Viewing Articles By Michael Milken

Among the major advances of civilization - development of the wheel, agriculture, printing, the industrial and technology revolutions - the greatest achievement may be the doubling of life expectancy in the 20th century. As recently as 1900, people around the world lived an average of only 31 years. In America, where one of every five newborns died before celebrating a fifth birthday, the leading causes of death were pneumonia, tuberculosis and diarrhea. Over the past century, sanitation programs and antibiotics pushed those conditions far down the mortality list. They've been replaced by heart disease, cancer and stroke, more commonly among the aged.