X-Message-Number: 7165
From: 
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 17:36:58 -0500
Subject: SCI. CRYONICS morticians & shipping

I don't want to get sucked back into spending more than minimal time on
e-mail, but I'll take a moment to respond to one of Charles Platt's
questions/comments concerning use of funeral directors for local processing:

If the perfusion procedure is relatively simple or the funeral director well
trained and supplied, and if patients could be shipped in dry ice, it would
make sense to have the local funeral director do washout, perfusion, and even
cool-down to dry ice temperature. Promptness is very important, and the delay
and expense of a traveling team should be avoided if possible.

But if the perfusion procedure is changing frequently or the supply and
training of funeral directors becomes burdensome, and now that the airlines
will not allow dry ice except in very small amounts, it may be better to have
the local funeral director just see to the initial cool-down and washout,
flushing with a transplant viability solution and shipping in water ice. (The
Columbia solution is reportedly better than the Wisconsin solution, Viaspan,
and Cryonics Institute is experimenting with variations of the Columbia
solution.) This pretty clearly should usually be superior to the probable
delay and certain expense of a traveling team, and would not require frequent
retraining of the funeral directors.

Incidentally, a remark on shipping someone who is already in dry ice for
whatever reason: If shipment must be by air, and airlines will not allow the
dry ice, one could use a well insulated container and super-cooled water ice
or other super-cooled solution. This could keep the patient's temperature
near that of dry ice during shipment.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society


Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7165