X-Message-Number: 1267
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 92 10:35:52 CDT
From: Brian Wowk <>
Subject: CRYONICS: Future need for cryonics

Keith Henson:
 
> Brian, I worked the numbers recently and I think I came up with a 
> very rough doubling time of three years for suspension patients, 
> which is roughly the same as the number who are signed up.  For 
> 500 by the turn (of the century) you are projecting a factor of 20
> in under 8 years, and another factor of 20 in the next ten years.   
 
        My projections were based on the exponential fit to membership 
growth over the previous four years published in the April 1992 issue of 
Cryonics, which gives an annual growth rate of 33%.  At this rate we 
will have 500 patients in 10.5 years (I did say "near" the turn, not 
"by" the turn), and 10000 patients in 21 years.
 
> The end of cryonics (not last out, but when people quit going in) 
> is harder to project, but interest in nanotechnology is growing 
> rapidly, as is the money spent on things which contribute to 
> progress in this area.  Current projections by those most 
> knowledgeable (which everyone admits are just informed guesses) 
> centers around 2013.  That would give us 21 years or about 7 
> doublings--in round numbers about a hundred times the current 
> number of 25.  Delay nanotech by another six to eight years, and 
> you do indeed get to 10k patients.
 
        Keith, I really don't understand what you are saying here.  Are 
you suggesting that there won't be any degenerative, terminal diseases 
left in 21 years?  There is just no way this is going to happen.  If we 
had mature nanotechnology TODAY it would still take decades to figure 
out how to apply it to problems as complex as aging.  Medical 
conservatism and FDA foot-dragging alone ensure this.   
 
> Re cerebral ischemic injury, I would assume that even fairly 
> early nanotechnology would be up to keeping your heart going. 
 
        A beating heart won't do you much good when your blood supply is 
on the pavement instead of your vessels after an automobile accident.  
Traumatic injuries will ensure a large supply of suspension patients 
throughout the 21st century.  Only a comprehensive redesign of the 
central nervous system to make it immune to ischemic injury will solve 
this problem.  I confidently stand by my prediction that the number of 
patients in suspension will peak at over a million.  
 
                                                --- Brian Wowk     

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