Excerpt:
A walk through any village cemetery or a search of old public records will reveal a sometimes-overlooked, yet quite astonishing fact -- in barely fifty years, human longevity worldwide has increased by more than 40%. The average life expectancy at birth has risen from around 46 years in the early 1950s to almost 65 years by 1996. This most important international public health achievement of the past half-century is a triumph for humanity. The World Health Organization (WHO) has played a vital, though often unobtrusive, role in this accomplishment.