X-Message-Number: 16785 From: "Trygve Bauge" <> References: <> Subject: Re: Post mortem suspensions, Australian case and other. Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2001 22:11:24 +0200 <> wrote: > Cryonics Institute has a fixed policy of rejection only in the case of > disinterred people. In all other cases we look at the individual > circumstances and try to accomodate. > Elizabeth's case is not the first case where someone would like to have a burried relative exhumed and frozen. I can think of at least 5 cases just right away. Many of us here at cryonet, have probably at one time or another considered digging up dead relatives. I admit to such thoughts myself. E.g. If I succeed in building a large cryonic facility and have extra storage space, there are a few corpses I would consider retrieving. Remains are exhumed and moved all the time, e.g. when people die abroad, after wars, in criminal cases, for research etc. Nothing strange about that. In some countries graves are exhumed and the remains burnt or destroyed after a given time. Why not offer people to change from burrial to frozen storage for their loved ones? It is a far cry from freezing live organisms in such a way that these are still alive when thawed out. But it is still a way of preserving the dead, that some of us might consider. Bodies are sometimes moved to better mousoleums, e.g. when the family fortune improves. Like Emalda Marcos, who moved her husband back home once she was permitted to return (to the Philipines?). Why not let people move their dead relatives to cold storage too? Marcos was actually kept in cold storage until he could be burried. But if it can be done in that order it certainly can be done in the revers order too! As far as getting common support for the idea, I think the population would see the value of freezing murder victims in case the murder case ever gets reopen, and the value in digging up and freezing bodies for future research: A Norwegian research team 2 years ago dug up several bodies at Svalbard in search of the virus that caused the Spanish epidemic of 1918. The bodies had been burried since 1918, and no trace of the virus was found, apparently there hadn't been enough permafrost. If the bodies had been adequately frozen, we could have found the virus and developed a vaccine for use in case some similar virus epidemic hits again. My point is that once a facility for frozen storage of the long burried is up and running, there won't be that much objection to cryonisists using the service to store their relatives as well. > Usually the problem is getting the > contracts and funding in place soon enough, and making sure there is informed > consent. If we had organizations more geared toward accepting post mortem and burried cases, organizations that are volunteering to take on such cases and not have to be talked into each case, if we had the routines in place then more such cases would be frozen, and we would likely end up with more support and storage organizations around the world. Thereby making it easier for people to fast get temporary dry ice storage until longrun approval, financing and contracts can get in place. This would make it easier for people to be frozen under better conditions as well. And more post mortem cases would not run into the hazzles and delays that we have seen so far. One approach is of course to only touch the best and easiest cases that already are fully approved and funded. That has been the cryonics organizations' policy so far. For the rest it has been: If you can't get your ducks in line within a few days after the death, then the body gets burried and you are stuck. I still think we would be better off by also having some intermediary storage solution that people could get fast in and out of. A kind of inexpensive temporary storage until it is decided how much of the body that will be stored long term and how much that will be burried. If the family approval, funding and contracts are forth coming then the whole body could be frozen, otherwise just the head or some cell samples. > As Trygve says, we get a relatively large number of post mortem inquiries. > However, most of them have built-in problems that cannot be solved, such as > funding and family disagreements, or excessive delays. Nevertheless, we try, > and sometimes we succeed. > I have seen several cases where the problems were all worked out, and the body eventually frozen. But these cases would have been much better if the body instead had been frozen first and the problems worked out afterwords, and not the other way around. I still think that by providing inexpensive temorary cold storage in separate facilities while the built in problems get reseolved, we would end up with more long run storage cases, and better quality on these as well. We would also set a presedence, so that it might be easier for relatives to freeze their relatives locally until longrun storage somewhere else can be worked out. And by having separate temporary short run storage facilities handle such cases, no long run storage provider would be threatened by lawsuits etc. Undertakers often have facilities for temporary freezing of bodies at minus 18 degrees celcius, What I am proposing is that we work with undertakers to provide some inexpensive perfusion and temporary inexpensive dry ice or liquid nitrogen storage for a few months at least. So that cases that so far have been turned down and have ended in the ground, instead would have a better shot at being resolved and end up in longrun suspension. It would be nice if we at cryonet worked towards making it widely available to offer families, temporary freezing as an alternative to burrial and cremation, so that all the post mortem requests for cryonic supensions better can be sorted out. Sincerely, Trygve Bauge Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=16785