On Monday, May 16, the London paper The Independent published a story by its science editor informing its readers that a blood test will soon show how fast a person is aging. It will cost £435 and will go on sale in the U.K. later this year and will “offer the tantalizing possibility” of estimating how long a person may have left to live (unless that person is run over by a truck). The test measures vital structures called “telomeres” on the tips of a person’s chromosomes. Scientists believe they are one of the most important and accurate indicators of the speed at which a person is aging. It will show whether a person’s biological age, as measured by the length of the telomeres, is older or younger than the chronological age.
In 1976, Eric Koch published The Last Thing You Would Want to Know, i.e., the date of your death. It was a futuristic novel – the future then was the American election in the Orwellian year 1984. In the novel, the Democratic candidate, who stood for reason and science, could predict, on the basis of a blood test, how long a person would live (unless that person was run over by a truck). The Republican candidate, a gorgeous and sophisticated lady from California, could make the same prediction using witchcraft, going even further because she would know even if the person would be run over by a truck. (In the ’sixties and ’seventies, witchcraft was more fashionable than it is now.) Guess who won.
In that novel, Koch dealt with the question of how we would live if we carried with us little cards showing our birth date and our death date. His conclusion: not very differently from the way we live now.
The story in The Independent was followed by a section “Vox Pop: so, would you take the test?”
Trevor Salmon, 53, musician
It is a brilliant breakthrough because we spend every day of our lives trying to live longer. The idea that time is finite is a very hard reality to accept. If this is accurate, then it will enable us to make preparations and refine our lives accordingly.
Samira Melloul, 28, entrepreneur
My curiosity would make me pay for it. But I would need to be convinced by the firm’s credentials. I don’t like the idea that such critical DNA data would be with a company that could store it or sell it on to third parties. In the future, this type of information will become very valuable.
Narek Sarkissian, 27, engineer
I don’t trust it. Life is about chance and you could die crossing the street tomorrow. What’s the point of a DNA test when our true fate is out of our hands? Offering to predict these things with an element of certainty is ambitious and simply not worth my time. There are much better things I could spend that money on.
Natalie Burger, 60, retired
I wouldn’t want to know when I was going to die. I’m 60 now and I keep thinking maybe I have another 15 years. But perhaps I have less than that. I don’t make plans and have to accept that when my time has come, it’s over. Some of this information is all too frightening and is better left alone.
Eric Koch’s book, The Weimar Triangle, is available at Indigo-Chapters and in your local bookstore. 
I may be willing to take the test 30 years from now, if longitudinal studies prove the test accurate. By then I’ll be 94.
This so-called advance, like knowing a child’s gender before it’s born, falls into the category of things we don’t need to know. One of life’s pleasures (albeit a somewhat unsettling one from time to time) is the unpredictability of it all. Let’s not remove uncertainty and surprise from life’s menu.
By the way, the emergence of a non-fiction lifespan blood test proves, once again, that Eric Koch is a very prescient life-form.
Has Eric Koch considered taking legal action for the appropriation of his idea?
I see a couple of serious problems related to such a test (assuming its actual predictive power). The worst is that insurance companies might insist on it before setting premiums for life or health insurance. Anyone doomed to die early would soon find the cost too high. Such a test would also quickly put all actuaries out of business — I know a couple of them — nice folks — I wouldn’t like to see them unemployed.
Your points were touched on in the Independent story.
You are right, of course.