Thomas Perls, M.D., a prominent geriatrician at Harvard Medical School, calls it “huck-sterism.” Of its practitioners he says, “I think they do our field and our society a great deal of harm. I think they’re very dangerous.”

With these scathing comments, Perls takes aim at the anti-aging industry. His par-ticular target is people with M.D.s after their names who go around selling the idea that aging can and should be stopped.

These purveyors of the anti-aging gospel belong to a larger American industry that reaps billions of dollars from its products and services. Dubious drugs, ill-advised plastic surgery, food fads, new spiritualities, diet regimens, and many other gimmicks conspire to persuade Americans that they can put a stop to aging, at least for a while.

The hidden assumption of doctors who practice “anti-aging medicine” is that aging is a disease. They would like everyone to think that aging is something bad.

Ronald Klatz and Robert Goldman, the two founders of the Chicago-based American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, are, in their own words “at the center of it all.” They are not shy in their claims: Klatz has told an interviewer from Penthouse, “Within 30 years we will have a shot at immortality.”

Last October I talked with Bob Goldman whose medical degree caught my attention: it comes from the Central American Health Services University, Belize Medical College.

In his talk at the Harvard School of Education, Goldman delivered his message with great personal pizzaz. “Aging is not inevitable,” he asserted. “If we don’t solve the aging process, we are going bankrupt, we will become a nation of nursing homes.”

If there is any single danger for Americans now, he stated, it is the water most of us drink. “Tap water is poison,” Goldman claims. Instead, we should all be drinking distilled water. It is hard to believe anyone would say this, but Goldman asserted that brain loss, Alzheimer’s disease, and other such bad things happen because of tap water.

You have to wonder about anyone who proclaims, “there is nothing graceful about grow-ing old.” When he asked members of the audience, “Who would like to live to be 150?” more than a few hands went up. Not mine!

According to Goldman, anti-aging medicine is the coming thing. Of himself and his col-leagues, he says, “we’re practicing the way everyone will in the future.” He expects that “surgical de-aging” will become routine along with replacement of body parts.

Following our meeting, Goldman sent me two of his books, co-authored by Ronald Klatz. The first “Stopping the Clock,” presents “dramatic breakthroughs in anti-aging and rejuvenation techniques.” Goldman does not practice the soft sell: here he shares with readers “why many of us will live past 100 – and enjoy every minute!”

The second, “7 Aging Secrets for Optimal Digestion and Scientific Weight Loss,” among other things teaches readers how to “detox your inner core and shed unwanted pounds in the process.” On page four, incidentally, the authors treat seriously reports that a Chinese man, Li Ching-Yun, was born in 1677 and died in 1933!

As must be evident, I find this doctrine intellectually shoddy and socially harmful. To me, it’s a kind of propaganda that serves the interests of big money rather than the common good. It is unscrupulous to prey on people’s fears about change.

Yet, it enjoys amazing respectability in American society. In his publicity materials, Goldman displays a photo showing him a as a member of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. International conferences, medical textbooks, and contacts with Capital Hill, all help raise the profile of the cause.

The anti-aging folks throw around impressive names as endorses. These people know how to wield the media in order to convince the public of their professional prestige.

Yet, they are peddling a doctrine that is noxious. Certain kinds of anti-aging ideas are basically anti-human. It sounds almost banal to say so, but growing old is a fundamental human experience that brings with it rich rewards as well as trials. To try and do away with this expe-rience means twisting out of shape what it means to be a human being.

Of course, I favor measures that have proven themselves by increasing our chances of living longer well. It remains scandalous that only an estimated 10 percent of Americans over age 65 do any significant exercise. And too many of us continue to eat junk food. For our own self-respect we need to take better care of ourselves, physically, mentally, and spiritually.

But that does not mean buying into quick-fix, unreliable, and often downright dangerous schemes that promise what no one can actually deliver. As baby boomers advance in age, it’s only going to get worse. More hucksters will appear ready to promise us youth and happiness.

Richard Griffin