X-Message-Number: 21217
From: "aschwin de wolf" <>
References: <>
Subject: The Media vs. Alcor (Charles Platt answers)
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 15:51:49 -0500

Please feel free to forward the following text to any news group or
discussion list.

---

As Alcor CEO Dr. Jerry Lemler remarked in one of the many interviews he has
given to refute the allegations made by a one-time friend of Ted Williams,
the Alcor patient care bay and cooldown bay were undergoing renovation until
a couple of weeks ago, which may explain the reference to disorderly
conditions. On the other hand, during my years as a technical journalist I
visited many laboratories, and to an outsider who lacks comparable
experience, any place where experimental work is done might look
"disorderly."

I am not aware of any "unsanitary" conditons, and I walk through the patient
cooldown area almost every day when I am at Alcor.

Regarding liquid nitrogen levels, they are checked regularly, as they always
have been. Alcor maintains a reservoir of liquid nitrogen which feeds the
Dewars containing patients. The reservoir is refilled via regular
deliveries.

Each Dewar has a gauge mounted on it, displaying the level of liquid inside.
My guess is that the uninformed visitor saw two of the gauges with their
needles in the red zone, and assumed correctly that this indicated a lack of
liquid inside the Dewars. If he had asked why, we could have told him that
those two Dewars are empty and are being held in reserve, in expectation of
future cryopatients.

So far as I know, Alcor has never experienced any incident in which liquid
nitrogen levels were allowed to fall below normal levels, in Dewars
containing patients, pets, or tissue samples.

The ironic part of all this is that no one has ever confirmed that Ted
Williams resides in an Alcor Dewar. Alcor has refused to comment on this
case, and still refuses to comment. Therefore, in addition to being
inaccurate, the news story was based on a supposition which has never been
validated. If I had turned in a story like that in the years when I
contributed frequently to magazines such as Wired, the story would never
have made it past the fact-checking deparment.

--Charles Platt
Director of Suspension Services, Alcor Foundation
(Speaking primarily for myself, rather than Alcor.)

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21217