X-Message-Number: 5904
Date:  6 Mar 96 06:15:49 GMT
From:  (Brian Wowk)
Newsgroups: uk.legal,sci.cryonics,sci.life-extension
Subject: Re: Virtue of suffering
References: <> <>


In <> John Sharman <> 
writes:

>>         From everything you have said thus far, I am forced to conclude
>> that you are insisting cryonics be sold as "a scheme for freezing
>> corpses for extremely unlikely future resurrection," and that any
>> more favorable description would be fraud.

>I do not say that you should be limited to using that slogan and no
>other, but I do say that if after reading your promotional material a
>prospective customer of yours is left with impressions such that he
>would be shocked by that statement, then he has been misled.

	I agree (except for the adjective "extremely").  

>It is clear that "Peaceful Rest" and "Slumber Room" are misdescriptions.
>However, I do not think that they deceive or mislead the relatives of
>the deceased who know damned well what the score is but appreciate the
>euphemisms.

	I believe that is the situation in cryonics as well.  We try
hard to capture people's imagination and inspire them, and use language
that is non-threatening.  But the deeper you get into the literature,
the more frank the discussion becomes, until the final Consent for
Cryopreservation legal document gives essentially the worst account
of human cryopreservation you will read anywhere (consistent with
reality, that is).  Nobody signs up without first reaching that level
of frank understanding.  

>I wouldn't object too much to the use of this word on its own. Nor the
>word "suspended" on its own. What I don't like is a whole combination of
>expressions which when taken together create an impression and a
>mind-set in which the doubts to which you yourself admit have no place.

	CryoCare does not use the word "suspended" or "suspension." 
You will not find it in any of our literature, or any of my postings.
We instead prefer the more descriptive terms, "cryopreserved" and
"cryopreservation."  We are the only cryonics organization that has
established this policy. 

>I do *not* know this. Your statement of my understanding and of the law
>is hopelessly wrong. Who declares or certifies anybody dead on the basis
>of recent cardiac arrest? In the UK in January we had a tragedy when
>they spent hours and hours trying to revive three victims of an
>ice-drowning accident all of whom had been immersed for over two hours.
>Sadly they failed but nobody declared these people dead until all hope
>had to be given up.

	I see some education is needed here.  Criteria for legal death
are far more fluid than you imagine.  Which criteria are used depends
greatly on circumstances.  In almost all cases, legal death is a
pronouncement that further medical care is unwarranted, not that life
(or the potential for life) has been irretrievably lost.   In fact,
I have personal knowledge of two cases (unrelated to cryonics) in which
CONSCIOUS people were pronounced legally dead.

	In most jurisdictions, there are three different criteria used
to pronounce legal death that apply in three very different situations.

Scenario 1)	Patient is certified terminal.  A "do not resuscitate"
		order is placed on the patient's chart.  Legal death
		is declared the moment heart beat and breathing stop.

Scenario 2)	Lengthy attempt at cardiac resuscitation fails.  The
		patient is declared legally dead because the heart
		cannot be restarted.  (This was the scenario in which
		the conscious people I mentioned earlier were declared dead,
		and CPR stopped.)

Scenario 3)	Brain-injured patient on respirator support.  Legal
		death is declared when all brain electrical activity
		stops.  (It is also required that no hypothermia or 
		drugs be present.  Hypothermia or some drugs can
		shut down brain activity for many hours and still
		allow later recovery.)

Fortunately for cryonicists, most people (slightly more than 50%) die
according to scenario (1).  No special exceptions, or "bending the law"
is required for a cryonics patient to get good care if they die according
to scenario one.  Scenario (1) legal death means NOTHING biologically.
The heart stops?  Big deal.  Blood flow and oxygenation can be restored
artificially within one minute, causing no harm to the brain at all.
Anesthesia is routinely used and required for scenario (1) cryonics 
patients.

	Scenario (2) theoretically need not be bad.  If the length of
cardiac arrest was not long, and CPR was performed most of the time,
scenario (2) patients can also be perfectly viable at the time of legal
death (as illustrated by my conscious, but legally dead patient examples).
The problem with scenario (2) is that it is usually unexpected.

	Scenario (3) is a disaster.  The brain of a patient declared
legally dead in scenario (3) is essentially mush, and no future technolgy
will ever get that patient back.  Scenario (3) death is REAL DEATH. 
We recommend all members of cryonics organizations execute either Living
Wills or Powers of Attorney for Health Care that prohibit protracted
respirator support if they are severely brain-injured.  	  

>Now it may be that you and the deceased and their family so contrive
>matters that you take steps to secure an extremely early certification
>of death - that's fine; I have no problem with it. But don't try to tell
>me that the person so certified is not dead after you have frozen them.

	But I am going to tell you that.  A few months ago, for the
first time, electrical activity was recorded in brain tissue thawed
from -196'C.  This suggests that cryonics patients cryopreserved under
the very best conditions today may meet Scenario (3) criteria for
a legally living patient.  We for the first time may have a basis for
a court challenge of the status of our patients as legally dead.
That's not to say that our patients are in good shape.  They are in
TERRIBLE shape.  But then again, so are many of the comatose patients on
Scenario (3) life support that medicine calls legally living today.
All we ask is that laws regarding life and death in medicine be applied
fairly and equally to all people, including us, which currently they are not.

***************************************************************************
Brian Wowk          CryoCare Foundation               1-800-TOP-CARE
President           Your Gateway to the Future        
   http://www.cryocare.org/cryocare/

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