X-Message-Number: 17582 Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 13:22:59 -0400 (EDT) From: Charles Platt <> Subject: Reply to Ettinger Bob wrote: "My contention was not that CryoCare had no virtues, but that it had obvious defects, and that it caused more losses to Alcor and to Cryonics than did the Visser affair. Alcor lost members when CryoCare was formed, and never got them all back. Some people dropped out of cryonics altogether when CryoCare folded." Look, I already answered these points, all of which are misleading or false. First you do not state what the "obvious defects" of CryoCare were. I already listed its positive features, which were unmatched by any other cryonics organization. Second, I already pointed out that CryoCare did not "cause more losses to Alcor." The founding members of Alcor were already disillusioned and disenchanted; that's why they formed CryoCare. The Alcor regime in those days was remarkably unresponsive, which led to significant discontent. If Alcor had followed a different policy, CryoCare would have had no reason to exist. I would have been delighted; the last thing I wanted was the huge challenge and time-consuming effort of starting a new organization. Third, I already pointed out that many CryoCare members had never been part of any organization. These people were a *net addition* to cryonics. Is this concept too subtle for you, Bob? Fourth, I already stated that when CryoCare ceased offering services, the people who failed to rejoin other organizations were some of the most active people in cryonics and in research, *and still are.* They did not "drop out of cryonics." They were waiting (some are still waiting) for an organization that would satisfy their standards. I realize this is hard for you to comprehend, because you believe that CI has impeccable standards. But not everyone agrees with you about this, Bob. You continue: "The damage done to cryonics by the Visser affair, as far as I know, is completely undocumented" Well, no one has done a survey asking people if they are concerned that CI and Alcor spent $25,000 each on a woman who falsely claimed to resuscitate rat hearts and later used the same chemical as a bogus cure for AIDS. (What do you think the results would be, Bob?) Actually I think you are correct that cryonics survived relatively unscathed from the Visser affair, because it was relatively undocumented. I was the only person who wrote a detailed report, for a small-circulation magazine, and I am sure you didn't circulate a copy of this report among your members. But the potential for damage was clearly quite large, if a journalist had felt like writing about it for the national press. In any case my original point was that the incident showed an amazing misjudgment and created a great deal of embarrassment. I did not try to quantify damage. That was your red herring. Finally: "The key fact in the Visser rat heart case was that the Alcor apparatus, as I recall, showed a temperature near that of liquid nitrogen, and after rewarming the heart resumed beating. There was clapping and cheering around the room. (Not by me--I'm not that demonstrative.)" How about some journalistic fundamental details, Bob? Like, WHEN? My detailed report, *and* Fred Chamberlain's report, both showed that no beating was observed during the public demonstration, which was repeated on four rat hearts. Fred wrote his conclusions after very carefully inspecting the video tape that was made. The experiment was a total failure. Your pet pseudoscientist took your money and ran back to South Africa (to poison AIDS patients with a fake cure) without achieving anything. Your statement is a complete denial of reality. "There is a partial analogy with Alcor's decision to apply its "vitrification" procedure to human patients, even though that procedure, to my knowledge, has never been tested and evaluated with experimental animals." This is an appalling comparison that insults the integrity, life work, and credentials of dedicated scientists. If you would simply bother to *pick up the phone*, you would find that you are totally wrong. Animal testing has been an integral part of the 21CM development of vitrification solutions for many years. A rabbit kidney was the first organ to be vitrified, when the originator of the concept was still working at the Red Cross, many years ago. I can't believe that you are unaware of this. Also, I suspect that if CI were able to license vitrification technology, your entire posture on this topic would reverse itself. --Charles Platt Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17582