X-Message-Number: 17634 Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 17:49:32 -0400 Subject: Serious Undertakings (Repost part 2, plus an addition) From: To conclude the first part: I'd like to end this oration on funeral directors with a small personal aside. I really kind of sympathize with Mr. Driven From The Pack, because, though his notions about funeral directors really are demonstrably thin, I felt the same way myself when I was first thinking of cryonics. Standby teams -- cutting-edge dudes in Star Trek uniforms, hurrah! 'Funeral directors'? Humpbacked nineteenth-century grave-robbers out of the pages of Dickens --ugh. I had no idea what their qualifications were, or even what 'enbalming' was. Spraying with fixative maybe? I didn't know. But the longer I looked into it and studied the facts, the different things started to look. The plain fact is that funeral directors are on average far more and far better trained in surgical skills, much more experienced. Check it out: http://www.nfda.org. But -- best of all -- they're *there*, on the spot, virtually everywhere. I mean, let's face it: cryonics members and organizations have a real problem: the vast majority of members just don't live next door to a standby team. Hell, CI has members in Hungary, Israel, Spain, Switzerland, Alaska. What do we do if they die? Let them lie there while we gather up our merry band and pack our toothbrushes and CPRs and catch a flight? What if something like this Trade Center bombing happens and flights are cancelled or re-directed or put on hold? Five *minutes* of warm ischemia can cause devastating damage. What do you think *days* of it can cause? This is a problem that has to be addressed. And the best solution we have, I believe, consists of using funeral directors. They're surgically trained, they're licensed, they're on the spot, they're used to dealing with hospitals and doctors, with legal paperwork and transport, with grieving relatives -- they are, quite simply, the best option that *most* of us have. I am not saying that you *have* to go with that option. If you happen to live in Phoenix and you have exactly ten days to live, fine: sign with Alcor, and use their standby team. If you happen to live in the Detroit area, fine: sign with CI, and use our standby team. But I think we should all at least acknowledge that CI, in adopting its funeral director policy, has adopted a serious and *reasoned* policy which certainly deserves better than this 'witches brew' caricature that we are forever getting. CI's policy here -- and elsewhere -- is a well-thought-out response to an extremely serious problem that cryonicists face. And I think CI's policy will in most cases reduce ischemic damage and in some cases save entire lives. I think panning it, particularly in the mean-spirited way of 'anonymous' posts, unproven accusations, and cartoon slander, contributes absolutely nothing. No, I don't consider the funeral director system to be ideal. Ideally, one day, cryo-trained ambulance attendants will take patients to cryo-trained medical doctors in cryo-ready hospitals where state-of-the-art procedures will be performed in operating theatres. One day. But this is not that day. Here, now, we are obliged to provide cryonics members with the best treatment that we reasonably can under present-day real-life circumstances. Trained professional funeral directors can provide it quicker and better than distant, comparatively unskilled, comparatively inexperienced volunteers. And just suppose something. Suppose that, as CI expands, we find ourselves one day in a situation where a CI funeral director -- a person with surgical skills, cryonics-specific training, and perfusing equipment and solutions at hand -- is standing there ready for an emergency in every major city in the United States, perhaps even in Europe. Guess what: it really might not be that far away. Would that be such a tragedy? Maybe -- with a little better cooperation between organizations -- it might prevent a tragedy. Maybe several. David Pascal http://www.cryonics.org *** P.S.: In Message #17617, "clarissa wells" -- yet another anonymous poster, I understand, according to Cryonet Archive Message # -- wrote: >> An agent of a cryonics organization has been in a newspaper and on a radio station saying that when he perfuses dead people for cryonics he uses substances that have no scientific basis and are not in the cryonics organization's manual.<< A newspaper that was not named, from a publisher that was not named, in an article that was not presented. An article which is said to have been written the year that 'the agent' (don't you love all these cloak-an-dagger affectations, gang?) joined the 'cryonics organization' and so might possibly have predated his even knowing what cryonics is at all. A reputable source, eh? As for the radio station story, 'the agent' simply had a slip of the tongue, said so plainly and publicly, expressed his regrets, and added that of course he followed CI procedures to the letter, as he has been instructed to do by phone, mail, email, and personally in the course of two trips from London to Michigan. Who revealed this scandalous radio slip, by the way? Not the people who suddenly jumped up to confirm (with zero evidence) that they had known the shocking facts for a decade, but a CI-related website which posted it publicly and still posts it on the (apparently foolish) assumption that grown-ups are capable of regarding an simple human slip for what it was. >> The cryonics organization is not going to try to find out what actually was used. It says it doesn't even know how to. Even if it wanted to. Which it doesn't.