X-Message-Number: 7186
From: 
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 10:37:07 -0500
Subject: SCI. CRYONICS questions

All right,  very brief clarifications for Charles Platt:

Which states other than Michigan forbid (with certain exceptions) that anyone
other than a licensed funeral director cut or inject a dead person? I don't
know--it just seems likely that, if one does, others may. I said "probably"
or "perhaps" others.

What makes us think that promptness of washout and perfusion may be more
important than the details of procedure? Our sheep head work indicated that
very clearly. Of course, we tried only a limited number of procedures. 

I did NOT "basically [just] say it costs less to do perfusion in the field."
Read it again, Charles. I said that, if perfusion procedures are relatively
complex and full training/supply of funeral directors impractical, and with a
temporary preservation solution such as the Columbia solution (or, a bit less
desirably, Viaspan, the Wisconsin solution) , it would probably make sense to
do only washout at the local funeral director's, then ship the patient in
water ice to the cryonics facility for cryoprotectant perfusion and final
cool-down. I believe there is universal agreement that promptness of washout,
as well as of initial cool-down, is important.

And on traveling teams once more: I think Charles suggested that, since most
people die in hosptals and with some warning, traveling teams are not as
impractical as I indicated. But the very high cost of traveling teams stems
not only from the travel cost itself, but also the uncertainty of date of
death and therefore length of standby, even when death in principle is
predictable. All organizations have had such experiences. We believe that
local funeral directors, combined with hospice care (either at home or at a
hospice facility), when feasible, represent by far the best arrangement.

Where do we have cooperating funeral directors? With varying degrees of
training and equipment, in England, Australia, and several states outside of
Michigan; and also, mainly for administrative purposes, in Norway and
Germany. This effort (to build a world network of trained cooperating funeral
directors) is only in its early stages.

"10-20 words" Charles? Come on. The above is considerably more than that, and
dollars to doughnuts that won't satisfy you either. 

And I can't resist adding that all this talk of CEOs and their qualifications
is tiresome and silly. While we have large ambitions, we are small
organizations, and even use of a term like "CEO" is ridiculous. We just get
the best people we can and do our utmost, and no amount of fancy talk or
pretense is likely to  change that any time soon.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society


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