Over 50? You're On Your Own

Sophia and Lila are out of the pool. The cousins are coming for dinner, and I am setting the table. The numbers gnaw at me. Public health policy is beginning to sound like television programming, which is aimed at people between 18 and 49. The networks don't want older viewers, because advertisers don't seek older customers. Even though, with the aging of the boomers, the fastest-growing segment of the population is over 50.

Now ageism seems to be getting a theoretical justification in rationing medical services. The principle of "years yet to live" wins over "lives saved." It's as though television producers were to justify their prejudice against older people by saying that they value the years a viewer may stay glued to the tube over the total number of viewers in a season. Never mind that healthy people over 50 can look forward to many more decades of watching television and shopping.

My daughter comes in from rowing. (She and her husband fall into the privileged demographic.) I simmer down. There are good scientific reasons to favor the young in the case of avian flu. In the flu pandemic of 1918, young adults were at greatest risk of illness and death; they might again be the ones most in need of protection.

The main problem, as the rebels point out, is that the country doesn't have the capacity to produce enough vaccine to stem a future epidemic. Only about 10 percent of the population could be immunized in the first year.

Sophia and Lila sit down for supper. There is no knock on the door -- not yet, anyway. But the world has changed since I was a little girl visiting my grandmother at this same place. Unlike previous generations, I have a new stage of life ahead of me, thanks to health gains and longer life spans. There is more to do, many to love, much to contribute.

Fate is uncertain, but my granddaughters have a good statistical chance to reach the age of 80, or even 100. I want them to grow up in a culture that values old people. ·

Comments:mytime@washpost.com.