X-Message-Number: 17319
From: 
Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 02:25:12 EDT
Subject: Presidents of Alcor: Allen McDaniels

Mike Perry provides a corrected list of Alcor presidents which is accurate. 
He asks if Allen Mc Daniels is dead. Allen died "many" years ago, at least 10 
and probably 15. He died of some kind of adenocarciroma. I met Allen after 
many years of no contact at the Annual Society of Cryobiology meeting in St. 
Louis, MO. I don't recall the year, but it would be easy to find out. I was 
surprised to find that Allen had gone on after leaving Alcor to become a 
major leader in burn treatment being one the world's largest suppliers of 
cryobanked human skin -- which is used as a temporary dressing for burn 
victims.

Allen and I spoke at some length in the St. Louis Arch high above the 
Mississippi River. I was surprised to find that he was gay and that he had 
come to solid religious conclusions about survival of the soul after death. 
He had attended some workshop or seminar where he had a transcendental 
experience which convinced him of the immortality of the spirit and thus he 
no longer felt cryonics was personally necessary. He was, as he always had 
been, a sincere, decent man who was pursuing work he believed would genuinely 
help other people as well make a living for himself. His religious conversion 
seemed very clam and very well thought out; he was not at all evangelistic 
but simply matter of fact in responding to my questions. 

In the years after this meeting I heard nothing but good things about Dr. 
McDaniels from a broad cores section of the medical community. Allen was 
Psychiatrist which I find interesting, since a disproportionate number of 
physicians involved in cryonics have been psychiatrists including the first 
M.D. ever cryopreserved: Dr. Donovan. Robert Newport, Jerry Lemler, Thomas 
Munson and many other physicians involved in cryonics have been 
psychiatrists. It seems too bad they were not more used by the community they 
joined. Certainly there can be no argument the need is there! ;-)

Mike Darwin

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