X-Message-Number: 3147
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 1994 21:42:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: CRYONICS:Unbundling
Dave Pizer writes:
> The Omni sucess has been a joint effort of a lot of the Alcor members,
> but you played a key role. If I have not said it before -- thank you
> very much, Charles.
I appreciate the credit, Dave. I realize that Alcor did a huge job
processing the phone calls generated by the Omni contest. Alcor people
also gave some telephone interviews at the time of the contest. Ralph
Whelan did a great job of contract negotiation with Omni. I invented the
contest, sold it to Omni, wrote the accompanying text, designed and wrote
the follow-up full-page ad, promoted the contest on TV (with several other
cryonicists), did radio interviews, read the 500-odd essays and made a
preliminary selection, and wrote a second follow-up article for Omni in
which I described the process of judging the contest. This is why I take
some credit for Alcor picking up a few new members via the Omni contest in
the first half of this year.
> As far as what Dr. Voelker had proposed on a sub-company within Alcor
> for doing the transport/suspensions, I talked to him the other night on
> this subject (he does not receive Cryonet) and after that conversation
> plus just re-reading the posting, I believe that the most protection
> unbundling would offer (if it offers anything at all) would be to the
> Patient Care Fund. Where the patients' money is.
I assume from this that Mark Voelker is still in favor of unbundling.
Protecting the patients' money certainly sounds like a good idea.
> it is hard enough to get one group of
> cryonicists to get along for any length of time, and when you form two
> groups and give each one a sort of veto power over each other (as
> unbundling does) you are asking for trouble.
I disagree. The possibility for prolonged argument among cryoncists seems
to increase in direct proportion with the number of cryonicists who are
discussing a topic. When you have smaller companies, each handling only
one aspect of cryopreservation, the possibilities for argument are
drastically reduced. BioPreservation is controlled primarily by Mike
Darwin; he is free to get on with the job, because he has no one to argue
with about policy. Likewise, Paul Wakfer in CryoSpan. When CryoCare made
initial arrangements with these service providers, there was some
discussion about terms, but since we reached contractual agreement,
there's been no need to argue about anything. I am not exaggerating, here.
For instance, we areconcerned with Paul Wakfer's decisions re
earthquake-proofing the CryoSpan dewars, but we haven't argued about these
decisions with him, because it's his company. We are now reaching a
separate contractual agreement for long-term storage with CI, and Paul is
aware of this. Thus, the prospect of competition from another storage
provider gives him a natural incentive to do the job right.
Please note, we do NOT have "some sort of veto power over each other."
CryoCare employs the services of the providers, just as you would employ
the services of a physician. You probably like to be able to choose among
various physicians for your health care, and CryoCare has been set up so
that as soon as this kind of choice is available in cryonics service
providers, our members will have it. By contrast, members of an all-in-one
organization do not have this kind of choice--at least, not yet.
> Now that the theory of unbundling has come up again I think it would be
> very usefull to examine what happened to those companies that got in
> trouble and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. I
> know my friends in Alcor wish CryoCare no harm and they worry that if
> CryoCare gets in trouble the whole cryonics organization would be hurt.
Dave, you are a good and ethical man, and it bothers me when you seem to
be trying to scare people. I feel it is not worthy of you, especially
since I do believe you are fully aware that the situation today is not
comparable to the historical examples you are citing. We are certainly
aware of cryonics history; we have a booklet (which I wrote) discussing
this subject and explaining why we feel that unbundled services offer more
protection against mistakes of the past. I will be glad to send you this
booklet if you're interested. I don't expect you to agree with me, but I
do think we can agree to differ without making veiled warnings.
> I still feel that frozen
> patients are much safer in a full service cryonics company where there
> is less chance for anyone to pass the "responsibility" buck.
Unfortunately, you are not familiar with the contract which we offer to
our members. It specifies that CryoCare receives patients under the
Anatomical Gift Act, and retains FULL responsibility for the patients for
the indefinite future. We delegate the AUTHORITY to conduct a procedure;
we do not delegate the RESPONSIBILITY to make sure that it is done right.
The only exception is where a member may have appointed some "advocates"
to share with CryoCare the responsibility of supervising his/her
subsequent cryopreservation. This is an option, unavailable elsewhere,
which we feel provides some added security.
--Charles Platt
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Charles Platt, 1133 Broadway (room 1214), New York, NY 10010
Voice: 212 929 3983 Fax: 212 929 4467
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