X-Message-Number: 15436 Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 12:39:12 -0500 Subject: A Reply To Mr. Grimes From: Mr. Jeff Grimes has been favoring us with a couple of posts lately, in one of which he mentioned me personally. Well -- call on The Devil and he will appear, as the old Russian proverb goes. I thought I would take the opportunity to respond to his points. 1. Mr. Grimes says: "I didn't mean to start a new debate here, I was just pointing out that no one (at least on Cryonet) seems to show much interest in what Cryonics Institute procedures are. And if we don't know what the procedures are, it's impossible to make comparisons." This is a very good point -- which is why CI has written a very lengthy page on comparing policies and procedures. Or at least comparing them insofar as other organization's procedures are sufficiently explicit for let us make comparisons. I am afraid that Mr. Grimes last sentence there may give people the impression that 'we' don t know what CI procedures are at all ie, that there is no information whatsoever about CI procedures on CI s web site. Tastes vary greatly, so there may indeed not be enough to satisfy Mr. Grimes (though from his remarks I do believe he simply had to have missed a couple of passages). But surely Mr. Grimes cannot be saying that there is *no* information *whatever* about CI procedures there. He seems to, at times. He says: "Mr. Ettinger says there's no secret. If there's no secret, why can't I find a specific description of the procedure currently being used on human patients at Cryonics Institute? This information does NOT seem to be on their web site." No? Well, to take just one (1) paragraph from an article by Robert Ettinger available through the CI site: Heparin is used as feasible, up to 30,000 units, or 40,000 for a very large person. (The heparin will not do much good unless circulation can be maintained by CPR. If intravenous injection is difficult, peritoneal or other injection may be used. If heparin cannot effectively be introduced otherwise, you may want to add it to the washout solution.) The right and left common carotid artery and the right and left internal jugular vein are used for the washout/perfusion site. The use of these vessels will allow the head to remain packed in ice. The Cryonics Institute washes out first the head then the rest of the body. The Cryonics Institute use one pass on open circuit ie, first the washout fluid, and later the perfusate go into the artery, and the blood and the other fluids flow out of the jugular vein, to be disposed of in any convenient way. If feasible, it might be helpful to occasionally collect a small vial of effluent, labelling it as to time and stage of procedure. Both arteries are raised and cannulated, and both veins opened. The fluids are injected up the arteries, the left side being washed first then the right. Next the right side is perfused (it is already connected), then the left. A low pressure 5 lb/in2 or less, and a medium rate of flow is used, adjusting as indicated. Is this not a specific description of procedures? Readers can judge for themselves by reading the article at http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Sauna/3748//funerals.htm. They can also read other materials touching on procedures at the Comparing Procedures and Policies page at http://www.cryonics.org/comparisons.html, the Phases of Suspension page at http://www.cryonics.org/phases.html, the FAQ at http://www.cryonics.org/prod.html, the Becoming A Members FAQ at http://www.cryonics.org/become.html, the student information FAQ at http://www.cryonics.org/studentinfo.html, the research updates and some full fifty or so pages of research reports at http://www.cryonics.org/research.html, plus Mr. Ettinger s procedure-related remarks on the Viewpoints page at http://www.cryonics.org/news.html. I note in passing that Mr. Eugene Leitl -- striving to make the point that CI is secretive -- elected to prove this in an odd way by pointing readers to Mr. Ettinger s 305 posts (854 KB of cloaked silence) on Cryonet from 1993-1996. These too are available for viewing at the Cryonet Archives via http://www.cryonics.org/links.html, and, yup, CI procedures are definitely addressed there too. Besides this, the CI site has an Ask Us Anything page where readers are invited to, well, ask CI anything; and a Suggestion Box page where readers who feel that more specific information should be put on pages can do so; and of course there are people like Robert Ettinger and even me fielding the occasional question online. I really don t think that this constitutes no information about CI procedures. I mean -- really: it's there. Go look. I'd cut and paste it all for readers, but there's a text limit. Mr. Grimes is quite correct on one point. There has not been (as of yet) one single page on the CI web site -- or any organization's web site -- where all this information has been collected together. But that doesn t mean that no information is there, or that it isn t available. CI has never collected it on one page because seriously! in the nearly four years that the page has been up, no one until Mr. Grimes ever said that the information up there already is insufficient. However, since he