At Defaqto we have regular dress-down days where we all donate £1 to charity which the company matches. It’s all in the spirit of teamwork, lets me wear my jeans and a scruffy T-shirt, and raises money for good causes.
Today is this month’s dress-down day and the charity for today is Cancer Research
Cancer is still one of the biggest killers in the UK, and every early death from these diseases is a tragedy for the individual and the family they leave behind. Everyone wants to see it beaten and we are spending billions looking for cures. The Human Genome Project is likely to be one of the key developments in this field, leading to new and more effective treatments or possibly even cures.
Yet the speed at which we are finding cures for diseases brings us new challenges.
Human life expectancy is increasing at an amazing speed - at least in the developed world anyway. A child born today has an AVERAGE life expectancy of something like 80 years. And that is the AVERAGE. Yet we have a retirement age which is set at 65, and over time will increase to 67. This means that our children will need to plan for a pension that will last them at least 15 years, and quite possibly 25-30 years.
