X-Message-Number: 29827
From: "Melody Maxim" <>
Subject: Charles Platt's Remarks on my Recent Post
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 16:08:40 -0400

I can never decide whether to laugh, or to cry, when Charles expounds on his
distorted versions of the truth. I initially adored Charles, which is really
why he hired me. I considered him a close friend, as he did, me. I'm the one
who took him to the hospital and sat with him all day, when he hurt his arm.
I even had him to my home when representatives from a major toy company were
here, to show a game he had invented, something my husband and I have never
done for anyone else, before or since. (My husband is a well-known toy
inventor and has connections at all the major toy companies.) The game was
glorious; I loved it. The toy company actually liked it enough to hold it
for a while. Charles probably thinks I did this because I thought I might
make money off of it, but I really did it because we were friends and I
thought the game was beautiful. The truth is most games don't earn that much
and the contract he insisted on drawing up between us had some sort of
sliding "agent's fee" for me that was quite low. I never told him that,
unlike book agents, people who represent toy inventors seldom get less than
40%, no matter how much the toy earns. I loved some of Charles' books and
most of his articles, and I initially found his cynical, rebellious little
boy behavior to be somewhat endearing. I liked that he always claimed to
want to run away to the desert, because I identify with that need to escape.
I've been threatening to leave my family for a grass shack, in Mexico, for
years. Charles and I seemed to have a lot in common, at first, and we got
along quite well.

While I was just a consultant at SA, I thought Charles was simply misguided
in his approach to the medical procedures needed for cryonics. He seemed to
be sincerely interested in having my input. Not long after I started working
with Charles, fulltime, I came to believe he was really only interested in
doing things his way, no matter how ridiculous or expensive that might be.
He didn't give a damn about patient care, he only wanted to build things and
make as much money as he could, while calling his own hours. He lied
constantly, talked about all of us behind our backs to the other employees,
asked us to spy on one another and conspire with him to get others fired,
spied on our computers, and made the workplace a battleground. It's not like
I'm the first to say these things about him, anyone who knows Charles knows
this is what happens with him EVERYWHERE he goes. Regardless, finding out
Charles wasn't the person I initially believed him to be, was a huge
disappointment for me. I thought he was multi-faceted, but I soon found out
he only had two faces. Now, he's back, telling the same old lies, which I've
already addressed on the Cold Filter forum
(http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/). You can find extensive postings on
the lies and distortions Charles recently put forth here, in my posts on
that forum. Hopefully, I will soon finish my review of the SA case report on
my blog at http://cryomedical.blogspot.com/.

Just a few comments on Charle's remarks:


PLATT: "She expressed strong interest in being General
Manager of the company"

It was Charles' idea that I would be the General Manager, something he
discussed with me, many times, both in person and in emails, which I still
have. I believe his intentions were to remain a director of the company and
control me from Arizona, where he wanted to be. He was so anxious for me to
come to work at SA, he wrote my letter of application. (Something I'm not
proud of, and something I've paid dearly for.) I was in an accelerated BSN
program, at the time, and I was coming up on finals. Charles wanted me to be
at SA, desperately, and he knew that if I started the next semester of my
program, I was going to be unavailable even for consulting. He insisted I
needed to get the letter to Saul and Bary, right away. I told him I was
about to drop over dead from exhaustion, from trying to keep up with school
and my children. He wrote the letter for me, I edited it and the letter was
sent to Bary and Saul. I was hired, and a few days later, the General
Manager (Bary) was fired, thanks to Charles. Charles again, told me he
wanted me to be General Manager, but said Saul wasn't "ready for it yet."
Bary Wilson will confirm that Charles told him I was to be "groomed for
management." Bary said he thought he and I were to be co-managers; he didn't
realize he was being replaced. The only time I expressed a "strong" interest
in being manager of SA was when Platt said he would go away as soon as Kent
appointed someone to that position!


PLATT: "and equally strong feelings that I was
unsuited for that role."

Possibly the most true thing Platt has ever said, or written. What's funny
is, he and Saul both agree he has poor management skills, (I have this in
writing from at least one of them).


PLATT: "Still, Ms. Maxim is aware that the coauthors of the
report were not present during the events described, and had to make
inferences from the available data."

The reason two people who were not at the case had to write the report is
that no one at the case really understands the science related to cryonics,
or the associated medical equipment and procedures. In addition, at least
two of them have extremely poor writing skills. Does it make sense to have
two CONSULTANTS who weren't even at a medical procedure write up the report
for it???


PLATT: "Even if every detail of the report is accurate, there are alternate
interpretations which are at least as plausible as the ones she
chooses to make."

Not in regard to what they wrote about the pressurization of the patient. I
have been the primary perfusionist on approximately 1,500 whole-body
perfusions, over the course of a decade. There's no other way to interpret
the information they provided in regard to the pressurization of the patient
through the use of a perfusion circuit by unqualfied personnel.


PLATT: For instance, if the bypass loop was open, I doubt
that injurious pressure would have built up during the events as
described.

If the bypass loop was open, blood would not have spurted onto the funeral
director when he made an incision into the femoral vein. It's crystal clear
that this patient was subjected to "injurious pressure." They had cannulated
the patient in the femoral artery and blood spurted from the next incision,
which was into the femoral vein. Once again, blood does not "spurt" from a
"legally dead" patient. The funeral director was "surprised," as noted in
the SA report, because the patient was pressurized. It's obvious to anyone
who is familiar with these procedures.