has, Robert Ettinger -- ever willing to serve the cryonics public -- is willing to pull it all together and devote a special additional page to just this one subject online. (For which he has of course gotten no thanks or approval.) I ought to point out, though, that the unlit and impenetrable dungeon that is CI is going to be lit and penetrated by a three separate film crews in succession TV after that. Hence things are a trifle busy at the moment. I would imagine it may take a couple of days for to get the page pulled together and edited, since things are pressing and human fingers can only type so quickly. If CI might be allowed a grace period of several days, and let its lack of a unified page be ignored as it is with other organizations, that would be nice. Readers who would like to check out the descriptions of procedures that are there already online (such as the passage and links I quoted) are free to do so. Really, I do not think the result can accurately be described as zero. 2. Said Mr. Grimes: "...there's no way of knowing what the differences are between the lab work and the treatment of human patients, especially since the lab work used three different procedures. Which one is the same as you use on people? Is any of them the same?" I confess I don t quite understand this one. Does Mr. Grimes mean by three procedures stepped, one-pass, and experimental control? The procedure CI uses is the one that gets the best results, as evaluated by qualified outside professionals. (CI could merely go the way of other organizations, of course, look at it themselves, and go, That s great! But it doesn t.) It is true that CI is extrapolating from its research, ie, assuming that the results on freshly killed, cooled, perfused, and evaluated sheep brains will yield similar results on humans. What else can it do? Kill living human beings, and perfuse them and see what happens? I believe that Mr. Mike Darwin once suggested on Cryonet that cryonics organizations remove a tiny chunk of their members brains (their cryopreserved members' brains) and see how stuff was going. To my knowledge no relative of a patient ever volunteered their wife, child, or mother for this experiment. 3. Mr. Grimes: "Oops, I just read this statement by Mr. Ettinger a bit more carefully: "If anyone wants a summary of the procedure used on the sheep heads, which became the CI temporary standard, and doesn't want to bother with the detail on the web site, here it is in brief: The CPA is 75% V/V glycerol in a base of buffered Ringer's with Mannitol, at about 45 deg F. One pass." Hey! What's that little word "temporary" doing in there?! Does it mean that this "standard" isn't actually the standard any more, because it was only temporary? What's going on here? Is the temporary standard still being used or not? If not, why are you telling me what used to be used in the past? If it is still being used, why is it "temporary"? Or why was it temporary in the past?" All medical procedures everywhere are temporary because they are all discarded once superior ones come into feasible use. CI s latest round of tests show that stepped ramping is (*very* slightly) superior to one-pass. Therefore stepped is in and one-pass is out. CI should soon have results as to whether continuous as opposed to stepped is better, and if it is, CI will of course then adopt it. Why mention it at all if we re throwing the entire old procedure out? Because we re not throwing the whole procedure out. It has gone from 75% V/V glycerol in a base of buffered Ringer's with Mannitol, at about 45 deg F. One pass to 75% V/V glycerol in a base of buffered Ringer's with Mannitol, at about 45 deg F. Stepped. One builds on old research, one does not make a complete rupture, or discard it. 4. Mr. Ettinger said, "There is indeed considerable mystery about the Alcor procedures, parts of which are still secret, which prevents us testing them ourselves," and Mr. Grimes replied: "Well, this may or may not be true. But here you go talking about Alcor again! I want to talk about CI! Why change the subject?" To answer the first, it is not may or may not be true : it is quite true. We do not know merely to restrict ourselves to vitrification what the formulae used are, what the cooling rate is, what concentrations are being used on human patients, etc. . I don t want to get away from the subject of CI research, but I do hope that at some point Mr. Grimes will extend his researches to other organizations and not merely CI exclusively and share his results. Mr. Grimes says I want to talk about CI! OK. But if we genuinely want to have a comparison, we must at some point compare something to something. It cannot be Mr. Grimes position that CI and only CI should be completely and painstakingly explicit about every last conceivable detail, and that other organizations should be given complete carte blanche and ignored. Does Mr. Grimes feels that that everyone is equally open about everything? I m sorry to say the facts don t support it. There is no mystery about what sort of perfusate CI is using, and there is total mystery about what Alcor's vitrification solution is. I m sorry that that s the case, but it just is, and if Mr. Grimes is serious about wanting an honest open comparison, he ought to distibute his inquiries and criticisms equally. Otherwise he will only get what he is now transmitting: a distorted picture. 