X-Message-Number: 4158
From: "Joseph J. Strout" <>
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: 60 Minutes report on death
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 1995 09:42:06 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <>

I caught the tail end of a story on the "60 Minutes" show last night about
"suspended animation" procedures during surgery.  They interviewed a woman
who was cooled and had half of her blood removed for an operation on a
brain aneurism.  Her EEG was flat for 14 minutes, and her heart and lungs
were inactive for considerably longer (I think on the order of an hour,
though I'm not sure).  They spoke with a historian of death who discussed 
how the indicators of death have changed over the years.  Paraphrasing, 
the interviewer asked him "When all her vital signs were gone in that 
operating room -- was she dead, or alive?"  The historian replied that at 
that time, no one could say.  Since she was resuccitated, then she was 
alive, even with no life signs; if the operation had failed and she had 
not been recovered, then she was dead the whole time.  Death, says he, 
can only be defined by whether or not the patient can be recovered.  He 
went so far as to point out that someone dead by the standards of 1995 
might not be dead by the standards of 2002!

This seemed to be an amazingly forward-thinking story, with strong and 
obvious implications for cryonics.  By the definition of death that was 
given, we can't really say whether a cryonics patient is dead.  If they 
are ever revived, then we'll conclude that the pronouncement of death was 
a mistake and they were (barely) alive the whole time.  I realize that 
this is not news to most of the members of this list, but it must be a 
bit of a shock to the general viewing audience.

To the cryonics PR folks: it might even be worthwhile obtaining a 
transcript of this show, and permission (if such is needed) to quote 
small excerpts in bulletins etc.  I think 60 Minutes is a highly 
respected show, and for some people at least, may carry more weight than 
quotes from learned (but not famous) scientists and philosophers.

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
|    Joseph J. Strout		Department of Neuroscience, UCSD   |
|    		http://sdcc3.ucsd.edu/~jstrout/    |
`------------------------------------------------------------------'


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