X-Message-Number: 1631
From: 
Subject: CRYONICS CSNY History
Date: Sun, 17 Jan 93 00:10:38 PST

Date 13 Jan. 1993
>From R. Michael Perry
Subject: CRYONICS. CSNY history.

     According to records I have examined, CSNY was involved in the freezing 
of a total of seven individuals from 1968 through 1976. All seven of these 
people were eventually thawed, that is, the suspensions terminated. As a 
result questions have been raised about possible wrongdoing of one form or 
another on the part of the individuals responsible, mainly Curtis Henderson, 
Saul Kent, and to some extent Mike Darwin and others. Regarding this, I know 
of no evidence nor even serious claims that such persons were guilty of 
*legal* malfeasance (fraud, for example, misrepresenting persons as frozen 
who were not, etc.). As far as I know, the reason the patients were lost is 
that relatives of those patients willingly shouldered a significant part of 
the burden of maintaining the patients, and either lost interest or had the 
patients transferred to other facilities, where they were eventually thawed 
and destroyed. In some cases payments for liquid nitrogen were discontinued 
by the relatives, and Saul and Curtis were forced, eventually, to turn the 
patients back over to the relatives for lack of their own funds to continue 
the suspensions. In one bizarre and disgusting case CSNY carried out a 
suspension that was maintained entirely in private hands, that is, a man had 
his father frozen with help from CSNY/Cryospan but immediately took control 
of the capsule. Eventually this son lost interest, let the nitrogen boil 
out, and had his father buried in this capsule.
     Even though Saul, Curtis, etc. are not accused of legal wrongdoing, the 
question has been raised of whether they were morally at fault, from a 
cryonics standpoint, for the way things were run and for what happened. 
Based on all I have seen and heard over the years, I don't think so. For 
example, it has been charged that, after losing some of their patients, they 
should have had the good sense to change their policies and not become 
financially dependent on relatives to maintain the suspensions. However, 
this overlooks the fact that, with two excusable exceptions, as far as I can 
tell, all the freezings were done before any patients had been lost. The two 
exceptions were (1) the case of a man frozen briefly to dry ice temperature 
in November 1968 before the relatives decided to have him thawed and buried, 
and (2) the case reported above, in which the storage of the patient after 
suspension was entirely in private hands. (This latter was the last 
suspension carried out by CSNY.) It is worth pointing out that in some 
cases, always following the demands of relatives, patients were transferred 
to other storage facilities which had lower rates. These cheaper facilities 
(one in Butler, New Jersey, one in Chatsworth, California) were connected 
with Robert Nelson and would eventually fail disastrously, as many will 
know, but at the time did not seem equivalent to giving the patients up for 
burial.
     CSNY/Cryospan has sometimes been compared to Robert Nelson's 
operations, Cryonics Society of California (CSC, with a "branch office" in 
New Jersey) and Cryonic Interment, Inc. In each case all patients were 
eventually lost (except that James Bedford, frozen by Nelson but transferred 
immediately to relatives, miraculously stayed frozen and is still frozen 
today). In Nelson's case, including his New Jersey branch, there were eleven 
patients frozen at one time or another, according to the best information I 
have, of which two were transfers from CSNY. (A third patient was taken by 
relatives to be transferred but was thawed and buried instead when they 
evidently changed their minds.) There are substantial differences however, 
between Nelson's operations and those of Henderson/Kent et al. For one 
thing, Nelson was outrageously deceptive and misleading in some of his 
literature (and according to reports, verbally too), exaggerating his 
capabilities, concealing his failures, etc. (The CSNY newsletter ended 
publication in 1971, before the loss of any patients except the brief dry-
ice freezing in 1968, which failure had been reported.) Secondly, Nelson 
secretly allowed patients to thaw, while continuing to accept others for 
storage. Thirdly, an attorney who advised Nelson had the good sense to 
establish a policy that CSC would have total control over all patients, but 
Nelson failed to use this authority for reasonable suspension-saving 
measures such as conversion of patients to neuropreservation when the 
funding ran low. None of these wrongs can be charged to those who ran CSNY, 
despite the failure, also, of that organization. (In the third case, failure 
to convert to neurosuspension, it was because CSNY lacked authority to act 
and, so far as I am able to determine, relatives always insisted on transfer 
or burial.)
     It is worth pointing out too that when Mike Darwin, who had been 
involved at CSNY, became president of Alcor in 1982, he took steps to 
correct the deficiencies that had spelled the doom of the earlier 
organization. Alcor, as many will know, has a policy that all its patients 
are under its full control, that funding adequate for perpetual care is 
supplied up front at the time of suspension, and that neuroconversion of 
whole body patients will be carried out rather than sacrificing a 
suspension, in the event of inadequate funding or other emergencies.
     I'm aware that there is currently a lot of political turmoil involving 
such individuals as Saul Kent and Mike Darwin. I am not trying to take their 
side or "whitewash" anybody here. No doubt they and others have their 
faults, which could be considerable. However, based on my study of cryonics 
history which has continued for several years now from extensive documents 
as well as verbal testimony, I believe those who were involved with CSNY are 
clear of major moral lapses, despite what happened. Cryonics is a tough, 
unforgiving business. It might be compared in some ways to aviation. 
Sometimes people with good intentions and considerable courage lost their 
lives pioneering the airplane, or caused others to die. A "flight" through 
time (cryonic suspension) on the other hand will, by all indications, have 
to be a long one to succeed. Some have not. There have been losses of 
"passengers" (patients) because it is "harder than it may look" to get 
someone frozen and keep them that way--for decades or more. Those who were 
involved in CSNY, however, seem to be well aware of, and to have learned 
from their mistakes, which were well intended and not so easy to foresee at 
the time.

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