4. Mr. Ettinger said, "On our web site are extensive reports by the cryobiologists/microscopists who repeated our sheep head work and evaluated it in the Ukraine a few years back, with a great deal of detail." Mr. Grimes replied: But what does this have to do with CI procedures being used on people today? Apart from the use of stepped over one-pass, the other variables are the same, and that is relevant, is it not? I might add, it does make a difference to people -- at all organizations -- whose spouses or relatives might have been prepared similarly. There's an impression that 'better techniques today' means 'worthless techniques yesterday'. That is not the case. CI's earlier techniques -- like it's current techniques -- demonstrably reduced freezing damage, and therefore give patients better hopes for revival. That is worth mentioning. Should we burn all Mike Darwin's BPI Tech Briefs (available at -- well, you know where, don't you)? After all, they're different -- probably; we don't know -- from what Alcor is doing today; I think; maybe. 5. Mr. Ettinger said, "If anyone wants a summary of the procedure used on the sheep heads, which became the CI temporary standard, and doesn't want to bother with the detail on the web site, here it is in brief: The CPA is 75% V/V glycerol in a base of buffered Ringer's with Mannitol, at about 45 deg F. One pass." This was not enough for Mr. Grimes, who replied, I'm sorry but this is not a proper description. I wish you had spent as much time giving me the details as you spent on all the political rhetoric. Then we would have some better information. What is the Ringer's solution buffered with? If you have 75% glycerol and 25% water by volume, and then you mix it with Ringer's solution, I assume this means the actual amount of glycerol decreases. Is that what you're saying here? So, what is the final concentration of glycerol?And how much Mannitol is used? I have some knowledge of chemistry, and have completed part of an emergency med tech course, but I don't understand why you need Mannitol. Can you explain this? Also you don't give any indication of how length the "one pass" is. Ten minutes? Ten hours? Also you don't say anything about the volume of the solution which is passed through the person, or the temperature, or any methods for measuering temperature. The washout solution is Ringer s solution (KCl 0.3 gm/liter, CaCl2 0.33 gm/liter, NaCl 8.6 gm/liter). It is buffered with sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3), 2.6 gm/liter, plus mannitol 4 gm/liter. Heparin may (in some cases, depending on the patient s circumstances) be added. The perfusate is 75% glycerine by volume, the rest washout solution: CI does not add 25% water by volume . Mannitol is used because it reduces or eliminates the problem of edema or swelling. Solutions are cooled by being kept in a refrigerator beforehand, where the temperature is about 7 degrees C or 45 degrees F. Solutions are fine-filtered and sterilized before refrigeration. The questions about volume and the length of the one-pass are good ones, incidentally, because they point up the variable nature of actual treatment. Mr. Grimes asks how much CPA does CI use and how fast do they put it in. The *rough* answer is, we need enough to replace all the patient s blood possible, and we try to do it as quickly as we can, and *generally* doing so in an actual perfusion of a patient takes perhaps an hour and a half. I say rough and generally because, as simple common sense will tell you, patients vary: A 300-pound man will have more blood to replace, need more CPA to replace it with, and require more time to have it done, than a 90-pound woman will, or a thirty-pound child. People in accidents or with cancer or vascular disorders do not necessarily perfuse at some abstract perfect rate. It would sound nice and authoritative if CI could say 10 liters, 72 minutes, always and everywhere . That might be ideal for some patients, inadequate and disastrous for others. In actual practice, circumstances very often dictate the procedures used. Normally, for instance, CI prefers to use the jugular vein for perfusion. But what if the patient has fallen and broken his neck and the entire neck is swollen? Normally, CI uses (as does Alcor) heparin as an anticoagulant. But what if the patient dies alone and is not discovered for two days? What is the point to adding anticoagulant when the blood has coagulated? It is easy and tempting to give a snap response. But it is misleading. 