X-Message-Number: 15473 From: "Jeff Grimes" <> Subject: Catching Up Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 01:52:33 +0000 Weird things have happened to my usual email address while I was away for a few days. I have received an error message, since Saturday, telling me that I can't log on because they are doing system maintenance. While I am trying to sort this out, I have established a new email account, Also I have updated myself on CryoNet postings by reading the archives at www.cryonet.org. Note that if you sent me personal email during the past week, I haven't been able to read it, and you may want to re-send it to my new address. Now I will try to catch up with CryoNet to-and-fro during the past week. I will reply first to Robert Ettinger: R.E. wrote: "Incidentally, it is a tricky proposition to compare delay times of Alcor's recent patients and CI's recent patients. First, the sample is small and the circumstances of death happenstance. It is the overview that is important. Longer delays on average with Alcor are inherently certain, because Alcor's traveling team has to get there, and THAT in recent cases has taken 30 hours or more--whereas, if a CI patient has made emergency arrangements with a local funeral director, delay in arrival of help is usually less than an hour, sometimes just a few minutes, and the local help could include washout and perfusion." My reply: Why is it a "tricky proposition"? What does this mean? CI makes a point of saying that its funeral directors provide a faster response, and logically this seems to be true. So, why not say what the response has actually been? Since CI has listed the very poor transportation times for the last four Alcor people, can't we be told what the transportation times are (from deathbed to laboratory) for CI people? What's so "tricky" about this? R.E. wrote: "2. (Are instructions for funeral directors available?) Of course--they are available to all members and their funeral directors, and are not confidential. We haven't previously posted them on the web site--just one of many things we haven't yet gotten around to doing. The proverbial one-armed paper-hanger. But we will." My reply: Um, okay. Of course you don't say when.... Would it not be simple to cut-and-paste this information into a post to CryoNet? I am naturally curious to learn what your funeral directors are told to do, when they get a case for cryonics preservation. Will this information be made public? R.E. quoted me as saying: "Here's another thought. I would tend to think that when those people of the future decide who is worth resuscitating and who is not worth bothering with, they'll be likely to choose the people who accepted their responsibility..." And then E wrote: "What in the world is he talking about? Does he imagine that some agency is going to look at the roster of our patients and then vote on who is "worth" resuscitating and who is not?" My reply: I have no idea why Mr. Ettinger finds it "incredible" that some people might be revived, while others are not. Has he heard of the principle of triage (used in every emergency room)? His incredulity just confirms my previous statement: That he seems to feel he "deserves" to be revived. But, adult experience in the world teaches us that we don't always get what we deserve. Also, people who contribute more to the world are perceived as being more valuable. I am still not convinced that someone else (now or in the future) will take care of everything for all of us, regardless of who we are. R.E. wrote: "A couple of people expressed the opinion that the toxicity must also be much lower than that of the current CI solution, which is 75% glycerol by volume (i.e., 750 ml glycerol added to 250 ml water at room temperature, later refrigerated). However, our one-pass does not result in equilibration. Our measurements indicate a final average concentration in the brain tissue of around 26% by weight, hence obviously a much lower toxicity than the previous Alcor standard." My reply: This is VERY interesting. It seems to mean that the people who claim a "closed circuit" is better are right, because if you circulate the glycerol for longer, it must have a better chance of getting where it is supposed to go. If less than half of CI's glycerol is actually getting into the cells, isn't this rather a problem? But also the CI system raises another question. If it "does not equilibrate," I assume this means that it doesn't reach a balance. In other words, there must be higher concentrations in some places than others. This sounds rather unsatisfactory, and I wonder where the "26%" figure was measured. R.E. wrote: "As for Grimes, however--Alcor is welcome to him." This is the first time I've been excluded from buying a service, before I have even applied for it! I am really amazed, and also quite insulted. Would someone please tell me what I did to provoke this? So far, I have been quite polite and I have just asked questions, not so different from questions which a patient would ask of a doctor, if the patient was facing a medical procedure. Since cryonics organizations are hoping to save lives, wouldn't it be quite natural for people to ask how the procedures work, especially bearing in mind that the whole thing is experimental and not controlled by any government standards? Why on earth would CI try to get rid of someone who simply wants to know how things work? I should add that I assumed I would get short, simple, factual answers to my questions, because I assumed the questions must have been asked before, and the answers would be "ready to go." Instead I have received a lot of unpleasantness, especially from David Pascal. But I will answer him in a separate message. Jeff Grimes. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15473