
In "Elderhood," Pulitzer Prize finalist Louise Aronson confronts medicine's blind spot: aging. Through harrowing case studies and personal reflections, she exposes healthcare's systemic ageism. What if our fear of growing old is killing us faster than aging itself?
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A ninety-eight-year-old man arrives at the clinic. His nickname? Kid. The neurologist has prescribed him daily aspirin for stroke prevention-a medication that, at his age, poses more danger than benefit. Internal bleeding, hospitalization, even death: these are the risks we're willing to impose on someone who has outlived 99.99% of humanity. What exactly are we preventing? This isn't an isolated mistake. It's emblematic of a medical system that routinely excludes older adults from clinical trials, then prescribes them the very drugs proven only to harm them. When adverse effects emerge, we blame age rather than acknowledging our own failures. This is where we are: a culture so terrified of aging that we've built an entire healthcare apparatus designed to fight it-even when that fight causes more suffering than the condition itself.
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