X-Message-Number: 1775
Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 00:23:30 CST
From: Brian Wowk <>
Subject: CRYONICS suspension technology

Hal Finney:
 
> Perhaps I am wrong to think that anyone would disagree, but I can't
> help noticing that many people active in Alcor have relatives in
> suspension.  I'm worried that subconcious loyalties to suspended
> parents may make it feel like betrayal to switch to a protocol which
> offers benefits to new suspendees that are useless to the older ones.
 
> Another reason why I could see people not embracing a new reversible
> suspension technology is the issue of neurosuspension.
 
        As a pessimist concerning near-term reversible suspension, a 
neurosuspension member, and a member with a relative in suspension, I 
feel I must respond to Hal Finney's comments.
 
        Let me begin by saying that (like most Alcor members) my first 
priority is saving my own skin.  People already in suspension, including 
loved ones, are a secondary concern.  I feel no irrational egalitarian 
urges to suppress technical advances so that I get just as lousy a 
suspension as my predecessors!  I'm a bit offended that Hal Finney would 
even suggest such a thing.  Nothing would make me jump for joy more than 
achieving the capability for reversible whole-body suspension.  After 
all, this is the "Holy Grail" of cryonics.
 
        Here is the problem: Tissue preservation with current technology 
is almost a black art, with each of hundreds of different tissue types 
requiring a different protocol for successful freezing and thawing.  
Different tissues require different cryoprotectant cocktails, different 
cooling rates, and different warming rates to be successfully recovered.  
This problem is so serious that no human organs other than skin and 
small intestines have ever been successfully recovered from low subzero 
temperatures.  This is despite millions of dollars and years of work by 
organ preservation researchers at several labs around the world.  If we 
can't even freeze a single organ yet, how are we going to freeze and 
recover whole bodies with current technology ???
 
        Yes, whole-body suspended animation is what we all want, but we 
have to begin somewhere.  We must begin with the most important organ in 
our body: our brain.  Brain preservation is an understudied area; 
conventional organ preservationists have looked at just about every 
other organ *except* the brain.  The brain is remarkably robust against 
freezing injury compared to other organs.  We may be able to solve the 
brain preservation problem more easily than that of other organs.  Once 
this is accomplished, we can begin worrying about the rest of the 
package.
 
> Also, a breakthrough like this might actually be harmful to current
> suspension patients.  Maybe there will be less reason in the future to
> do the research to figure out how to thaw them because there will only
> be this handful of people frozen the old-fashioned, unreversible way.
 
        This is not true because thousands of people will be frozen under 
sub-optimum conditions throughout the 21st century.  Fancy suspended 
animation protocols will not benefit accident victims found after prolonged 
cardiac arrest.  In such patients, the vascular system will be so compromised 
by ischemic injury and clotting that they will be essentially straight-
frozen.
 
                                                   --- Brian Wowk

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