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From: Brian Wowk <>
To: <>
Subject: Reply to Rick Shroeppel
Message-Id: <"901113064805 73337.2723 DHJ44-1"@CompuServe.COM>

To: >INTERNET: 
 
        CSNY (Cryonics Society of New York) and CSC (Cryonics Society of  
California) were two of the first cryonics organizations ever formed.  They  
came into being in the late 1960's and early 70's. 
 
        The early days of cryonics were a time of great enthusiasm, little  
physical capability, and no experience.  People were frozen with a sort of  
"freeze-first-ask-questions-later" attitude.  About 30 people were frozen  
this way between 1967 and 1978.  CSNY and CSC maintained patients using money  
continuously supplied by relatives (the same arrangement you are suggesting). 
 
        Mike Darwin once likened grief to an exponential decay curve.  At  
some point this curve crosses suspension maintenance costs and payments dry  
up.  Yep.  This is exactly what happenned to the patients cared for by CSNY  
and CSC.  The relatives just stopped paying.  In the case of CSNY this  
coincided with the health department shutting down their storage facility.   
(They were not allowed to store bodies in a warehouse any more than you would  
be allowed to in your own home.)  The patients were all conventionally  
interred. 
 
        CSC was a different story.  CSC stored its patients underground in a  
cemetary in Chatsworth California.  It was about 1978 when the funding dried  
up, the LN2 shipments stopped, and... well, the locals started complaining to  
the authorities about the stench.  The rest is history.  The police found a  
crypt of rotting corpses, CSC management lost a million dollar lawsuit (which  
they well deserved to), and cryonics got a bad name which haunts it to this  
day. 
 
        Indeed, a large portion of Alcor's recent legal difficulties can be  
traced directly back to regulatory reaction to the Chatsworth debacle. 
 
        Perhaps you can understand why I reacted so emotionally to your  
"Cheap Freeze" essay.  If people start illegally storing bodies on a pay-as- 
you-go basis, the same thing will happen all over again.  These are the  
lessons of history. 
 
                                                   --- Brian Wowk 

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