X-Message-Number: 26705
From:
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2005 16:32:37 EDT
Subject: Comparisons abd Perspectives
Content-Language: en
From: Michael Riskin, Ph.D., C.P.A., Chairman, Alcor Life Extension
Foundation
Comparisons and Perspectives
Anybody can present claims as to why one or another cryonics organization
may be superior in one or more ways. As with any claim, when a decision based
on the validity of the claim has material significance, it is each person s
individual responsibility to determine the credibility and underlying basis of
such claims.
I believe the best way to go about this is to ask the right questions of the
right people, carefully review the organizations website and other written
presentations, and finally ask for the underlying evidence upon which the
claims are made.
For the record, as of today, Alcor has 68 patients, 758 funded living
members, and 83 persons in the process of signing up.
Here is a sample list of questions, among others, that one may wish to ask:
* Does a board certified MD or neurosurgeon perform the surgical
procedures in the operating room?
* Does the organization perform required patient surgery at their own
equipped facility, or do they have to contract it out to third parties such
as morticians due to legal requirements imposed upon them in their locality?
* Can you get a list of the in house surgical team members and their
individual assignments during a procedure?
* What does their onsite standby rescue teams consist of including
personnel and equipment. Is it their own personnel and equipment or that of an
outside firm?
* Does the organization use funeral parlor personnel, that may attend
to the patient as long as hours after pronouncement, as their first line of
member rescue and support. Do you prefer that procedure?
* Does the organization send, at no additional cost to the patient, a
team of professionals that includes Paramedics and EMT s and nurses, that
stand by at the patient s location prior to pronouncement, in order to
rapidly
employ anti- ischemia medications and start patient cool-down immediately
after pronouncement? Do you prefer that procedure?
* How many in house professionals with degrees in cryonics related
sciences does the organization have, and do any hold medical licenses?
* Has the organization presented any scientific papers on their
cryonics procedures to any prestigious international professional scientific
organizations and have any of these papers been published in any recognized
journal
in the mainstream scientific community?.
* Does the organization have hard evidence, that you can see, that
supports their claims for the effectiveness of their cryoprotectants, such as
slides containing frozen cells?
* When examining an organizations website, and upon reading their
substantiating references to leading scientific experts and authors in the
field
of cryonics, what percentage of those experts and authors are actually fully
funded suspension members of their organization or are actually members of
another organization?
* If the organization mentions the names of cryonically suspended
patients, not limited to but including the person maintained in cryonic storage
for the longest time, do they indicate which organization maintains those
members?
* Does the organization hold at least monthly, open to the public,
board of director meetings that includes toll free telephonic participation?
* Does the organization regularly disclose how many signed up funded
member they have and how many are on the in process applicant list?
* Will the organization tell you how many medical doctors and PhD s in
the sciences they have as fully funded members
* When reviewing the organizations list of consultants and advisors,
how many of them are medical doctors or PhD s in the sciences, and how many
of them are actually signed up and funded members of the organizations, or who
appear on the organizations letterhead ?
* Does the organization have a medical doctor as its chief medical
advisor? Do they even have a chief medical advisor?
* How does the organization maintain its books of account? For
example: Is there a separate patient care trust fund consisting of the
cumulative
patients moneys, that can only be spent on patients in long term cryonic
storage. Is it on a stand-alone basis, sufficient to financially maintain the
patients indefinitely, or does it immediately take the funds into current
revenues, available for expenditure for any organizational expenses, hoping
that
future indeterminate revenues will be sufficient to maintain the patients?
* How does the organization manage prefunded member accounts? When a
living member pre-funds their suspensions arrangements with cash deposits,
does the organization hold those cash funds aside, accounted for as a debt
(which it should be according to generally accepted accounting standards),
solely
for the benefit of the funding member, or does it immediately take it into
current revenues, available for expenditure for any organizational expense,
expecting that future indeterminate revenues will be sufficient?
* Is the organization run under the authority of a cemetery or funeral
board, and if so, is that desirable to you?
* Can you determine, from the available facts, what segment of the
cryonics interested community does the organization apparently appeal to? Two
such examples would be:) The more price concerned vs. the more science
concerned consumer, or 2) A consumer interested in a fiscally conservative,
both
current and long term financial approach, or a consumer more interested in an
approach to financial arrangements substantially based on the expectation of a
fiscally successful financial future of uncertain revenue streams?
I am sure that the cryonics community can come up with an even more
comprehensive list than that presented above and Alcor invites those questions.
With sufficient pre planning, just about anyone can afford Alcor s service.
It is primarily with last minute cases that applicants find price to be an
obstacle.
In my opinion, when an objective analysis is based the above answers, and
any other information that may be acquired, many if not most undecided persons
will determine Alcor to be their first choice for cryonics services.
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