<< The cryonics organization *said* that it supplied its own solutions and cryoprotectants to 'the agent', who *said*, in his report and publicly, that he applied them according to instructions. And when the patient arrived at CI HQ and was examined, that was seen to be the case. I mean, come on: cryonic suspension with 'perfumed water' rather than CI's cryoprotectants? CI's been in business over twenty-five years, please, give us *some* credit. We can double-check, of course: just thaw the patient -- and scramble the person's neuroanatomy into muck. Will we do that for "Miss Wells"? Sorry. May we put aside the cut-and-thrust of rhetoric for a moment and be serious? Willful malpractice is a not a joke; not to me. I actually care about CI members. I don't want them hurt. Believe me, if I had any reason to believe a funeral director were injuring CI members, I would be the first person in line to denounce him -- not just on Cryonet, but to the authorities. It would be CI's first official neurosuspension: for we would have his head. There are thousands of quaified funeral directors in the world: CI has no reason whatsoever to maintain any connection with someone doing a willfully bad job. Heck, I've visited England. I'll probably do so again. If I had a heart attack there in the street, I could very well be 'the agent' 's next patient myself. I have a very good reason for wanting to be certain that a funeral director is doing a good job: he might be doing it on me. But what sort of 'evidence' is this? A man is accused of bragging to the press that, quote, "his cryonics cases were first injected with lanolin and Rosewater" *five years* before he even *has* a cryonics case? These aren't charges that reveal any problems at CI: they only reveal the absurd depths to which CI's critics let themselves sink. >>Now people are calling for discussions about the matter to be "toned down" in case possible new recruits get the idea that cryonics is "a small cult of amazingly poorly adjusted loonies".<< Golly, where would new recruits ever get that notion? I certainly don't want this discussion to be "toned down" -- as with all cheesy accusations full of holes, the process of refuting it only makes CI's position look good and the mystery attackers look shabby. I don't think Cryonet has ever been treated to as extensive a discussion of funeral directors' qualifications, skills, oversight, or to the substantive case that can be made for their use. Personally I hope the attacks go on forever. I could post (just under) 20,000K a day on the virtues of CI till Christmas. 2008. Every author has his inspiration and his muse: I guess Charles and "Clarissa" are mine. >> And yet you have trouble understanding why cryonics is not more mainstream. << I have no trouble understanding that at all. False rumors, anonymous posts, slander without evidence, pointless malice, dismissal of all common sense -- really, at times one wants to throw one's hands up in disgust. It is very simple to make cryonics more mainstream. If you are a scientist or researcher, do research that advances cryonics technically. If you are medical doctor, volunteer to advise or to help or simply support the idea to the press and to colleagues. If you are a member, make sure that you and perhaps your family are safe by making preparations with your cryonics provider, your lawyer, your doctor, your funeral director; and, if you can, support your provider with donations or bequests in your will. If you are a member or just someone interested and sympathetic, read and study and then stand up and support cryonics intelligently and lucidly when the opportunity arises. And if you are a member of 'the cryonics community', learn to politely tolerate diversity of opinions and approaches, and use your head to try to come up with useful suggestions and improvements, small and large. To join the mainstream, appeal to the mainstream: be courteous, be informed, be reasonable, be polite. Simply present yourself as a decent human being advocating a sane, sympathetic, compassionate, scientifically-supported way of possibly saving lives. The mainstream likes people like that. Really. And to make to make cryonics marginal and grotesque? Hide behind a mask and spread unsubstantiated rumors and silly anonymous charges day after day after day. That'll keep cryonics out of the mainstream for a long long time. >> I hope no one is suggesting whitewashing a cover-up. << Of course not. We need the whitewash to re-perfuse Walt Disney when the CIA brings him over for a touch-up this weekend. (Ooops! No, wait! I meant Chanel Number 5! Chanel Number 5!) David Pascal http://www.cryonics.org Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17634