X-Message-Number: 21490
From: "Chrissie de Rivaz" <>
Subject: Report on A Tort ou B Raison (Right or Wrong) French TV Channel 1
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2003 11:00:03 -0000

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Report on A Tort ou B Raison (Right or Wrong) French TV Channel 1

March 10th 2003


Firstly, my apologies for the delay in sending this report. I have asked several
times for the names of the other panel members, largely to present correct 
spelling of their names. However, as one comes to expect of media folk, the 
information has not arrived. Nor have I seen the final version of the programme,
so am unaware of any editing that took place. No, they didn't send the promised
tape either!


An interesting programme which in total, lasted for 1hour and 45 minutes. It is 
largely a series of debates on various topics, interspersed with short pieces of
film to illustrate the subject. Presented by Bernard Tapie, an ex-minister of 
the French Government and now a 'TV personality', it addresses any controversial
subject which provokes reaction. Interestingly, the first half of the programme
was devoted to the problems with the equivalent of the French National Health 
service and the growing number of apparently untreatable new strains of virus 
and bacteria.


The second part of the programme was looking at aspects of science which impact 
on our lives. Cloning, IVF, Cryonics and Bionics were covered, with a variety of
experts to head each section. The segment became dominated by an Italian doctor
who had a great grievance about coverage of his work by the world press. (He's 
the one who worked on IVF with menopausal woman, allowing women of 60+ years to 
give birth) He could not attend personally and shouted from a studio about how 
he was a hero and all the French were idiots. The audience yelled back, as one 
might imagine! It became tedious after a while, as he waved around pictures of 
(different coloured) cats he claimed were clones and talked of many babies he 
knew to be cloned. He would not reveal names or locations of course, as this 
would infringe upon on their liberties. Hopefully, his dominance in the final 
version of the programme was edited. The debate that followed was led by a 
French doctor who is working on therapeutic cloning. Of more interest to most of
us was his hope to be able to produce replacement organs and other body parts 
from an individual's own DNA.


Doctor Pierre Boutron was the specialist cryo-biologist who was speaking about 
his own work on IVF and the freezing of human embryos. We had a long discussion 
before the programme, to me more interesting than the final TV input! He was 
quite adamant that cryonics would never work for humans and expressed the wish 
that it could be successful. He even said that he would be prepared to take the 
gamble for himself, if he could afford it. He reiterated his words on air and 
was clearly never going to listen to anything anyone could say in defence. He is
a respected scientist throughout the world and clearly, his words influenced 
the rest of the panel. They were all very polite, though very sceptical of any 
outcome. I did point out that they quoted much greater prices than anyone 
charges, especially when they suggested it was a waste of money. One of the 
panel suggested that the price was irrelevant if cryonics wouldn't work anyway! 
I disagreed and pointed out some of the now common procedures which were once 
considered impossible, not least the definition of clinical death. They seemed 
to like the fact that I admitted reanimation was impossible today but we were 
looking at future technology. It was comforting to see the now familiar snippet 
of film with Andy Zawacki at C.I., amidst the sceptics. Another piece of film 
was looking at the tiny creatures, tardigrades, which can be completely 
de-hydrated for many years and regain viable life when water it reintroduced. 
The concept was in support of regaining life after reanimation, of course but 
the other scientists claimed this was somewhat irrelevant compared to cryonics.


The final section of the programme dealt with the use of biologically controlled
prosthetics now being developed. I felt it was another relevant item for all 
our futures as it was looking very much at brain impulses attempting to control 
movement of limbs in an involuntary manner. Again, a very high powered professor
was the spokesman and an acknowledged world expert. He admitted to a very 
limited success but said that early failures were actually leading to present 
success. He is optimistic that bionic technology is going to bring help to many 
people with disabilities on the future.


One interesting discussion I had (off camera) with Dr Boutron was concerning 
vitrification. Though he agreed that this was a much more likely success 
potential, he claimed that no perfusate fluids so far developed could possibly 
work. I did wonder if I'd misunderstood when he said no-one was yet using them. 
As I pointed out, Alcor are currently using vitrification and have been for some
time. Maybe my French isn't as good as I thought, especially as he said he was 
in close contact with most of the cryo-biologists working on cryonics. He agreed
that it was possible that Dr Pichugin may be on to something but I'm afraid his
'prejudice' was just too great for me to compete. A charming, clever man, 
nonetheless.


It was a good experience, even if I failed to convince anyone. There was some 
talk after the programme of a full length documentary, at some future point, 
based exclusively on cryonics and enabling us to give a stronger case without so
much opposition. We shall see!



Paris still remains one of the most beautiful cities on the world and I was 
grateful for the opportunity to speak on behalf of cryonics. 

--
Sincerely,  Chrissie de Rivaz

http://Chrissie.deRivaz.com for my on-line novels and more
http://www.arthurbowker.com for my father's fine bone china.
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