X-Message-Number: 22590 From: "Mark Plus" <> Subject: Boca firm planning to freeze bodies stymied Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2003 08:42:01 -0700 http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/auto/epaper/editions/saturday/south_county_f357212aa5af12a300f0.html;COXnetJSessionID=11Mh61eT5WzF6xIPlAlpFlsellpU3gnky7C2XfnY2PwIDpdhoMP3!-1311192197?urac=n&urvf=10646520019030.40678991785747287 Saturday, September 27 Boca firm planning to freeze bodies stymied By John Murawski, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Saturday, September 27, 2003 Deep-freezing Floridians for revival in a far-off future was supposed to have glorious prospects in affluent Boca Raton. But getting official approval to preserve people in nitrogen tanks is proving nettlesome for Suspended Animation, the start-up Boca Raton cryonics outfit seeking to become the state's first lab for freezing humans. The problem: Florida law has no provisions for a cryonics license, so state regulators are asking Suspended Animation to get licensed as a funeral parlor. Company officials say a funeral license would not give them sufficient time to freeze humans at their lab off Clint Moore Road because funeral homes are not permitted to start treating corpses in the hospital at the instant of a patient's death. After the heart stops, a patient's cells begin to deteriorate within 20 minutes. "We have to get in there and intervene in the little window after legal death," said David Hayes, chief financial officer of Suspended Animation. "The timing issue is incredibly important for us." The company wants an exemption from licensing under the Anatomical Gift Act, contending that its patients would be donating themselves for scientific research to benefit all of humanity. Waiting for the state legislature to revise the law to create a licensing category for cryonics could take years, the company fears. "This has gotten to be a nightmare, an absolute nightmare from our perspective," said company President David Shumaker. "The state code is made up for mortuaries." The company is tentatively scheduled for an Oct. 9 Boca Raton Planning & Zoning Board hearing; final consideration by the city council would be scheduled later that month. If approved here, Suspended Animation would be the fourth cryonics operation in the nation. Since 1967, about 1,000 people have signed up to be frozen when they die, the most famous cryonicist being baseball great Ted Williams. Some patients, including Williams, go the cheaper route and have only their heads frozen, believing that in time scientists will be able to sprout bodies from genetic material contained in patients' brains. Critics: Research ridiculous With plans to freeze cadavers temporarily stalled, Suspended Animation is moving ahead with a parallel phase of its business plan: to conduct tissue-freezing experiments on lab rats in Boca Raton. The purpose of the experiments, which could involve up to several hundred rats a year, is to improve techniques for freezing humans. Animal experiments could pose another headache: Animal rights activists -- who plan to swarm the city council's yet-unscheduled hearing when Suspended Animation is on the agenda. The American Anti-Vivisection Society in Jenkintown, Pa., has been urging members to e-mail Boca Raton City Council members to urge them not to allow the killing of animals in the name of what many regard as a pseudoscience. "It's just ridiculous, frivolous research that's going to cause pain and suffering to countless animals," said Tina Nelson, executive director of the American Anti-Vivisection Society. "I'm possibly going to come in person to testify." Councilman Dave Freudenberg, owner of six shelter-rescued cats and a 25-year old turtle named Tim, echoes those sentiments. "As soon as you can bring back the first cockroach, then I'll listen to you," he said. "I think this is the snake-oil sales presentation of the 21st century." Councilman Bill Hager, an insurance actuary who knows something about human life spans, warns that if the city council starts second-guessing unpopular business practices, it might have to make subjective judgment calls about the appropriateness of cremation, herbal supplements and any other business that some find offensive. Leeway for inventiveness? As for the animal rights activists, Hager said: "I am prepared to withstand the rat brigade." Hager, though, is reluctant to mock the company's far-out prognostications. Suspended Animation hopes to preserve people until science has devised ways to thaw the subjects back to life and treat them for their cancers, coronary diseases and other ailments incurable today. "In the history of humankind," Hager said, "every forward-looking invention has brought ridicule and laughter when it was first brought up." Another aspect of the company's mission is to conduct "market research to determine who in society might be candidates for cryopreservation and to develop methods to access those individuals," according to the company. Suspended Animation plans to run cryonics ads in local newspapers and on billboards and hold cryonics seminars in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. The market research would get under way next year, Shumaker said. So who might be a viable candidate for a hypothermic time capsule that could cost upwards of $200,000? "People that are dying," Shumaker said. "Especially those who have been reasonably successful and happy in their lives. "Those who are saying: 'I'm enjoying this and I don't want anything to come in the way.' " _________________________________________________________________ Instant message with integrated webcam using MSN Messenger 6.0. 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