I do not think keeping people alive is the goal at all. It's about funding and advancing a system of medical research for a variety of profit and ego driven motives. If we wanted to keep people alive there are much simpler steps that could be implemented. for example we would ban cars, smoking, fat foods, obesity and mandate healthy living. Those things alone would save more lives than they would save with some potential cure from Stem cell research. Yet like the spoiled americans we are we always want to believe that the golden ring being dangled before us is better than the one we caught yesterday. Take anitbiotics as a shining example of medical miracles. Nature is reversing thier effctiveness in a very deadly fashion faster than science can keep up with it.