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. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15482