PLATT: "In addition I am told that during cryoprotective perfusion,
Cryonics Institute followed its usual procedure of observing the
surface of the brain via burr holes in the skull. This and other
indicators would have provided evidence of the kind of extensive brain
damage that Ms. Maxim alleges,"

Not true; the damage would not necessarily been obvious through the burr
holes.


PLATT: "Unfortunately, since we
received very little warning"

This is ridiculous. They had 15 hours to get to the patient's bedside.
What's going to happen when they have less than that?


PLATT: Ms. Maxim herself presumably would have been an asset if she had been
present, but she made it clear, when she resigned from her position at
the company, she would not assist Suspended Animation in future cases
even as a consultant.

Neither Platt, nor Kent, ever asked if I would assist on future cases. In
fact, I had been effectively removed from the SA standby team BEFORE my
resignation, because Kent insisted Platt would lead any cases, and Platt
told Kent he would not go on cases with me.


PLATT: It is also ironic that she complains about substitution of a venous
cannula for an arterial cannula, since she herself had been tasked
with upgrading and maintaining all aspects of Suspended Animation
standby kits relating to perfusion, and this certainly included
cannulae. During her months at the company I am told that she did
nothing to replace outdated supplies of arterial cannulae. I invite
her to clarify this point if she disagrees.

Platt is using his typical method of distraction, as a debate technique. As
is stated in their report, SA had arterial cannulae available. They put a
venous cannula in the artery, BY MISTAKE, because no one at the case knew
what they were doing, not because of anything I did, or didn't do during my
five months at SA.


PLATT: Also, so far as I could tell, she never implemented various changes
that she advocated in the perfusion circuit. When I checked the ATP in
the "A" kit after she left, I discovered an old circuit still in its
sterile wrapping, even though she had had months in which to upgrade
it, and building the circuit should have taken less than a day for
someone with her experience. I requested that the old circuit be
upgraded to a new circuit, and this was done before the case occurred.

This is yet another distortion of the truth, and Platt knows it. The reason
why the kit hadn't been upgraded, was that I was waiting for the new level
and pressure detectors that arrived just before I resigned. Kelly and I had
recently sat in the back of the vehicle and agreed that it would be a waste
of time to change the kit before the detectors arrived. The kits hadn't been
completed in five years, another few weeks wasn't going to hurt. Platt
fought me tooth and nail to use his own level detectors, which never worked
properly and involved taking sterile reservoirs in the workshop and drilling
holes in them. My guess is, he billed SA tens of thousands of dollars for
design and fabrication hours for his ridiculous alarms, over the course of a
year, when he was fully aware that non-invasive, FDA-approved sensors,
costing less than $400, were available.

I wanted to do a lot at SA, but my hands were usually tied by Charles
childishly insisting upon doing things his own way, even when everyone else
thought those ways were wrong. If I didn't get as much done at SA as I would
have liked to, it's because I could not do anything that was not precisely
the way Charles wanted it to be, and most of my opinions regarding equipment
and protocols were diametrically opposed to those of Charles. (Keep in mind
that I'm the one with a BS from a well-respected medical school and nearly a
decade of experience as a perfusionist.) The only way to "get things done"
at SA, is to do them Charles' way, and I found his ways to be unethical and
dangerous to patients.


PLATT: While criticism may be valid regardless of the personal background of
the critic, I do find it odd that Ms. Maxim is complaining about lack
of experience in a case to which she could have contributed her
expertise, and equipment which it had been her own responsibility to
maintain.

Again, I was never asked to remain on the standby team, by Kent nor Platt,
and they had the cannalae they needed. They just put the wrong one in, by
mistake.


PLATT: However, any absence of comment from me in the future
should not be misinterpreted to mean that I agree with statements that
she makes. Personally I believe that some of those statements may have
been made with reckless disregard for the truth.

Charles won't debate with me because he knows everything I say is true, and
he knows I have emails and other documents that would prove most of it. When
I used to write reports on circumstances, or equipment, at SA, Charles would
complain that I made him "look stupid." There's good reason for
that..."Stupid is as stupid does." (Forest Gump's mother)

It's time for things to change, in cryonics. Delivering the washout and
cryprotective agents to cryonics patients relies on perfusion technology,
which has been around for many decades. Over-pressurization of patients,
over-flowing of reservoirs, massive air emboli to patients, and other things
which seem to be acceptable in cryonics, were virtually eliminated, decades
ago, in heart surgery, where perfusion technology is used most often. Please
do not allow Charles Platt, or anyone else, lead you into believing the
washout procedure is new technology, as it is not. The washout circuit at SA
is nearly identical to the perfusion circuits used in hundreds of thousands
of heart surgeries, each year. These circuits are used thousands of times a
day, usually without incident, by qualified personnel. The people Platt sent
to SA's last case were two metal fabricators and an office clerk, none of
whom had anymore medical experience than applying a Band-Aid. This is made
exponentially more obscene by the fact that these unqualified, inexperienced
people earn $60K - $80K a year, (as much or more than their qualified
counterparts), and two-to-four times what they would earn in their own
professions. Platt surrounds himself with these unqualified people who don't
know enough to question the things he wants to do, and then overpays them
for their loyalty to him. SA needs to quit spending over a million dollars a
year on Platt's arrogance, greed and foolishness. They could have the proper
equipment and several QUALIFIED standby teams, located across the country,
for that amount of money.

Melody Maxim 

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=29827