X-Message-Number: 21480
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2003 02:19:52 -0500 (EST)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: Ettinger on Vitrification
References: <>

Wearily, yet again, I suppose it is necessary to correct the errors in Bob
Ettinger's summary of vitrification.

> Preventing formation of ice crystals will prevent mechanical damage by ice
> crystals that would otherwise occur, although there can be offsetting
> disadvantages, including, among other things, toxicity of chemicals used to
> achieve vitrification.

In fact the concentration of vitrification solution used by Alcor is
actually less toxic than the concentration of traditional cryoprotectants
(such as glycerol, used by CI) which would be needed to achieve
vitrification.

> You can visit Alcor's site or talk to them directly for information about
> their procedures. As we understand it, their current procedure (for neuros
> only) is intended to achieve vitrification, at least in part, but as far as
> we know there have been no applications of these procedures to test animals
> followed by full evaluation of results. They believe the indirect evidence
> justifies use of the procedures anyway, and of course they may be right.

This pejorative statement suggests that Alcor's vitrification solution has
never been subjected to animal testing. As Bob Ettinger well knows, this
is totally false. Animal tests have proceeded for years. In addition the
statement implies that many Alcor patients may achieve only partial
vitrification. This is also false. The majority achieve concentration
needed to vitrify.

> Dr. Yuri Pichugin, director of research for the Cryonics Institute, is
> engaged in his own program of development of vitrification procedures, and
> has made what we believe to be significant progress, including the likelihood
> of bypassing some of the previous obstacles, such as the need for very fast
> initial cooling. We don't keep our work secret, and have disclosed much of it
> on our web site and in The Immortalist, but disclosure of the newest work
> must be delayed, in part because of patent questions. With luck, some time
> this year we may be able to have a new procedure tested on whole animals and
> perhaps human cadavers, and fully evaluated.

So, you don't keep your work secret, except right now, you do keep
your work secret. And in fact previous descriptions of the work have been
so sketchy that it is impossible to know what is really going on.
Meanwhile CI has published virtually no case histories, with the exception
of the commendable history written by Ben Best.

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