X-Message-Number: 23567
From: "Mark Plus" <>
Subject: Canada.com: Maybe it's best to keep your head
Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2004 07:21:58 -0800



http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/story.asp?id=38926ADF-A0C7-4FAB-8B38-6E127C65C28A

Maybe it's best to keep your head

JOE SCHWARCZ
Freelance


Sunday, March 07, 2004
There is a television image from the 1960 baseball season that is etched in
my mind. It's Ted Williams striding to the plate for the last time and
slamming a homerun into the right field bleachers. Fittingly, the "Splendid
Splinter" left the game in a blaze of glory. Unfortunately, he left the game
of life in a blaze of controversy. Today, Williams's fans have to contend
with a different image of their hero - that of "Teddy Ballgame's" body and
head resting in separate liquid nitrogen-cooled containers at the Alcor Life
Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Alcor is a "cryonics" company, meaning that it stores bodies and heads at
very low temperatures, hoping to preserve them until scientists find a way
to "reanimate" them. It's a long shot, the cryonicists admit, but at least
it's a shot.
The quest for immortality is not new. Ancient Egyptians thought
mummification was the answer, alchemists believed the secret lay in finding
a way to make gold, a metal they considered to be immortal. Ponce de Leon
searched in vain for the fountain of youth. But the introduction of any
vestige of science into this quest came with the development of methods to
reach very low temperatures. At minus 196 degrees C, which is the boiling
point of liquid nitrogen, essentially all biological activity stops. In
theory, bodies or body parts can be kept from decaying for ever. Of course
"reanimation" is another matter.
Back in 1965, physics teacher Robert Ettinger, with his book, The Prospect
of Immortality, laid out his theory about cryonics. By 1967 a company had
been founded and the first patient, if that's the right word, had been
frozen rock hard. James Bedford, a psychology professor from California, now
awaits reanimation, along with about 90 others who have invested anywhere
from $40,000 to $130,000 for a chance to be thawed out in the future to
resume their lives.
The company, for some reason, insists on payment up front. I suspect,
though, that reanimated people will not have financial problems. Books,
interviews, talk shows (if those still exist) should be lucrative. People
will want to hear about our primitive way of life.
Preserving the body, according to the cryonicists, is not really necessary.
Only the head is needed (and that can be frozen for the bargain price of
$40,000). If scientists do find a way to bring frozen tissues back to life,
they will certainly have also found ways to clone the body from cells. But
the brain is unique. This is where our memories, hopes, fears and bizarre
thoughts about immortality lie. That's why a number of the patients are just
"neuros," the term used for heads with no bodies.
Biologists and cryonicists don't see eye to eye. When water in tissues
freezes, it expands. This can cause blood vessels to burst. There's more. As
water outside cells freezes, the concentration of solutes in the remaining
fluid increases. This causes water to flow out of the cells by osmosis,
resulting in collapse of the cell. Alcor representatives maintain they have
solved this by developing a technique by which a "cryoprotectant"
(essentially antifreeze) solution is injected immediately after death and
before cooling. This results, they claim, not in traditional freezing, but
in "vitrification" without the formation of ice crystals.
To date, there is not much evidence that Alcor will be able to deliver. We
can't even preserve kidneys, livers and hearts for transplants for more than
a few days. They certainly can't be frozen. Sperm cells, on the other hand
can; frozen sperm is used by farmers for artificial insemination and human
sperm is viable after freezing. The very first step in the Alcor quest, it
seems, should be freezing a live mammal and then thawing it to see if it can
be brought back to life. Nothing like that has been done. Obviously, there
are ethical issues, and Alcor has had its experiences with that. In 1987 the
company was accused of removing Dora Kent's head before she was dead. Dora
was the mother of Saul Kent, one of the earliest proponents of cryonics. He
had her taken to the Alcor facility so that she could be decapitated and
processed immediately after death. The coroner's office at first labeled the
death a homicide after barbiturates were found in the body. The head was
never found and eventually charges were dropped.
An even more interesting case is that of Thomas Donaldson, a computer
consultant who in 1988 was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour and
decided to have his head removed before his whole brain was ravaged by
cancer. Realizing the technicians could be accused of murder, Donaldson
petitioned the state to allow him to be anesthetized and placed on a heart
lung machine as his blood was replaced with a chemical solution. His head
would then be removed and frozen. California denied the petition and an
appeal.
As it turned out, it's a good thing Donaldson kept his head. His tumour went
into remission and he is still alive. And how will Ted Williams, the last
man to bat over .400 for an entire season, eventually fare in the hands of
Alcor? I would predict a lifetime average of .000 for the cryonocists.
- - -
Joe Schwarcz is director of McGill University's Office for Science and
Society (www.OSS.McGill.ca).
He can be heard every Sunday from 3-4 p.m. on CJAD.


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