Health advocacy organizations (HAOs) are influential stakeholders in health policy. Although their advocacy tends to closely correspond with the pharmaceutical industry's marketing aims, the financial relationships between HAOs and the pharmaceutical industry have rarely been analyzed. We used Eli Lilly and Company's grant registry to examine its grant-giving policies. We also examined HAO Web sites to determine their grant-disclosure patterns. Only 25% of HAOs that received Lilly grants acknowledged Lilly's contributions on their Web sites, and only 10% acknowledged Lilly as a grant event sponsor. No HAO disclosed the exact amount of a Lilly grant. As highly trusted organizations, HAOs should disclose all corporate grants, including the purpose and the amount. Absent this disclosure, legislators, regulators, and the public cannot evaluate possible conflicts of interest or biases in HAO advocacy.

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The idea of establishing a market for organs is now the subject of unusual controversy. Proponents emphasize the concept of autonomy; opponents invoke fairness and justice. The controversy, however, has given sparse attention to what it would mean to society and medicine to establish a market in organs and to the intended and unintended consequences of such a practice. This article addresses these issues by exploring the tensions between 'extrinsic' and 'intrinsic' incentives, suggesting that donation might well decline were financial incentives introduced. It also contends that social relationship and social welfare policy would be transformed in negative ways and that a regulated market in organs would be extraordinarily difficult to achieve. Finally, it argues that organ sale would have a highly detrimental affect on medicine as a profession.

In spite of considerable hype to the contrary, there is no convincing evidence that currently existing so-called "antiaging" remedies promoted by a variety of companies and other organizations can slow aging or increase longevity in humans. Nevertheless, a variety of experiments with laboratory animals indicate that aging rates and life expectancy can be altered. Research going back to the 1930s has shown that caloric restriction (also called dietary restriction) extends life expectancy by 30-40% in experimental animals, presumably at least partially by delaying the occurrence of age-dependent diseases. Mutations that decrease production of insulin growth factor I in laboratory mammals, and those that decrease insulin-like signaling in nematodes and fruit flies, have increased life expectancy as well. Other general strategies that appear promising include interventions that reduce oxidative stress and/or increase resistance to stress; hormone and cell replacement therapies may also have value in dealing with specific age-related pathologies. This article reports the findings of a consensus workshop that discussed what is known about existing and future interventions to slow, stop, or reverse aging in animals, and how these might be applied to humans through future research.

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