X-Message-Number: 23827 From: Subject: CryoSpan Patients Moved to the Cryonics Institute Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2004 01:44:17 US/Eastern Late afternoon on Tuesday, April 6th the Cryonics Institute received ten American Cryonics Society patients from CryoSpan, along with some pets. CryoSpan has been attempting to close-down operations for several years and with this move will finally be able to do so. When I was Secretary of CryoCare I negotiated the move of the two CryoCare patients from CryoSpan to Alcor, so I have been very involved in helping CryoSpan to safely ensure the long-term care of all of its patients. CryoSpan can now safely cease operations. Twenty-four hours after receiving the CryoSpan patients the Cryonics Institute received another patient. In this case the patient was the wife of a man for whom cryonics was an afterthought. His wife was cooled in a hospital after dying of cancer and stored at refrigeration temperature while her husband sought information about cryonics services. After he learned of us, we sent perfusate and the wife was perfused by a funeral director, but the perfusion was understandably poor. The wife was then stored on dry ice for nearly a month while the husband worked to raise the funds. The Cryonics Institute does not solicit and emphatically discourages this kind of cryonics. We seek to cryopreserve Members who have given forethought to the lifesaving potentials of cryonics and who arrange for cardiopulmonary support and rapid cooldown soon after legal death has been pronounced. Unfortunately, the association of cryonics with death rather than with medicine encourages the idea that cryonics arrangements are made after legal death. Nonetheless, I believe that this man's wife has a chance at future life as a result of her cryopreservation which she would not have were she buried or cremated. With the CryoSpan patients plus the patient just described, the Cryonics Institute patient count now stands at 62. John Bull, Editor of THE IMMORTALIST magazine, was present for the loading of the CryoSpan patients in California and for the unloading & transfer to cryostats in Michigan. There will be a detailed description and photographs of this historic move in the next issue of THE IMMORTALIST. THE IMMORTALIST is sent to both Associate and Full Members of the Immortalist Society. Full Membership is US$75 with postage paid anywhere in the world. Associate Membership is US$25 in the United States and higher rates (for postage) outside the United States (surface or air mail). For more details on Membership -- or to buy a Membership online through PayPal -- see the website of The Immortalist Society: http://www.cryonics.org/info.html -- Ben Best, President Cryonics Institute Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=23827