X-Message-Number: 1488 Date: 22 Dec 92 22:05:24 EST From: Saul Kent <> Subject: CRYONICS: Reply to McCrary, Herman, and Donaldson I've been in Florida for the past week and have been unable to reply to any postings on Cryonet. What follows are my replies to recent postings by Lola McCrary, Scott Herman, and Thomas Donaldson. To Lola McCrary: In your posting on Cryonet last week, you accused me of having a "double standard" in calling for Keith Henson to resign from the Alcor Board because of his criticism of President-Elect Steve Bridge after defending Brenda Peters when she criticized Alcor's outgoing President Carlos Mondragon earlier in the year. In my opinion, they were two different cases. Brenda's criticism of Carlos was based upon Carlos' actions as President and CEO of Alcor. The reason I didn't criticize Brenda about her criticism of Carlos was because I agreed with most of what she said about his performance as Alcor's President. I have no problem with Keith (or any other Board member) criticizing Steve about his performance as Alcor President and CEO, but I think it would be appropriate to wait until Steve actually takes office before staring to do so. As I said in my open letter to the Alcor Board, I strongly supported Carlos for four years before I reluctantly came to the conclusion that it might be desirable to replace him as President of Alcor. In my opinion, Keith's letter was not only prematurely critical of Steve, but also included thinly-veiled threats against others in a manner which I believe to be inappropriate for a member of the Board. Your suggestion that I might be going to jail, presumably because of my fight against the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) introduced an extremely complex issue into the discussion without any explanation. My only concern is that your mention of the possibility of my going to jail could be construed as suggesting that I might be guilty of some crime, which I am not. To Scott Herman: I'm sorry you think I wasn't interested in speaking with you when I saw you at Alcor on several occasions, but we were never introduced and I was only there a short time. I've always been appreciative of Alcor members who volunteer their time to help the organization. I've been told that your contributions were quite valuable and so I'd like to take this occasion to, belatedly, express my appreciation for your efforts in helping Alcor. I hope you will consider doing so again. To Thomas Donaldson: On Dec. 12 (# 1438), Thomas Donaldson posted his reply to my memo of arguments in favor of creating a separate patient-care organization which I had mailed to him. I have not posted this 11-page memo on cryonet because of its length, but will instead respond to his reply to my memo. If any cryonetters wish me to post my 11-page memo, I will do so. I believe (and have argued) that a separate patient-care organization would be less vulnerable to legal and government attack than an organization which also does cryonic suspensions. Thomas disagrees with my assessment. He argues that "...up to now the only lawsuits INDIVIDUAL cryonic societies have faced (and ALCOR potentially faces are those from disgruntled relatives who want the suspension funda BACK. If different organizations had dealt with storage and suspension, BOTH would have been attacked: and if these relatives act solely for the money involved they would first go after the storage organization, where most of the money lies. The funds devoted to the suspension operation, unless augmented by punitive damages, would barely pay the cost of recovering them." Thomas is right about a separate storage organization not being protection against lawsuits filed after the legal responsibility and the funds for long-term patient care have been transfered to the storage organization. The only way that liability could be reduced would be to postpone transfering the legal responsibility and funds for long-term patient care to the storage organization in high-risk cases, until the risk is reduced or eliminated. In some cases, we should be able to identify potentially hostile relatives prior to the patient being placed into suspension. In other cases, we should be able to identify potentially hostile relatives shortly after the patient has been suspended. In still other cases, it may be impossible to identify a hostile relative until long after the suspension has taken place. The extent to which we can deal with the concerns of hostile relatives before transfering the legal responsibility and funds for patient care to the storage organization will determine the extent to which we can protect existing patients from the liabilities of newly suspended patients. Thomas then goes on to argue that "...separation of storage and suspension would not have helped the kind of problems Alcor faced with Dora Kent. At first Alcor's officers, following procedures they had followed repeatedly in the past, believed that everything was in good order. Dora would soon be encapsulated in a permanent location. And, in fact, the initial contacts between Alcor and the Riverside Coroner were, if anything, actually friendly. If we had had two organizations rather than one, the Coroner would have tried to attack the STORAGE organization and threatened, as he did, to impound all the patients, not just Dora Kent." I disagree. We knew very early on in the Dora Kent case that it was going to be a Coroner's case. We did not believe everything was in "good order" and we were very concerned about the possible consequences of the Coroner's actions. Moreover, the early contacts between Alcor personnel and the Coroner were never "friendly"; they were at best cordial. There's no doubt in my mind that, if we had had a separate patient care organization during the Dora Kent crisis, we would not have tranfered the legal responsibility and funds for her long-term care to that organization until the risk to Dora had ended. The only reason the Coroner threatened the other patients in the Dora Kent case was because they couldn't get their hands on Dora and were tyring to get the Alcor staff to tell them where she was. If the other patients had been in a separate facility owned and managed by people other than Alcor's leaders, the Coroner would have been, in my opinion, less likely to threaten Alcor staff members with the destruction of the other patients. And, if the patients had been stored in any county other than Riverside County, the Coroner would have had no jurisdiction over them. I agree with Thomas that having a separate patient-care organization would not have helped us in our battle with the California Health Department. Thomas argues that "...a suspension fund should NOT be thought of purely as a sum of money to be put out in some secure investment....The problem with that approach (he argues) is that, especially now, it's quite easy to imagine circumstances in which a refusal to spend some part of the principal would be the height of folly. What if Alcor people learned of an imminent raid by government agents to sequester all the patients? If extra money must be spent to turn all patients into neuropreservation patients and move them elsewhere at short notice, it would be well spend." I agree. The purpose in caring for suspended patients in a separate patient care organization is not to place any restrictions on the expenditure of patient-care money except that it be in the best interests of the patients. In a separate organization devoted strictly to patient care, the Directors of the organizaiton would, in my opinion, be more likely to adhere to that basic principle. Thomas says that "History is full of flux and change. If we rely on one country or one law, in the long term THAT RELIANCE WILL PROVE WRONG. That is why the continued existence of an organization devoted to suspension patients becomes so important." I agree, except that I believe that an organization devoted solely to patient care would provide better protection than an all-purpose cryonics organization. Right now, Alcor is located in one county within the borders of one country (the United States). Its burden is to serve the needs of its living members as well as its members in suspension. I think there are inherent conflicts of interest between these two burdens, and would prefer to see patients cared for in an organization without these conflicts of interest. Thomas says that "The best protection consists of the memebrs of the cryonics society itself, who will want to see your suspension through to a successful revival because they too believe that someday they will be suspended and face the same problem." I agree with Thomas, once again, except that I would like to rely primarily upon members who want to be suspended themselves, but who also have a strong personal bond with the existing patients, such as members who already have loved ones in suspension. I've found that members who never knew any of the patients in suspension, which includes the majority of Alcor members, tend to be relatively unconcerned about them, and sometimes even forget they exist. Thomas misrepresents me when he says that "Saul feels that the Board of Alcor may not be trustworthy, but that...the Board of a storage society WILL be trustworthy..." That's not so. The issue of the trustworthiness of the Board is not directly relevant to my arguments in favor of a separate patient-care organization. In fact, I've come to the tentative conclusion that, it would be desirable to have a separate patient-care organization even if Alcor's management was beyond reproach. I thank Thomas for his thoughtrful ideas and arguments and hope he will continue to offer his thoughts on the subject. Saul Kent Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=1488