X-Message-Number: 15426 From: "Jeff Grimes" <> Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 22:56:36 -0700 Subject: More, er, questions Yes it's me again, but for anyone who is getting tired of me, I promise to be offline for the next three days. However when I get back I will catch up on ALL the CryoNet stuff during that time. Just because I have work that takes me away from this topic, does not mean I have lost interest. I still have an interest in the facts, mainly because they seem to be elusive. The more elusive they are, the more this gets me interested. --- As I mentioned here before, I swapped some email with David Pascal at Cryonics Institute. Since he said that his answers to my many questions (sorry there were so many, David) were NOT private, I hope he won't mind if I quote some of his statements in order to ask the follow-ups which David himself may not be able to deal with, since he is not the technical person. I hope someone from CI can clarify these points. They are fairly basic, it seems to me. But maybe I am not typical. ***** First, the time it takes for someone to move from the deathbed to CI. I asked how long recent cases have taken to reach CI, on average. David answered: "We haven't worked it out to the minute (perhaps we will once we get our expanded database set up), but our recent record has been pretty good." But he also said: "Alcor's last four patients were reached in 38 hours, 30 hours, `more promptly' than 30 hours, and `more than' 30 hours, respectively." This makes Alcor sound pretty bad! On the other hand it is another example of the habit which I am beginning to find irritating, where CI wants to give me precise information about Alcor, while it provides only vague information about itself. If David doesn't know how long the last four patients at CI took to get there, surely someone else does. Anyone? "our recent record has been pretty good" doesn't tell me anything. ***** The method for providing local help. David wrote: "I should add that we have traveling team services now too, although we don't recommend them." I didn't know that there is a team. Why don't you recommend them? What does the team do? Does it have anyone with medical training? How many people are in the team? How many cases have they handled? Where are they based? What equipment do they use? How do they get it to the site? Can anyone on the team prescribe drugs? Does the team travel overseas (I assume it doesn't)? If these answers are online, just point me to the PAGE on the web site (not the whole site, it's too big.) Thank you. David continued: "Well, we do have a team (as I said) but we've found that it's far better in practice to train a funeral director and have him there on the spot." Quicker, obviously, but "better" in what sense? If a funeral director has never done an actual case before, and the team has some experience and specialized equipment (at least we hope it does) I would have thought a team would be "better." David says that "Once a member joins, we locate the funeral director closest to the member, or let him look about and find one he prefers." Well, okay, but this is not clear. Which actually happens? Does CI find a funeral director, or does CI just wait to see if the member asks? "When we settle on a director, we first immediately send him a set of written instructions to familiarize him with the procedures." That sounds good. I wonder if those written instructions are available for members and prospective members to read. That would be really interesting. I cannot find this info on the web site. ***** Now about undertakers compared to perfusionists, this part is quite confusing, since it suggests that the undertakers pump in the cryoprotectant, which I assume is the glycerol solution: "(You should understand, incidentally, that funeral directors are degreed professionals who, in performing their normal function, regularly do procedures that closely parallel cryonic suspension protocols. It's not that we're instructing them in something totally new and different. The replacing of blood with enbalming fluid and the replacing of blood with glycerol perfusate, for instance, are very similar procedures, which is why we've had success even with last-minute cases.)" But the funeral director (which seems to be the same thing as an undertaker)doesn't perfuse the patient with glycerol, does he? And wouldn't a trained perfusionist be offended by your suggestion that his job is not so different from a mortician with an embalming pump? I am not trained in medicine, apart from some EMT instruction, but I would imagine that perfusion and embalming are very different indeed, bearing in mind that perfusion is a medical procedure for living people, while embalming obviously is for people who have died. "We provide cryoprotectant and anticoagulant solutions free of charge for the funeral director to keep on hand." Anticoagulant I can understand, but once again "cryoprotectant" suggests that the funeral director is going to perfuse the patient with glycerol BEFORE the patient is transported to CI. I thought it is the other way around? ***** Now about optional services: "It's work on the part of the funeral director to keep the refrigerated solutions and equipment on hand and to regularly practice the procedure, so they're generally paid an modest annual retainer, usually by the member." I wonder how many morticians receive this annual retainer. Does CI have a lot of morticians who are equipped and trained like this? How many? I assume Albin in England is one of them. ***** Now about transporting the person: David says, "We don't use a 'moving solution' (apart from heparin" This seems odd. Why not use the stuff they they use when they fly hearts or kidneys from donors to recipients? ***** Please note, if anyone has replies to any of these points, I don't need more comparisons with Alcor! Personally I am not very interested in Alcor since they have no presence in the UK anymore (or so I have been told). Let's have the facts and let them speak for themselves. Incidentally one of the people who wrote to me suggested that I am asking far too many questions. He said that most people aren't concerned about these details. But it seems to me, if I was going in for a medical procedure, these are the kinds of questions any patient wants to know. Who will operate on me? Can he do it locally? What techniques does he use? How does this differ from other surgeons? This is basic stuff, especially in a life-and-death situation. If other people aren't interested, I have to wonder if they have blind faith in science, or at least in cryonics organizations. Personally I do not have blind faith in anything, especially a cryonics procedure, which is unregulated and unsupervised, so far as I can tell. Jeff Grimes. Get your free E-mail at http://www.zdnet.co.uk/mail/ Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15426