X-Message-Number: 2451
From:
Subject: CRYONICS Arizona DHS Follies
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 93 00:40:09 PST
>From Steve Bridge, President
Alcor Life Extension Foundation
To CryoNet
November 11, 1993
Update on Alcor's Arizona situation.
At the moment we appear to be caught in an irritating political loop.
Tuesday, November 11, 1993, Dave Pizer, Mark Voelker, our attorney Ron
Carmichael, and I had a meeting with Gregg Jacquin, the Arizona Department
of Health Services's Associate Director for Intergovernmental Affairs and
Legislative Services. (How that relates to cryonics we still haven't
figured out.) Also present were one of his Assistants and a
representative from the Attorney General's office. We were expecting this
meeting to resolve the last of the paperwork problems necessary to begin
the move to Scottsdale.
Jacquin had been invited to the three previous meetings we had with
the DHS, but had been unable (or unwilling) to attend. Still, he was the
one writing the letters to us and apparently making the decisions about
what regulations were going to be applied to us. Unfortunately, it
appears that the only information on cryonics he was actually reading was
the newspaper coverage on us, which ranged (as usual) from thoughtful and
accurate (but short) to sensational, sarcastic, and misinformed
(especially during Halloween week.) We had no indication that anything
was amiss during the earlier meetings, and we had the very strong
impression that we had satisfied their concerns, based on a letter we had
sent in August.
Three days after Cryonics Property, LLC closed escrow on the Acoma
Building, we had received a letter from the DHS saying that they were
still concerned about two administrative regulations. For the use of
other cryonicists perhaps looking for similar regulations in their own
states and so that everyone will understand the nature of the current
problem, I'll quote them and discuss them one at a time. The code numbers
refer to the Arizona Administrative Code (if you are only looking at
*statutes* in your state, you may be missing some potential roadblocks).
R9-19-313. Preservation when death caused by certain
diseases.
A. The body of a person who died from cholera, diptheria,
infectious tuberculosis, plague, actual or suspected
smallpox, yellow fever, actual or suspected viral hemorrhagic
fevers (Lassa, Marburg, Ebola, or Congo-Crimean) or other
such viral hemorrhagic fevers that may be later identified
shall not be transported within or outside the state either
by private or commercial transportation unless the body has
been embalmed in accordance with procedures of the State
Funeral Directors and Embalmers Board and placed in a
hermetically sealed casket or metal lined container. The
casket or container shall not be opened while in transit.
The funeral director in charge of the body shall abide by any
special instructions from the state or local health
authorities.
B. [not relevant to this discussion]
For the moment, this regulation can easily be answered by showing the
authorities that none of our current patients died of those conditions. I
presented them with a list of what each patient died of [from the death
certificates], without names or other identifying characteristics. I gave
them the information both on whole bodies and on neuros; but if they
interpret this regulation like they interpret the next one, the neuros
should not matter.
Whether this regulation affects us now or not, it is likely to affect
us in the future. Drug-resistant tuberculosis is now epidemic in some
cities, primarily in AIDS patients and IV drug users, but also in many
hospital personnel. Even cholera and diptheria still kill some Americans
every year -- and we have many members who live and travel outside of the
USA. While for most circumstances, the regulation is quite sensible,
eventually we will need to push for some kind of change for cryonics. Such
a change might allow (for instance) the patients to be frozen outside the
state, with appropriate protection for suspension personnel, and then
transported into the state for permanent care. We might even have to state
that any such patients will automatically become neuropatients.
The next regulation is a bigger current problem.
R9-19-312. Preservation of bodies; general.
The body of any person who has died in this state, including
a fetus of 20 completed weeks or more gestation, shall not be
held at a temperature above 38 degrees Fahrenheit for a total
period of more than 24 hours between the time of death and
final disposition unless embalmed.
1. Embalming
a. Except as otherwise provided in R9-19-313 and
R9-19-326, embalming shall not be performed unless
authorized by the family, next of kin, personal
representative or other person assuming
responsibility for final disposition.
b. When death is from an unknown cause of [sic]
there are reasonable grounds to suspect that a
crime has been committed, a body shall not be
embalmed until the medical examiner has authorized
such action.
c. All embalming operations shall be in accordance
with the laws of the state and rules of the State
Funeral Directors and Embalmers Board.
2. Bodies in vaults
a. A body kept in a private or public vault,
including a receiving vault, longer than 15 days
shall be placed in an airtight casket or other
container. This provision does not apply to bodies
kept in mausoleums or other places of final
disposition where aeration or dehydration processes
are used.
b. A body kept in a receiving vault longer than
30 days shall be regarded as interred. At such
time as it is further buried, cremated, or removed,
a disinterment permit shall be obtained.
There is one more bit under "Disposition of bodies" that applies. It
reads:
R9-19-314. Disposition of bodies.
C. A body stored under conditions of very low
temperature shall be regarded as interred. At such time
as it is further buried, cremated or removed, a
disinterment permit shall be obtained.
I'm not going to explain here why we can't keep liquid nitrogen in
sealed containers. I assume you know that.
Some points that Mr. Jacquin seems to insist on:
1. Bodies stored in liquid nitrogen may be a public health hazard.
(Well refuted by various expert testimony over and over, of course. And
Arizona's tissue banks are nervously wondering why the DHS hasn't figured
that out).
2. Only BODIES count under the sealed container regulation. (I
specifically asked, "So if we cut our patients into four pieces and stored
each one in separate containers, they would no longer constitute a public
health hazard?" Jacquin appeared to turn a bit green at this suggestion,
and begin to flounder, with neither a yes or no.
3. It does not matter at all that these bodies are Anatomical
Donations. ALL bodies in Arizona in a "vault" (there is NO definition for
"vault") for more than 15 days must be in sealed containers. We assume
Mr. Jacquin will now ask medical students to stay in an airtight
container for their semester of human anatomy.
4. Our suggestion that R9-19-312 appeared to be geared to bodies held
at a temperature above 38 degrees F only confused him.
It would be improper for me to discuss our legal strategies here; but
our attorney believes that we have many options to explore before any
attempt at litigation should be contemplated. His and our conversations
with other officials in various Executive Departments has located no
hostility to Alcor moving to Arizona except in Mr. Jacquin's mind. But one
roadblock can cause plenty of aggravation, as we know from our experience in
California. However, we do not plan to let one ill-informed bureaucrat
dissuade us so easily. Cryonics will never succeed if we cannot prevail
against such weird logic as we have seen here. And if we can win this one
up front, our status will be more firmly established. We might even be part
of the process of re-writing the regulations. The education process
continues.
.oj off
This will delay the move to Arizona longer, although I won't try to
predict how long. This could be resolved in a couple of weeks or it could
take much longer. One aggressive strategy would be just to move the
patients to Scottsdale and go to battle; but we're not desperate yet, and
I've tried all along to plan this move in cooperation with state and local
authorities. We've succeeded on every step but this and we're going to
keep working on it. We have an excellent attorney who is very well
acquainted with State and Scottsdale government. And most of the other
people we meet seem more interested than offended. As a matter of fact,
Mark Voelker and I had other pleasant meetings while we were there,
including a very entertaining half hour with the Mayor of Scottsdale, who
turns out to be an old artificial inseminator of cattle, just like my
father. They both used sperm frozen in liquid nitrogen. More and more
people do understand cryonics to some degree these days and we'll keep
making progress.
Steve Bridge
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