6. Mr. Ettinger said, "I doubt that any critic, including Mr. Grimes, really does want to know the exact details, except to look for debating points." Mr. Grimes replied: Well, I took the trouble to send two emails to CI asking for details, and now I am taking the trouble to ask questions here. So far, all I have from you, answering my question specifically, is one sentence, followed by a lot of PR about your organization. Again, interested readers who wish to find out whether CI s descriptions of it s procedures are restricted to one sentence may check out my brief quote of several of Mr. Ettinger's sentences above, plus the Comparing Procedures and Policies page at http://www.cryonics.org/comparisons.html, the Phases of Suspension page at http://www.cryonics.org/phases.html, the FAQ at http://www.cryonics.org/prod.html, etc., etc., etc. (again, see above). Or simply read keep reading Cryonet, where questions like Mr. Grimes are (obviously) responded to. I think one will find more than one sentence on the topic. Nay -- more than two! 7. Mr. Grimes: All right, I suppose I have got myself into this, so I will continue. I have spent a lot of time going through the web site for CI, and find some statements that seem flat-out wrong, or at least misleading, and I am really surprised that other organizations have not objected (maybe they haven't bothered to look at the web site). Actually, about a year ago, Mr. Charles Platt reviewed our Comparing page in some detail and sent a series of quite lengthy emails to myself and Mr. Ettinger and (to brighten his day) to Mr. Fred Chamberlain of Alcor in which he made several suggestions in his colorful and inimitable manner. Where they were felt to be correct and justified, CI made changes. Where they were not, the reasons were explained in a reply posted to Mr. Platt. Mr. Chamberlain, I believe, had no comment on the exchange. Maybe he didn t bother to read it, lucky fellow. 8. Mr. Grimes wrote, I am interested in the Cryonics Institute partly because it seems to be the only organization providing service in the UK these days. The web site is VERY large so I will just pick a small piece to start with, relating to some recent discussions here, and so saying, Mr. Grimes then quoted this passage from the CI page: "Also, and more importantly, the cryoprotectants used in vitrification are toxic. Thus, vitrification kills cells: it poisons and injures them to the point of actually disintegrating cell membranes in some cases. Indeed, the damage done by vitrification has been so immense and so much worse than conventional suspension treatments that, on balance, every last cryonics organization has throughout cryonics history opted for the less destructive option of conventional glycerol suspension and cooling and liquid nitrogen storage." Mr. Grimes response was: This is a bit "controversial" isn't it? We saw a post on CryoNet not long ago by one of the scientists developing vitrification, who stated flatly that the chemicals used are LESS toxic than the 75% glycerol which Cryonics Institute says it uses now. Does he know what he's talking about? One problem I have with the CI page is that it includes hardly any references for any of the things it says about its competitors. Where does their information come from? Surely it cannot be very ethical to state outright that "damage done by vitrification has been so immense and so much worse" if you don't have a really solid source for your statement. The really solid source for that statement is available through the CI link to the INC web site, where one of the scientists developing vitrification has a full article posted which states that in earlier results (not the current ones), quote, vitrification was only possible by combining the cryoprotectant with 1,000 atmospheres (atm) of hydrostatic pressure. Unhappily, we found that these high pressures could not be tolerated. We therefore raised the concentration to a concentration that required only 500 atm of applied pressure, resulting in a drop in survival from 100% to virtually 0%. Given a couple of years of effort, this survival rate was boosted to 75%, but when we combined this concentration with 500 atm, the survival rate again fell to zero. Raising concentration still more, so that no pressure would be needed, also resulted in a 0% survival rate. 0% survival seems to me to be kind of not so great. Can one fairly describe total wipeout as worse , nay, 'immense'? I think so, but I will grant that some more verbally stringent might not. (Readers wishing to view the entire article may go to the CI s web page at http://www.cryonics.org/links.html and click the INC link.) I might add that according to Fred Chamberlain's article (available at -- you guessed it -- http://www.cryonics.org/comparisons.html), he states that Alcor is using its vitrification solution in higher concentrations. How much higher we do not know, though we do know that higher concentrations are more toxic. More toxic than glycerol? Maybe. Mr. Grimes is not asking, and I can't help but notice that no Alcor official is volunteering the information. Assuming any comparison tests have been run at all. But so what? We want to know what mannitol is for, so we can be sure that CI is not just slipping goop in to impress people, but also not telling them about it to keep it secret.) 