X-Message-Number: 14285
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 08:23:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ben Best <>
Subject: INC Donations

On Wed, 9 Aug 2000, Robert Ettinger wrote:

> Message #14275
> From: 
> Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000 12:10:41 EDT
> Subject: INC tax exemption etc
> 
> INC has contracted to allow 21CM exclusive marketing rights to any useful 
> results of INC research, the hippocampal slice cryopreservation project. In 
> other words, some of the money is provided by individual donors who may then 
> take a tax deduction, INC being a 501(c)(3) organization. Some of the money 
> is provided, indirectly, by the U.S. taxpayers, because of the tax 
> deductibility of the donations--and this gift is generally unwitting and 
> unwilling. The commercial benefit potentially goes to 21CM, meaning its 
> shareholders and management. Donors to INC could even find themselves paying 
> through the nose for cryopreservation services using INC/21CM procedures or 
> services, these having been licensed by 21CM to other for-profit companies 
> including BioTransport, perhaps. This cannot be kosher.

     For what its worth, as a Canadian I got ZERO tax benefit or deduction
for any of the US$16,000 I donated to INC. Any American feeling scrupulous
about the possiblility that US taxpayers are being robbed by these 
donations is free to not claim the deduction. 

    Last November the Hippocampal Slice Cryopreservation Project was 
ready to shut-down and Yuri was set to return to Ukraine. A lot of 
good development work which was close to bearing fruit (and which has
since borne fruit) would be thrown away. I was guided by the judgement
of Dr. Greg Fahy, one of the leading (if not the leading) world authority
on organ cryopreservation (and an honorable man) that this work was
of potentially great value to cryonics. 

   I knew that there were political complications -- judgements about
Yuri, disputes over who was supposed to contribute what, the interests
of the University sponsor, the interest of 21CM, etc. All of this matters
only if you are not concerned with something really important like 
IS THIS VALUABLE RESEARCH which could forward cryonics and save our lives?
And who is most qualified to think it is? 

   If I end up "paying through the nose" for the products of this 
research, so be it. I am signed-up with the Cryonics Institute, not
with Alcor -- so I am not currently in a position to be the first
beneficiary. BUT I DON'T CARE. I want the research done. I don't 
want to see this waste of potential. There is so much time, money
and effort being spent (even by cryonicists) on things that are so
much less important than improved cryopreservation of brain tissue. 
To me, I can't think of other research I would rather see done. 

    I have nothing to be ashamed of for wanting to save my life
and the lives of others through this research. Please, Bob, don't
shame others out of supporting this work. 

                                  -- Ben

         --------------------------------------------
            Ben Best ()
            http://www.benbest.com/
            ICQ -- http://www.mirabilis.com/20636141

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