X-Message-Number: 24032
From: 
Subject: Some clarifications
Date: Mon, 3 May 2004 00:45:50 US/Eastern

   Partly from private e-mail it appears to me that I need
to clarify a couple of points

  Concerning  http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=24026
I used the phrase "failure to cryopreserve", to which someone
took issue. In neither the case of the cremated CI Member
nor Timothy Leary did I really mean to imply failure -- by CI
or by CryoCare. The CI Member in question made a major 
error in trusting his cousin. Timothy Leary called a news 
conference and canceled his cryopreservation arrangements.
Some blame CryoCare and some blame CI, but I did not
mean to imply blame, so my use of the word "failure" could
easily have been misleading (although in my mind not being
cryopreserved is always a failure on some level). 

   Concerning http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=24020
(CI's 63rd Patient). I should clarify that CI has both funded Members
and unfunded Members. "Membership" in CI does not mean the
same thing as it does in Alcor. A Membership buys the privilege
of doing the paperwork and arranging funding. CI's 63rd patient
was an unfunded Member. Due to the fact that he was alone when
he experienced a cardiac arrest and suffered hours in a deanimated
condition before he was discovered, the relative who ultimately
put-up the money hesitated with reasonable doubt as to whether
it was worth proceeding with cryopreservation. So there was 
deliberation about both how to raise the money and whether it
was worthwhile to raise the money. 

    Good cryopreservations, with a standby team in place, are
usually done for cancer patients. But most people die of 
cardiovascular disease -- often unexpectedly, alone or in the company 
of non-cryonicists. I would want to be cryopreserved even if I were
discovered hours or days after my deanimation -- but I would
greatly prefer to have a standby team or, at least, a rapid 
response. I believe that we are going to see a rapid advance
of alarm systems in the next few years with the spread of
cell phones, GPS systems and monitoring devices -- and this
should help make a big difference in reducing the amount of
warm ischemia suffered in the majority of deanimations. I don't 
want to wait, however, and am investigating what is available NOW. 

                     -- Ben Best

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