9. Mr. Grimes: Since Robert Ettinger complains that the procedures used by competitors are "secret" how can he know that they are so bad? The use of quotations above suggest that those procedures are not in fact secret. They are. If Mr. Grimes knows of a place where 21CM formulae (or even the full names and mixes of medications used by Alcor in glycerol suspension) are publicly available, please, by all means tell us where. Inquiring minds want to know. How does Mr. Ettinger know they are so bad? He doesn t. Maybe they re not so bad. We just have no way of testing, and therefore no way of knowing. I should point out, however, that I m not aware that Mr. Ettinger has ever said vitrification is bad . The CI site if I may quote from it directly -- says: Please note carefully: in pointing out the many practical difficulties of developing and applying vitrification, we are not saying that vitrification as such is bad or that research into it is inappropriate. On the contrary. We admire the energy and effort that many people at various organizations have invested in the new research. We fully agree that much more research and development is needed. Indeed we are ourselves conducting ongoing new research, with fresh reports from time to time on this web site. And, of course, we are glad to point people to the article and let them make their own judgments: the article in question is available at http://www.alcor.org/eventsb.html, and some further commentary on it is available at http://www.cryonics.org/vitcomm.htm. Nonetheless, we think a close rather than a casual and uncritical reading of the article in question will demonstrate that its somewhat grandiose promotional claims plainly go much much further than the evidence presented justifies. Let us be clear, though: CI believes that patients who undergo vitrification (like those who don't) should be recoverable by future technology, that research into the technique should definitely continue, and that such an option should be made available to members who want it. However, people reading the article in question, upon seeing phrases like 'no structural damage' and speculations about 'pharmacology' restoring vitrified patients, may be led to assume that no damage whatsoever occurs to vitrified patients, and that reversible suspension has essentially been achieved. Nothing could be further from the truth." Do Alcor or INC or 21CM or Mr. Grimes believe that no damage whatsoever occurs to vitrified patients, and that reversible suspension is here now? Again, this is a question Mr. Grimes does not ask, and that is why he is not getting, or giving, a balanced view. 10. Notes Mr. Grimes: I am also really surprised by the last part of the quote stating that all other organizations have "opted for" conventional glycerol. Did they have a choice? From previous posts it seems that only one organization (Alcor) has been allowed a license to use the vitrification system, which was only developed last year anyway. But "throughout cryonics history" suggests vitrification has been an option for years. It hasn't, has it? This seems intentionally misleading." From CI s link to the INC site, one can read an extended statement by the scientist developing vitrification on this subject, in which he states, quote: In 1980, I decided to begin looking at a radical alternative. In this alternative, which is called vitrification, no ice forms in the organ regardless of how deeply it is cooled. It would seem, thus, that vitrification has been under serious consideration for at least twenty years. I should add that I don t believe that Alcor has been licensed to use the vitrification system . My understanding (perhaps wrong) is that Alcor was issued precisely one formula and given some instructions in how to use it, but that (according to Mr. Chamberlain s article) Alcor is cooling faster than 21CM suggests, and using higher (and therefore more toxic) concentrations. The procedure currently being applied on humans is not (therefore) the procedure that is being applied on either INC s two brain slices, or on 21CM s two rabbit kidneys. What is being applied, we don t know. True, we don't know that it is 'bad'. Maybe it's not. In all sincerity, I hope that it in fact is not. CI would like to find out by running tests evaluated (like its current tests) by third-party researchers. But it can't because neither BioTransport not 21CM will (for the moment) license anything to them. I think that if they would, the additional research results would be to everyone's benefit. But it just isn't happening. Yet. 11. Mr. Grimes: Here's another part that bothered me: [Ettinger:] "What does 'viable' mean? It does not mean that half the cells were cooled to a temperature that forestalled all decay and were then restored to healthy life. It means that, in two experiments, about half the cells managed to retain a potassium/sodium ratio that cells require to be alive. About half did not, and were irrecoverably dead (by present methods)." Mr. Grimes: But we saw a post here recently that absolutely contradicted this and stated that the percentage viability measures the overall ability of cells to do what they normally do, which is like saying an athlete can only run 53% as fast as he used to (but he's still running, not lying on the ground, with half of him paralyzed). How did Cryonics Institute get this so wrong? To be quite precise, on January 9, the principal researcher at the Institute for Neural Cryobiology reported 66% viability using a newer cryoprotectant and longer equilibration time. This scientist said that the percentage referred to each individual cell, not an average over all the cells in the specimen. (This I have to confess sounded rather odd to me, since I find it kind of tough to imagine both every last cell being