition, reviewing 290,000 harm reports, found many atrocious deficiencies cited by state supervisors as ‘not harm’ . . . Understaffing also destroys morale among aides.”
The Economics: “Nursing facilities are a multi-billion-dollar industry that can be inefficient, cruel and lethal. Some are decent employers, but in many facilities, understaffing, underpaying and overworking employees . . . are part of the standard business model. Many for-profit owner/operators slyly siphon off the money to ‘related parties’ they also own, like realtors or janitorial services, to give stockholders their expected dividends. Their advocates misleadingly name that despicable system ‘flexible’ staffing.”
3. EYES ON THE PRIZE
*** Health Care Journalism Awards on Aging: The Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ) presented its 2022 Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism during its annual conference in March. The following winning entries in some of the 14 categories focused on issues affecting elders.
* Health Policy Category, First Place: “Endgame: How the Visionary Hospice Movement Became a For-Profit Hustle,” by Ava Kofman, ProPublica and The New Yorker (Nov. 28, 2022): The Dek: “Half of all Americans now die in hospice care. Easy money and a lack of regulation transformed a crusade to provide death with dignity into an industry rife with fraud and exploitation.
* Student Category, First Place: “Growing Older,” produced by Fellows and Faculty of the Global Reporting Program, University of British Columbia (UBC) School of Journalism, Global Reporting Program, published in conjunction with Toronto’s Globe & Mail. That paper’s companion overview explains, “As we age, we accumulate loss – of mobility, cognition, income, independence and more. But the greatest loss of all is one that is often overlooked: agency, the ability to have a modicum of control over our daily lives. Elders are routinely stripped of agency – culturally, socially and financially. It’s no wonder aging is something we dread.”
The winning series, published in October 2022, includes:
– SOUTH KOREA: “South Korea’s Economic Miracle Has Left Seniors Behind.”A profile of Yeong-Im Jung, age 75, by reporters Natasha Caton, Yejin Jo and Heung-su Kim, headlined
– CANADA: “Home Is Where the Heart Is—Seniors Desire to Live at Home.” Profile of Quita Longmore, 79, by reporting team: Rowan Smart, Michelle Meiklejohn, Ridge Zhang, Arrthy Thayaparan, Sabina Staempfli, and Ashishvangh Contractor: The Dek: “In a poll, 85% of Canadians said they’d do ‘everything they can’ to age at home. Quita Longmore shares that sentiment — but it can be challenging in practice.
– FINLAND: “Finland’s Memory Crisis,” by Vilma Aholuoto, Sandra Korhonen, and Saana Uosukainen. The Dek: “Finland has the highest prevalence of dementia in the OECD. Despite his diagnosis, Lasse Ainasoja says the country is ‘safe to grow old in.’”
– SWEDEN: “Aging on a Heating Planet,” by Chiara Milford. The Dek: “The immediate effects of climate change are already impacting seniors in devastating ways. Rather than fade away, some elders in Sweden have taken to the streets, determined to leave a healthier planet once they’re gone.” Story profiles Lisa Högberg, 77.
* Trade Publications, Third Place: “Hospice Has a Diversity Problem,” Liz Seegert, American Journal of Nursing (November 2022): The Dek: “The aging population highlights disparities in end-of-life care and nursing recruitment challenges.” Addition congratulations go to our GBONews colleague, Liz Seegert, for picking up and Honorable Mention at the American Society of Journalists and Authors for her article, Global Vaccine Inequity (April 2022), also in the American Journal of Nursing.
* Audio Reporting (Small Division), Third Place: “The cost of forgetting: Dementia’s tax on financial health,” Sarah Boden and Maria Carter, 90.5 WESA News (NPR, Pittsburgh).
* Business, Third Place: The Cash Monster Was Insatiable: How Insurers Exploited Medicare for Billions, by Reed Abelson and Margot Sanger-Katz, The New York Times (Oct,. 8, 2022). The Dek: “By next year, half of Medicare beneficiaries will have a private Medicare Advantage plan. Most large insurers in the program have been accused in court of fraud.”
* Consumer, Third Place: “In the Label ‘Adult Failure to Thrive,’ Medicine Reveals Its Own Failures,” Eric Boodman,STAT (July 12, 2022):
The Issue: “’When an older adult is called ‘failure to thrive,’ we see a lot of ageism come in, and we see the health care system start to ignore their problems,” said Sharon Brangman, chair of geriatrics at the State University of New York Upstate. ‘It’s used to totally disregard a person. That’s kind of the ageist approach. You lump everybody in one basket, and then you don’t take care of them’ . . . As it became part of the medical vocabulary, ‘adult failure to thrive’ took on a peculiar role: a translation for what in an older patient wasn’t immediately, precisely translatable. . .
“The dearth of geriatricians and the use of ‘adult failure to thrive’ are linked, both symptoms of an ageist system, one that has traditionally devalued elder care of all stripes, leaving hospitals and their staffs ill-equipped for some of the patients who need them most.”
* Also, During the Conference, AHCJ Broke the News that it will ended its 18-year-long relationship with the University of Missouri School of Journalism as of June 1, 2023. In a press statement, AHCJ Executive Director Kelsey Ryan said the group and its sister organization, the Center for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. She stated, “The decision comes after a careful review of AHCJ’s operations, budget and the changes in how staff work as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The 1,500-member association moved to Missouri in 2005 from its original location at the University of Minnesota. According to the association’s release, “Under the new arrangement, all AHCJ staff — who live across four states — will work remotely with expanded benefits and in-person staff retreats a few times a year.”
4. THE BOOKMOBILE
*** “The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik on the Mystery of Mastery Later in Life,” by Rich Eisenberg, PBS Next Avenue(April 13, 2023): In this illuminating interview with New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik about his new book, The Real Work, Eisenberg asked about many aspects of aging and the mysteries of trying to master new tasks, some that people leave behind in their years of building family and work.
At one point Eisenberg asked, “One thing I enjoyed about the book is the connection between family and mastery. You wrote about your mother’s strudel baking and your son’s card magic, your daughter’s ballroom dancing and your grandfather’s boxing. Can you talk about the connection between mastery and family?”
Gopnik replied, “One of the secrets of the greatest masters is that they are in touch with everything they are. And more than anything else, what we are is the people who raised us and whom we married and gave birth to and raised ourselves.
“I couldn’t box without the ghostly presence of my grandfather who lived for boxing and whose enthusiasm for boxing had been sort of opaque to me for a very long time. I couldn’t bake at all without reflecting on my mother who’s been a baker her whole life. The mystery of mastery is that inside that mystery inevitably is the whole of our genesis, the whole of our history. The mystery contains a history, to sound a bit like Muhammad Ali. And it’s inescapable.”
The Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), founded in 1993, publishes Generations Beat Online News (GBONews.org). JNG provides information and networking opportunities for journalists covering generational issues, but not those representing services, products or lobbying agendas. Copyright 2023 JNG. For more information contact GBO Editor Paul Kleyman.
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