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The Case for a World Health Council: A Blueprint for Human Longevity

By Prof. David A. Sinclair, A.O. Ph.D. & Jaka Bizilj

The United States recently announced their withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI). 

Experts warn this withdrawal severely weakens global disease surveillance, cooperation between nations to solve the greatest of health problems, and the deployment of medicines to treat both chronic diseases and the next pandemic.

The past decade has been defined by revolutionary medical progress, advances in artificial intelligence and energy production and storage, and a global pandemic wake-up call. Now, humanity stands at a crossroads. Will we succumb to a rising anti-intellectualism and continue to combat health crises in silos, reacting after problems emerge? Or will we reimagine global health as a collaborative, proactive mission to protect life and extend healthy lifespans for all? 

This shift is not only achievable but, given declining fertility rates and the unsustainable rise in healthcare costs, is essential for sustaining global prosperity.

A Call to Greatly Extend the Human Lifespan 

 Lifespan has risen steadily but is now threatened due to increases in the cost of healthcare, poor health, funding cuts, and the continuation of 20th Century medical practices. Global health systems remain fragmented and irrational. Diseases, treatments, and standards vary wildly between countries.

Over the past 120 years, average global life expectancy has more than doubled, from ~32 years in 1900 to over 70 in 2021 (link). Over the next century, we may be able to double it again, while ensuring those gains are healthy productive. Guided by advances in AI, we increasingly have the tools to prevent disease, slow aging, and even reverse biological decline.

Lifespan has risen steadily but is now threatened due to increases in the cost of healthcare, less cooperation between nation states, poor nutrition, research funding cuts, and the continuation of outdates medical practices. Source: UN WPP (2024); HMD (2024); Zijdeman et al. (2015); Riley (2005); OurWorldinData.org/life-expectancy

Yet these breakthroughs remain fragmented and fragile: access is uneven, standards differ, research funding is being terminated. Meanwhile, healthcare costs are projected to continue their steady climb, consuming roughly one-third of U.S. GDP by 2050 (Link). Making matters worse, by ignoring aging, these gains in lifespan merely delayed andin some cases extended the suffering. Consider that on average, with access to the best medical technology, Americans spend of 12.4 years living with disease or disability at the end of their lives (link). 

We must change course.

The Proposal: The World Health Council (WHC)

We propose the creation of a World Health Council, a diverse, non-partisan global body to rethink human health. Its mission: to cure disease, react to health emergencies, and extend the best years of our lives. The WHC would complement, not overlap with existing institutions like the WHO, GAVI, UNICEF and national ministries. It would be singly focused on extending health span, the years of life lived in good health, free from chronic disease and disability.

The group would act as a global think tank and advisory body to researchers, doctors, enterprises, and nations, by fostering the aggregation of data, promoting the discovery cures, and prioritizing the long-term for the benefit of our species and the systems that support us in ways no single country could achieve alone. 

The goal would be a world where every individual, regardless of geography or wealth, has access to facts, health education, clinically proven medicines, nutritious food, untainted  science-backed supplements, and intelligent systems. To succeed, the WHC must earn implicit trust built on principles grounded in scientific integrity, reproducibility, data security, and political independence.

Medicine: From Reactive to Regenerative

20th-century medicine was reactive, treating disease after symptoms appeared. With new technologies that can detect diseases we’re entering a new era comparable to the antibiotics revolution, with predictive, preventive, and regenerative capabilities. Today, AI and biosensors can detect diseases up to a decade before symptoms start.

We also know that up to 80% of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and many cancers are preventable through lifestyle-diet, exercise, sleep, clean environment (link). Yet health systems still reward treating the resulting disease rather than the cause. The WHC would make prevention the norm, issuing global, evidence-based guidelines for nutrition, movement, and supplements, while responsibly evaluating emerging therapies like stem cells and plasma exchange.

The WHC would support education campaigns, teaching how everyday habits shape biology decades ahead. A single additional year of healthy life in the US is valued at $38T (link). We could gain five or more years of healthy life expectancy per person in a decade (link), saving trillions in healthcare costs globally, freeing up capital for education, medical research, paying down debts (link).

Health with a Sense of Purpose and Holistic Approach

Health is not only physical, our emotional and social well-being matter immensely. Studies show a 46% lower mortality risk among those with a strong sense of purpose (link) and close social relationships predict long life (link). Because well-being must be treated as an integral pillar of health policy, we propose that the WHC include philosophers, psychologists, ethicists, and spiritual leaders to embed emotional resilience, creativity, social bonds, and lifelong learning.

A Globally Trusted Group

The WHC would act as an advisory group to aid nations in their decision making, including advice and consensus on:

• Early pandemic detection and response

• Ethical frameworks for gene editing, AI health tools, and human enhancement

• Safety standards for radiation, toxins, forever chemicals, microplastics and other pollutants based on scientific evidence

• Funding for antibiotic development and treatment of neglected diseases

• Regulating nutraceutical quality and encouraging proofs of efficacy

• Investments in infrastructure and education, especially in underserved regions

• Contingency planning for existential threats, including biosphere refuges on Earth and off-world settlements. 

We call for a governing body and a $100 billion global investment in preventive research that promotes healthy lifespan and enhances global and national bio-preparedness, with each nation contributing at least 2% of GDP to preventive healthcare and 1% to medical science in order to reduce the overall cost of healthcare from 10% in the European Union and 18% in the USA in 2024 to 7.5% in the next decade due to a much lower number of patients, much lower costs of therapies and the use of AI and AI doctors.

Reducing Costs, Expanding Equity

 Every life has value. And every added year of health is a gift. The benefits of extended healthspan must reach everyone, not just a fortunate few. But most of these new life-extending and life-saving technologies are not cheap. Genetic and CAR-T cancer therapies, for example, cost between $400,000 and $1M. These costs can and must come down considerably and be available to everyone, like aspirin and antibiotics.

There are clear ways to slash the cost of healthcare: via regulatory reform lowering the barriers to drug development, the use of AI on individuals, in companies, and at a national level, and the automation of production and supply lines. The Council could coordinate the formation of a shared global database of anonymized health data to accelerate discovery and ensure investments in this sector benefit not just shareholders but the public too.

The WHC could speed drug development by 50–90%, savings that would be passed on to insurance companies, governments and patients. They could champion innovations and new regulations. F[DS4] or example, clinical trials could begin earlier with the use of AI to model animal experiments, and treatments could be tested earlier with “Expanded access” and “Right-to-Try” laws, as we’ve recently seen in the US (link). These changes would ultimately lower drug costs and encourage clinical trials to be performed in labs with experience and scientific rigor (link).

A Call to Action

For the first time in history, the tools to extend healthy lifespan at scale exist. What we lack are coordination, vision, and a collective will. The WHC would serve as the foundational architecture to unite innovation, collate anonymized data, advise on ethics, fund collaborative projects, and strive for equities across nations.

We believe that extending human vitality is not a luxury, it’s a collective opportunity that will save as much money as it would save lives. Rarely is there such a win-win for our species. Now is the time to build a world where every birth carries not just a “right to life”, but the promise of the longest, healthiest, most meaningful life possible. 

That’s a future worth working on.

Prof. David A. Sinclair is a Harvard Professor, entrepreneur, and author of the international best seller, Lifespan: Why We Age & Why We Don’t Have to.

Jaka Bizilj is a German-Slovenian writer, film and cultural producer, philanthropist, and founder of the Cinema for Peace Foundation as well as The World Forum on the future of Democracy, AI/Tech and Humankind