individually examined, *and* every last cell coming out exactly 66% viable. It is really rare that treated biological specimens come out absolutely perfect straight across the board, though I do not say that it didn t happen. Merely that we cannot replicate the experiment, lacking the solutions and formulae.) Now I don t read Cryonet every day (good grief, who could, and remain sane!); however, I believe that six days later, on the fifteenth, in a message to Cryonet, Paul Wakfer, President of INC, said that the 53% viability (now 66%) is indeed a global or average percentage of functionality by K/Na criterion, and did not apply to each individual cell. So I am not sure just what the particular line is on this subject at the moment. When there s a consensus, someone tell me. Mr. Grimes has a point, though albeit not one that sheds a good light on vitrification. He is right to the extent that he claims CI apparently believed that the 53% of the cells treated were in viable condition and that 47% were not. This, however, was because the article by Mr. Chamberlain did not specifiy which of the alternatives was the case, and CI gave vitrification researchers the benefit of the doubt by assuming they got good results with more than half the cells. It seemed kind of weird to assert that, using vitrification, every individual cell was 53% viable . I confess I find it kind of hard to figure out what that means exactly in terms of individual cells -- 53% of pottasium and sodium in each cell? (No doubt I shall be violently enlightened, in between numerous aspersions on my legitimacy, my IQ, etc.). See, if my leg gets vitrified, and 47% of it isn t viable (the lower leg, say), that means the upper leg is, and so at least I ve got an upper leg. But if 47% of *every single cell* in my leg doesn t work well, what does that mean? Mr. Grimes compares 53% viability with a runner running only 53% as fast. Does this mean that if we vitrify a runner s leg right now, it ll come out walking half as slow? I don t think so. I think that if someone s head gets vitrified and thawed, it will come out dead and not just thinking at half-speed. Again, it is easy to put that sort of thing to the test and see, but no one who can is doing so, and CI (which would like to) cannot. I should note in passing that the only reason we found out about these different versions of viability is precisely because Mr. Ettinger alone raised the issue and so finally got someone to come out and clarify it. Sort of. Would we be better off is *no* one asked any questions about it at all ever? This seems to be a strange position for Mr. Grimes to hold, and I find it hard to believe he holds it. It seems to me that if he is justified in asking questions about CI procedures -- and he is -- Mr. Ettinger is justified in asking about vitrification procedures. Whereas in fact Mr. Ettinger is characterized as 'intentionally misleading' for asking questions. Why should Mr. Grimes be upset that Mr. Ettinger is doing what he is doing? 12. Mr. Grimes: "Since these are VERY serious allegations, isn't there a question of legal liability here? I mean if this was a pharmaceutical company claiming that a new drug by another pharmaceutical company killed its patients, and the company making the accusation did not bother to back up this claim with some citations to literature, or even a phone call to check the facts, I would expect the injured party to file a law suit or restraining order ASAP." I hate to have to quote the same passage twice in the same post, especially since it s on the CI site and I am sure Mr. Grimes, quoting from the section, must have read it, but: Let us be clear, though: CI believes that patients who undergo vitrification (like those who don't) should be recoverable by future technology and, far from having no citations, this passage is preceded exactly two sentences earlier by a link to Fred Chamberlain s own full article at http://www.alcor.org/eventsb.html. CI is quite explicitly not saying that anyone is 'killing its patients', and quite clearly pointing to the other side and letting it make its full stated case. A courtesy that is not now and never has been returned. 13. Mr. Grimes: "I must say, the Cryonics Institute does seem to have some advantages in its use of morticians to provide a faster local response than other organizations, but its web site bothers me somewhat because it is so full of negative comparisons, without references or proof. When I first became interested in cryonics I assumed that in a small field, there would be some need for people to support each other. But it looks more like the Maoists vs the Trotskyites vs the Stalinists." Not to be harsh, but I should note in passing that, for some reason I don t quite understand, comments on the internet always seem to come out ten times harsher than they do in real life. This is something we all ought to remember when posting. I really don't think that Mr. Grimes seriously intends to compare people posting on Cryonet to the greatest mass murderers in human history. Just as I don't really believe that having answered his questions in private correspondence, in public correspondence, having pointed to several online information sources, etc., etc., Mr. Grimes really