X-Message-Number: 15403
From: 
Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 12:01:13 EST
Subject: CI procedures again

Thomas Donaldson (#15393) shows again that sometimes he just doesn't pay 
attention. He has shown this repeatedly in his go-rounds with Mike Perry, but 
I won't get into that here.  

Thomas mentioned "secretiveness" and wrote, in part:

>it may well clear the air if we can learn just what the [Cryonics] 
Institute's current >methods may be, especially since they recently did some 
suspensions.

CI current methods (which will almost certainly be improved this year) are on 
record in several places including our web site--in particular, on our 
research page with Dr. Pichugin's report of his repetition of our sheep head 
work and its evaluation. And on our page "Comparing Procedures and Policies" 
are some extensive explanations of why we do or don't do certain things. I 
suggest careful readings of these pages by anyone in doubt.

It seems pretty clear that newcomers, by and large, find our disclosures and 
explanations satisfactory. People tend to "vote with their feet," and CI 
growth has been faster than anyone else's in the last couple of years. No 
amount of fulminating on Cryonet can change that.

Nevertheless, there may be some who don't get an impression of clarity, and 
we always try to improve, so we will shortly modify the web site pages to 
include a clearer and more succinct summary of our procedures. 

But let me emphasize again--exactly what is it that Thomas, or anyone else, 
would gain from ever more detailed explanations of our procedures? 

Would you compare that information with reports in the cryobiological 
literature and make a theoretical guess as to whether our methods conform to 
"accepted" views of what is best for brains? 

Would you actually go to the trouble and expense of replicating our work, or 
paying someone else to do it, and then paying for its evaluation by 
independent professionals? 

Is it not obvious that the bottom line is RESULTS? Two sets of independent 
professionals have evaluated our work, and key parts of the reports are on 
our web site. They show clearly that (1) our procedures (one pass with 75% 
glycerol) produce much less damage than is observed in untreated controls, 
and (2) ours are better than using stepped glycerol with a lower (30%) 
maximum concentration, and (3) with some tissues, by a very slight margin, 
there may be a better result with stepped glycerol with the same maximum 
concentraton (75%). 

The second lab, run by someone on the faculty of a Canadian university, did 
not know how the specimens had been prepared, so could not have been biased.

Is there anyone--any newcomer especially, but also anyone else, including 
Thomas--who would rather bet on his own theoretical guesses than on actual 
professional evaluation of results? Suit yourselves.

Now again, how about the latest Alcor procedures? Key parts are admittedly 
secret, at least for the time being--not by inadvertence or lack of clarity, 
but by policy, for commercial reasons. Of course, that aspect is legal and 
defensible. 

Less defensible is Fred Chamberlain's over-reaching in his article in 
CRYONICS and on their web site, "Vitrification arrives!" The decision 
itself--to use the new procedures--is defensible, and it may have been the 
right decision. But we don't know, whereas the thrust of the article is to 
convey the impression that we do know.

The fact is that the new procedures, as applied to Alcor's last two patients, 
have never been tested and evaluated, as far as I know--not by anyone, at any 
time, anywhere. Instead, scattered and partial and indirect evidence has been 
used to create the impression that the decision was based on direct evidence.

As I have said, critics of CI in most cases, asking for more details, 
probably just want to score debating points, not to test our methods for 
themselves. We on the other hand, in desiring more information about the 
Alcor methods, truly do want to test their methods ourselves, and we will pay 
for professional evaluation of those tests, if those methods are still 
relevant when we get the information.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org

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