X-Message-Number: 22866 From: Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 15:57:49 EST Subject: Half Baked??? In a message dated 17/11/2003 10:01:47 GMT Standard Time, Charles Platt writes: > I see that Cryonet is going through one of its half baked > phases. These always last longer than would seem possible. > I would agree with Charles when he says that people are not gonna relocate leaving jobs, family and friends just to be nearer to their chosen cryonics facility. However, here in Britain the situation is much the same as the US with regard to research into therapeutic cloning. It is reported that corporates who wish to carry our such research are now considering relocating into Continental Europe & Asia if that is the only way forward for them. One thing is for sure and that is if their is money to be made out of such techniques, (and their most certainly is potential for megabuck returns) then big business will prevail. Even if it's not in the traditionally corporate friendly west. 'Health tourism' as the media like to refer to it has already begun with Brits taking the initiative to get new treatments by travelling to where ever it is legally available. This, I believe, is the way forward, not only for present day cures but for future ones too. Recently myself and Alan Mole were discussing the possibilities of looking into the Swiss law regarding assisted suicide societies. Since then we have made initial enquiries that so far offer encouragement in so much as the law that allows the practice to be carried out does not exclude foreigners (non-swiss nationals), and does not specify any particular method that must be adhered to for deanimating. The relevant points that are mandatory are :- a) the 'assisters' must be registered as a not for profit society with the Swiss authorities..... b) no individual can profit from the actions of the society in assisting a 'suicide'...... c) the police must be informed prior to an assisted suicide taking place, although from that which we have gleaned so far, they rarely follow this up with any actions..... d) a Swiss registered MD has to be present to oversee and confirm 'legal' death. As to whether Swiss law would be as accomodating toward long term storage and r & d would need further investigation but this was never really part of the original idea. The original objective was to look at finding a way for providing optimal conditions for todays suspension technology in order to minimise ischemic damage. Obviously, if in the future someone makes an announcement that true SA is possible providing optimal conditions are available, but the laws in the US will not allow for it, then we already have some where we can apply it. If we are successful in setting up a society, and I must stress that their is a long way to go yet, it could be regarded as a 'portal' only to best suspension practice as it would be down to the individual society member to make the necessary arrangements with his/her chosen cryonics contractor in the same way as the existing assisted suicide societies release the remains over to the deceased's chosen funeral practioners. As to whether the cost of flying the suspension team over to Zurich for a 'planned' deanimation would be less than the average cost of having a 'stand by' team in attendance for what could be several weeks and the problems/costs of transporting the patient to the long term storage facility are all things that are yet to be explored. Incidentally, if anyone on the list has the expertise regarding suspension logistics and has the time, their assistance would be more than welcome. Our major problem at the moment is that we don't have a Swiss cryonicist to front the operation even if we decided to go ahead once all the info' has been considered. To conclude... I would say that although I agree with much that Charles said I think it best that we remain open minded and continue to explore new opportunities to improve our practice wherever possible and also re-assert that which was said on this list a few days ago in that the sooner a World cryonics association is set up the sooner we will start working in a more co-operative and co-ordinated way. Regards to all....... Tim. Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=22866