|  If
you live to be 120 years old, you may have Sandy Shaw to thank. Shaw
(along with her husband Durk Pearson) is one of the nation's leading
experts on scientific methods of extending human life spans. And if
you end up living in a more free America, you may have Sandy Shaw
to thank. Shaw (again, along with Durk Pearson) is one of the nation's
leading libertarians, and an outspoken proponent of a constitutionally
limited government.
Those two interests -- life extension and freedom -- are related.
In 1994, Shaw and Pearson sued the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
over whether manufacturers of dietary supplements had the First Amendment
right to publicize the scientifically established benefits of their
products. As Shaw said, "They set up a system in which you can
not communicate any information whatsoever on labels or in ads --
no matter how much supporting evidence you have for it -- unless the
FDA first gives you permission to do so. Well, this is a violation
of the First Amendment." In 1999, a U.S. District Court ruled
unanimously in their favor, striking down the FDA ban on "non-government
approved" health claims. Thanks to the ruling, dietary supplement
and herbal remedy companies can now publicize health benefits that
meet a "weight of the scientific evidence" standard.
The lawsuit wasn't the first time that Shaw and Pearson made headlines.
They burst on the public scene in 1982 with their book Life Extension:
A Practical Scientific Approach. In 1984, they published The
Life Extension Companion. The two books, both bestsellers, were
among the first to address the science of human aging -- and offer
possible methods of combating it. The books helped launch the modern
longevity and dietary supplement movements.
Before writing the books, the two had used their multidisciplinary
backgrounds -- Shaw has a biochemistry degree from UCLA, while Pearson
has a degree in physics from MIT -- to study scientific research on
the causes of aging. Armed with a new understanding of its biochemical
mechanisms, Shaw and Pearson began to recommend vitamins, nutrients,
and supplements (including green tea to inhibit cancer; vitamin E
and low-dose aspirin to fight heart attacks; choline to improve cognitive
abilities, and so on) to combat common age-related disabilities and
illnesses.
In 1980, they founded the nonprofit Life Extension Foundation, which
has the long-range goal of radically extending healthy human life
spans. They also run the Life Extension Nutrition Center, which sells
nutrients and supplements, and publish Life Extension magazine,
which offers up-to-date coverage of the latest scientific and medical
research on aging.
Along with her interest in science and health, Shaw has maintained
her passion for liberty. In the 1997 book, Maverick of the Mind,
Shaw shared her libertarian opinions on a number of issues:
* On Social Security: "The huge taxes we're paying for Social
Security are a rip-off. We're not going to get anything back... There
isn't even a 'Social Security Trust Fund.' The government spends all
the money as it comes in and puts non-negotiable IOUs in to replace
it."
* On politicians: "The trouble is that the politicians have mortgaged
the future in order to scrounge up the money to keep on buying votes."
* On the FDA: "If the FDA could be gotten out of the way, you
would see the most incredible progress -- medical progress in general,
and life extension in particular."
* On the Constitution: "The Constitution isn't perfect, but it
is a hell of a lot better than what we have now. You have to have
clear and principled limits to the powers of any government or it
gets out of control."
Shaw and Pearson are members of the Colorado-based libertarian Eris
Society, and are senior editors at Liberty magazine. Together, they
won the Award of Excellence in Education from the Association for
Holistic Health and the Paul F. Glenn Award from the American Aging
Association.
--
Bill Winter
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Quotable
"We're
people who are passionately interested in personal freedom. Freedom
is, if not the very top value that we both have, it's certainly way
up there. Freedom is something that we've put a lot of our time and
energy into." -- Sandy Shaw in an interview in Maverick of
the Mind: Conversations for the New Millennium (1997), by David
Jay Brown & Rebecca McCLen Novick
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