X-Message-Number: 15502
From: 
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 11:49:35 EST
Subject: Grimes notes

Most of what is in Grimes' posts today (yesterday, as you read this) is just 
repetition, but I'll make a couple of quick remarks:

He writes:

>CryoNet is the only thing I have found that compares with Consumer >Reports, 
in cryonics. 

Consumer Reports should sue him.

And:

I had written:

>> In cryonics procedures also, the bottom line is results. The results >>of 
CI experiments have been evaluated by independent professionals-- 
>>two sets of them--and key portions of the reports are on our web site. 

Grimes replied:

>Well, wait a minute. One of your independent professionals was the 
>biologist who did the original sheep head research, described on your >web 
site, is that right? But your web site suggests he was working for >you. So 
how independent can he be? The other professionals would be the >people in 
Canada who did the more recent study. Is that right? But you >won't even tell 
us who they are!

If someone working for pay as a consultant cannot be "independent" then every 
commercial testing lab in the world is suspect. Come off it.

The first independent professionals were Dr. Yuri Pichugin and associates in 
the Ukraine, beginning around 1994. They did not do the original sheep head 
work-we did. But they repeated and then evaluated it. As I remarked in my 
comment on one of Wakfer's posts, Wakfer's own INC and associates later hired 
Dr. Pichugin to work in California on their most advanced project, so 
presumably they had confidence in him, and still do.

As for our current evaluators in Canada, I repeat, they are willing to be 
identified, but I am not willing to expose them to the possibility of 
harassment. They don't need or deserve that.

Next, I believe we have previously more or less cleared up the question of 
CPA concentrations and comparative toxicities, and our web segments are being 
made less liable to misreading. 

Very quickly, the current Alcor CPA as used is believed to be less toxic than 
the previous Alcor standard using glycerol, although perhaps more toxic 
(because more concentrated) than what was used in the INC tests showing 66% 
"viability" by the K/Na criterion. The CI procedures involved a much lower 
final concentration of glycerol in the tissues than the previous Alcor 
procedure, so we have no direct comparison there.

About cooling rates: After perfusion, CI cools slowly, using first dry ice 
and then liquid nitrogen, because we have found that avoids cracking (which I 
believe no one else has avoided). As to whether that is the best possible 
trade-off, we can't be certain, but so far that has been our decision. 

Newcomers and watchers have several choices. One is to pick an organization 
and join and make your arrangements, and then, if you have the time and 
inclination, become active in the improvement of the organization. Another is 
to emulate Platt and Wakfer and perhaps Grimes and some others and say a pox 
on all your houses, you aren't good enough and I won't deal with any of you, 
so there. A third is to stall.

Your choice, your life.

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

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