X-Message-Number: 2445
Date: 01 Nov 93 01:36:15 EST
From: Mike Darwin <>
Subject: CRYONET Darwin Responds


To: Charles Platt, Fred and Linda Chamberlain, and Everybody Else too:

I have been silent about the accusations leveled against me by Fred and
Linda Chamberlain and about the subsequent debate because I saw no
purpose to entering the fray when no real resolution is possible; in my
opinion the parties involved lack the emotional resources and the
perspective that time and distance from events bring to achieve such
resolution.  This not a criticism, but rather a statement of the facts as I
see them.

Have I made mistakes, serious mistakes, in most areas of my practice of
human cryopreservation?  The answer is most assuredly, "yes."  Where
those mistakes have resulted in harm (biological, economic, and personal)
I have offered both my apologies and, where appropriate and possible,
attempted to make restitution.  One of the first suspensions I ever did
was technically substandard because of poor judgment on my part and I
have done everything I could to repay the harm I caused -- in that case
by continuing the patient's suspension when this individual would otherwise
have been thawed out.  (This incident was not, incidentally, on the list
of charges the Chamberlain's brought against me.)

The Chamberlains have been very vocal about prospective clients of mine
being careful to evaluate me for honesty, competency, integrity, and so
on, and have urged a "caveat emptor" approach to dealing with me.  I have
no problems with this whatsoever, and would add a strong second. 
However, they have also publically accused me of dishonesty and
"malefaction" in my care of patients and this is both untrue and
unacceptable.  If they and others wish to blame me for administrative
incompetence, bad judgment, and even outright stupidity in the Dora Kent
matter, and further to lay all responsibility on me for what occurred
there, I am willing to ACCEPT such responsibility; I was the PRESIDENT of
Alcor and I have NEVER denied that the "buck stopped there."  

Thus, as the Chamberlain's so vocally advocate, I urge everyone who
proposes to deal with me to both hold me responsible and to determine in
their own minds whether they should deal with some who WAS and IS
responsible for these matters.  Personally, there have been other lapses in
my judgment which concern me more than Dora Kent, but that is my opinion,
and ultimately a matter between my conscience and my God.  Those who feel
the need to hear from me about my own assessment of my weaknesses are free
to ask me: I will, within the limits of patient confidentiality, attempt
to give an honest assessment.

Human cryopreservation is a new and *dangerous* field.  A pioneering field. 
Pioneers have been defined as "the people with arrows in their backs."  I
have made many decisions and taken many actions over the course of my 25years
of involvement in cryonics:  I have made many foolish decisions, said many
things I have regretted, and done a few things I am deeply ashamed of. 
Everyone who would deal with me should know this about me.  

What I am saying here is that I am not perfect and I am not likely to
become so anytime in the forseeable future.  I am NOT Howard Roark, John
Galt, Mother Theresa, or even Dagny Taggart, and those who are looking
for such should look elsewhere.  What I *am* is a man driven and handicapped
by the same things that motivate and handicap much of the rest of humanity.
 I am at once insightful and blind, generous and stingy, posessed of good
judgment and bad judgment, and in short a thoroughly human being.

I could give a litany of the mistakes and errors of anyone who has been
deeply involved in cryonics over the years: including Fred and Linda
Chamberlain!  However, I think it would be more productive to simply say
that people who plan to purchase a service as important and as free from
freedback as cryonics now is, should ask a lot of questions and above all
be comfortable with the honesty of the people they are dealing with. 
There are no guarantees.  There is also the virtual certainty that WHOEVER
you choose is bound to make mistakes.  Just hope it isn't on YOU. The most
important thing is not the mistakes *but how they deal with them and how
often they repeat them!*

A long time ago Curtis Henderson told me something very wise.  He said, in
effect, if you want to live forever you have to be prepared to pay the
price.  That means that if you live long enough you will be hungry, you
will suffer unbearably, you will make many humiliating mistakes, you will
suffer the loss of many things you hold dear.  In short, you will SUFFER a
great deal, period.  That is the nature of life.  The Buddah told us this
in many eloquent and touching ways.  Jesus told us the same thing.  Hell,
even Thomas Donaldson has told us this: "Life is hard." he has said on
more than one occassion (and that was BEFORE he got a brain tumor). 
Don't expect anyone of us to be gods or supermen.  The price for that
expectation is just too high for ALL parties involved.

In the Alcor inquiry I believe that the one thing that came through
clearly, and that most of those present (with the certain exception of
Fred and Linda Chamberlain) would agree on, was an affirmation of my 
professional integrity.  Fred and Linda charged me with *lying and
deceit* in my handling of patient care and patient records, as well as
their other charges relating to Dora Kent and a subsequent suspension 
These are the charges that concerned me the most.  I have made my share of
mistakes, but I have not sought NOT to be held accountable for them: that is
one of the key elements of professionalism: honesty in your science, and in
your care of patients, and accountability for that honesty.

While it may be material to Charles Platt and others that I be apologized
to by Fred and Linda, it is not so important to me.  I deeply appreciate
the unsolicited support and defense that Charles and Steve Harris have
shown me.  However, enough is enough.  There is no purpose to be served
by dragging things out further because it will not solve anything.  So I
say to you my friends: let it drop.

To Fred and Linda I would say much the same thing.  You have said your
pieces; you have "warned the world" and you have (presumably) had the
satisfaction of having me both publically and privately yet again
reaffirm my acceptance of responsibility for, and acknowledgment of, the
errors I have made.  If that was truly your objective I would urge you now
to get on with your life, and do what I intend to do with however much
remains of my own life: try to enjoy it to the extent possible, try to do
productive work which advances the state-of-the-art in cryonics, and try
to deliver good care (as free from errors as we know how to make it) to
the patients we will have contact with in the future.

Finally, I would presume to offer a piece of advice to Fred and Linda
which I have a ways to go in implementing in my own life: People are not
perfect and they must be evaluated in the context of ALL they have done. 
The Egyptians had it right; when a man's soul was judged it was weighed
on a balance not counterweighted with an evaluation of his utility or his
error rate, but rather against Maat, the goddess of integrity and truth. 
During many of the years that I have known the both of you, you related
to me in terms of the most unconditional admiration, elevating me to a
height to which not only I, but probably no man, can occupy.  When I
failed to meet those expectations I was thrown into the catergory of the
deepest depravity.  I have known and loved both of you long enough to
have seen this pattern of behavior recreated in your dealings with
numerous others. With you it is all too often black or white, all or none,
pure good, or pure evil.  It is my fondest wish for you that you come to
realize that there are no Dagny Taggarts, only men and women, like you and
me, struggling towards the light and out of the darkness, and making many
false starts and wrong turns along the way.

This not to say that dishonesty, incompetence, or depravity should be
overlooked or held unaccountable.  Rather, it is to say that we all should
be careful when we wish to cross the line between dealing with a man's
specific foibles within the conext of his good qualities, and when we wish
to condem the man en bloc.

I continue to admire your many fine qualities and to hold deep affection
for you both.  You have shaped who I am in so many important ways.  I wish
you both long life and happiness.  I also continue to hope that with the
passage of time and events you will change your estimation of me.

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