believes that there is zero information on CI procedures available. What question has he asked that hasn't been answered? I kind of feel that Mr. Grimes understandably, maybe would like one single article where all CI s procedures are listed together. He does not want, apparently, to go hopping around reading this here and reading that there and having to put the picture together himself. Well OK. If that s what he wants, CI will oblige. It's a reasonable thing to offer CI site readers. (I wish all the organizations did, for that matter.) In fact, I'm not the webmaster or anything, and it does take a little while to pull all this stuff together and edit it, but if he really doesn't seem to want to read the web page in any depth, then if he d like, I d be happy to email it to him personally once it s done as well as to anyone else. But -- frankly -- at some point a serious seeker after truth has to exercise a bit of self-criticism too. I mean -- look, Mr. Ettinger says, The CPA is 75% V/V glycerol in a base of buffered Ringer's with Mannitol, at about 45 deg F, and Mr. Grimes reads this, cuts it out, pastes it into his post, and says in the very same paragraph carrying the quote, you don't say anything about the volume of the solution which is passed through the person, or the temperature Well yes, he does! It s 45 deg F . It's right there! How can someone *read* the temperature, and cut it and paste it and quote it, and then ask what the temperature is? The volume of the solution passed through the person ? Well, isn t it simply obvious that a deceased six foot five obese adult male will require more , and a deceased one-year old child less , and that snap responses like 'six liters' simply cannot be given? In the very section on vitrification he quotes from, the CI site says, Please note carefully: in pointing out the many practical difficulties of developing and applying vitrification, we are not saying that vitrification as such is bad, and Mr. Grimes, clearly having read the section, nonetheless says, since Robert Ettinger complains that the procedures used by competitors are "secret" how can he know that they are so bad? I m not saying that Mr. Grimes is badly motivated or that he s wrong to ask. I m sure he s well motivated, and he's quite right to ask. But it just seems to me that he's -- well, skimming in his reading rather than reading closely and thoughtfully. Hopping on certain points that strike him as not being good enough, but not bothering to make a really thorough check. That's not a crime, of course. And it's certainly not a problem for CI. Hey, it just gives CI another chance to make its case, show the world that it s hiding nothing, and point everyone to the appropriate information sources. Me, I thank Mr. Grimes for doing his bit to drive more people to CI's web site. We need more people like Mr. Grimes, showing the Great American Republic that CI responds and others don't. Web site readership is up and so are inquiries this week: thanks, Jeff! I myself tend not to post much to Cryonet, but Mr. Grimes has managed to drag even me away from my cough drops and Robutussin and gotten me typing. CI owes such folks much thanks. I can only hope that once Mr. Grimes is done asking questions about CI, he'll go on to ask them of all the other organizations, and give them a boost too. I think complete openness would be a very good thing for the cryonics movement, and I am both happy and sorry to say that it is only CI that seems to be the main practitioner at the moment. I d also like to say one thing before I go. I do think Mr. Grimes exclusive concentration on CI procedures are a bit odd, and his comments on Robert Ettinger a bit harsh. But I think he has every right to ask the former, and that he has come close but not stepped over the line that constitutes civilized discourse in the latter. But he has come close, and that really isn't necessary. People in cryonics are not 'Maoists and Stalinists' and they don t hate each other, and they don t spend all their time goring each other. Yes, I have to admit that when Mr. Eugene Leitl called Mr. Ettinger a warty troll , he did some damage to Eugene Leitl. But did the cryonics movement crumble and shake because of it? Of course not. In everything cryonicists are doing and striving for, there has been progress, and that progress is growing. We are heading in the right direction, and we are heading there together. I think perhaps the most graceful post of the past few weeks came from an Alcor member, Kennita Watson, who responded to Mr. Leitl s troll post by pointing out, with wit and a sense of humor, that such language really was neither accurate, substantive, nor kind. Yes: people in cryonics really do act like grown-ups and come together and support each other as CI did, when it came to CryoCare s aid when it was beginning to crumble. Good will, generosity of spirit, love of truth: all this is genuinely out there, and I suspect is there even in the worse of us. This is what counts about the cryonics movement this, and gestures like Ms. Watson s, and the objective progress which CI in its way and no doubt Alcor in its way is making too. All the rest is just hot air. David Pascal Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15436