With the increasing life time of US population, in 2002 the sum of the 80- and 90-years old APS members passed the number of the 70-years old members. To a certain extent this made the work of the Senior Physiologists Committee easier. The main job of the Committee is to collect letters for The Physiologist and thereby decreasing the gap between younger and older physiologists. A survey by members of the Senior Physiologists Committee at their own Institution showed that graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and assistant professors read the letters of Senior Physiologists extensively; also established scientists find pleasure in reading these letters because of the interesting stories they contain. One would expect that everybody in the 70 - 90 years group would be glad to submit letters, but this is not so. The 70-years old members frequently pull out from writing letters, because their age is their personal business. I spent several hours to convince these members (many of them are my friends) that it is their moral duty to support this unique drive of APS, but failed. Accordingly, the Senior Physiologists Committee depends more and more on the services of the 80-90 old generation and we are glad to hear their statement aging makes me wiser.
The Committee greets the 70-, 80-, and 90-year old members by using either APS format letters on APS letterheads and envelopes, or using personal letters, or the special artistic cards of APS. In 2002, 194 letters were sent out and 28 answers were received. Thus, four to five letters from Senior Physiologists were published per issue of The Physiologist.
The Senior Physiologists Committee also reviews applications for the Senior Physiologists Award (G. Edgar Folk Jr. Senior Physiologist grant), $500, mainly supporting research or meeting attendance. One application was received and approved.