X-Message-Number: 15482
From: "Jeff Grimes" <>
Subject: Mr. Ettinger's Ideas about Medicine
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 16:26:38 +0000

Mr. Ettinger writes:


> When a layman chooses (say) a hospital for a bypass operation, he doesn't and
> can't compare details of equipment and practice, and from his point of view 
> any reports in medical journals, or any disputes in medical journals, are of 
> little or no importance.


Excuse me, but this is nonsense. While systems such as the National Health 
Service make it relatively difficult to choose your doctor, you can obviously 
read a lot of relevant information (especially online) to evaluate a procedure. 
Moreover in a free-market system of private medical care you SHOULD be as well 
informed as possible. A well informed consumer is the most obvious way to 
maintain some control over the doctors! I have been to cancer conferences where 
patients have studied their conditions, and available therapies, in immense 
detail, and have benefited from this. If people don't do this kind of thing in 
cryonics, this confirms my suspicion that they are not taking responsibility for
their own survival.

> What he can do is look at survival statistics--that 
> is the bottom line. (Even that is not so simple, because some hospitals get 
> harder cases on average; but it is still the relevant survival numbers that 
> count.)


Yes, and this is why cryonics is unlike most other businesses. There is NO WAY 
to find out who has "survived." Some muddy photos of sheep brains don't provide 
this answer. Since we cannot know, for many decades, whether survival of the 
"patients" at an organization will be possible, we have an even greater need to 
learn as much as we can about procedures. But I am beginning to think that Mr. 
Ettinger does not like this attitude at all. He seems to be arguing very 
strongly that people should accept his status and authority, and trust him and 
CI. Well, sorry, but that's not the way things work, at least in my life. I feel
that trust has to be earned. And I will say now that many of the responses I 
have received to questions or issues, and the responses I have read to other 
people, have created a rather bad impression.

> For even more emphasis, consider buying a car. Is the average customer--or 
> almost any customer--going to look at engineering drawings and reams of 
> descriptions of the manufacturing process, and make a choice based on that? 


Not necessarily, but you'll want to know the maintenance record, resale value, 
and some engineering details such as, is it front-wheel-drive, and what kind of 
suspension. 

> Of course not. If he makes any effort at a systematic comparison at all, he 
> is likely to read Consumer Reports for a professional evaluation, how it 
> actually drives and how it has held up.


True, and CryoNet is the only thing I have found that compares with Consumer 
Reports, in cryonics. There is no "cryonics standards association" or anything 
like that, is there?

> In cryonics procedures also, the bottom line is results. The results of CI 
> experiments have been evaluated by independent professionals--two sets of 
> them--and key portions of the reports are on our web site. 


Well, wait a minute. One of your independent professionals was the biologist who
did the original sheep head research, described on your web site, is that 
right? But your web site suggests he was working for you. So how independent can
he be? The other professionals would be the people in Canada who did the more 
recent study. Is that right? But you won't even tell us who they are!

Jeff Grimes.

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