X-Message-Number: 15204
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 12:52:59 -0700
From: Fred Chamberlain <>
Subject: Alcor Neuro-Vitrification Procedure Yesterday, and Thanks to

Date:    12/28/2000
From:    Fred Chamberlain
To:      CryoNet
Re:      Alcor Neuro-Vitrification Procedure Yesterday, and Thanks to Bill
Seidel

YESTERDAY

In a recent post, I mentioned, "At this time, it appears nearly certain
that a second neurovitrification will take place before the end of the
year."  At the time that post went out, the suspension was actually in
progress.  As of 2:00 a.m. this morning, our second neuro cryovitrification
procedure of this month was into cooldown, having achieved the necessary
levels of cryoprotection with freeze blockers to give us high confidence
that most of the brain will cryovitrify.

The qualification "most of the brain" relates to the fact that this Alcor
Member was a mid-forties gal who was struck by a pickup truck while walking
her dog along an icy road in the northern part of the U.S., remote from all
large cities.  It happened virtually in front of her house, and her
husband, also an Alcor Member, was at her side immediately.  Being well
known cryonicists in the area, they were able to get the Coroner to come
immediately to the accident site, and by the time he arrived only a few
minutes later, the husband was speaking on his cell phone with Jerry
Lemler, M.D., Alcor's Medical Director who is on the verge of moving to
Arizona to take over this role on a full time basis.

As the Coroner stepped from his car, the husband was able to literally
"hand the cell phone" to the Coroner, who found himself talking with a
M.D., with the result that immediate release and waiver of autopsy was
achieved, and good cooperation with the local hospital was obtained, with
administration of heparin (anti-coagulant medication) and continuation of
cooling.  In several recent suspensions, we have found that immediate
intervention by an Alcor M.D. has "turned the tide" in what otherwise could
have been a tragic defeat of the Members' purpose in being a member of
Alcor.  (Alcor now has three M.D.'s who are trained in both surgery as well
as rescue coordination skills, and will continue to expand this
participation as more M.D.'s join Alcor and help to "spread the load".)


Delays in surface and air transportation, particularly due to heavy Holiday
traffic, brought about a 30+ hour delay, prior to surgery at Alcor Central.
 Notwithstanding this, new surgical procedures, combined with far more
effective cryoprotective agents and freeze blockers, permitted brain
washout and cryoprotection beyond any levels that would have been possible
before.  (Immediate intervention by an Alcor M.D. was a critical link also,
as already mentioned).

One very synergistic aspect was that extensive consulting, coaching and
advice were provided, during the procedure, by the same science team that
had developed the new cryoprotective agents and freeze blockers.  The
availability to Alcor of in-depth knowledge of the physiology of
cryoprotection, adjusted to this particular case, was invaluable, helping
us to provide the utmost possible level of brain protection for an Alcor
Member who had suffered a totally unexpected termination of her first life
cycle.  It also gives additional confidence to the rest of us that we can
"go to higher levels" in aiding other Alcor Members who might encounter
similar threats to irrecoverable loss of their lives, in the future.

More details will be reported in future issues of Cryonics Magazine (we
hope to have some of these articles in the Alcor website before long, and
will announce this on CryoNet as it happens).  We are looking forward to
the day when the research that underlies these new vitrification procedures
have been reported in the scientific literature, so that we can give a
better sense of the underlying science to those who want to understand it.
Despite this limitation, we have (with the in-depth aid of the scientists
involved) recently published a necessarily limited account of the new
procedures in Cryonics Magazine, and that article (lacking the graphics at
this point) is already available on the Alcor Website (take the "News and
Events" link), at: http://www.alcor.org/eventsb.html.


THANKS TO BILL SEIDEL

Bill said, in part (recently):

>"So lets not sit around and bash each other. Lets 
>get something done, getinvolved with your cryonics 
>company, support them with what ever you can, tell 
>other people about this most exciting adventure we 
>can get into.  Forget about negative attitudes and 
>verbal abuse, we don't have time for that.

>Billy H. Seidel
>520-203-0161

Bill has made a massive contribution to Alcor lately, including production
of a great, 27 minute video introduction ("The Alcor Adventure").  This
includes many clips from the Asilomar Conference, and interviews with Alcor
Physicians.  Contact Alcor if you'd like to buy a copy of this!  ($25 for
one copy, large discounts for quantity orders.)



Fred Chamberlain, President/CEO () 

Alcor Life Extension Foundation 
Non-profit cryotransport services since 1972. 
7895 E. Acoma Dr., Suite 110, Scottsdale AZ 85260-6916 
Membership Information: (877) GO-ALCOR (462-5267) 
Phone (480) 905-1906 FAX (480) 922-9027
 for general requests
<http://www.alcor.org/>http://www.alcor.org 

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