X-Message-Number: 25222 From: "Brian Wowk" <> Subject: Hypothermia Research Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 12:39:24 -0800 Coetzee wrote: >A large experiment with dogs under controlled condition under supervision >is very different from someone fooling >around in a "lab" with a dog and >LN. Thank you Wolf! Jan, this post sets a new low even for you. It is made so carelessly, and so totally without regard for facts, that it borders on defammatory. Would you care to explain exactly *which* experiments in *whose* "lab" are what you call "fooling around with a dog and LN"? I am not aware of ANY experiments done in ANY laboratory, cryonics or otherwise, involving dogs and liquid nitrogen (LN). Presumably your oblique reference is to the experiments of CryoVita Laboratories and Alcor in the 1980s, as described here http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/tbw.html and here http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/tbwcanine.html This was world-class research in its day, and the political machinations leading to its blocked publication are well-described in the links provided. However it must be realized that the CryoVita/Alcor research involving recovery of dogs after 240 minutes of ultraprofound hypothermia cannot be compared to the Safar Insitute results of 90 minutes bececause the respective experiments are "apples and oranages". The CryoVita/Alcor model involved assanguineous perfusion, while the Safar model involves circulatory arrest. The Safar work is comparable to the work of Haneda http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=3802887 wherein dogs were revived after 180 minutes of circulatory arrest at 0 degC way back in 1986, or the more recent work of BioTime (which includes some professed cryonicists) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12768122 showing recovery of dogs after 120 minutes of circulatory arrest near 0 degC. Note that this previous circ arrest research, some of it going back 18 years, is more successful than the Safar Insitute research. The likely reasons why are discussed below. Aschwin wrote: >> Even if they just repeated the Alcor research under controlled conditions it would be quite relevant but they are doing much more than this. Reporting the mechanisms involved, the rapid cooling rates they achieved, their discussion of a Smart Aortic Arch Catheter, and their pharmalogical findings are of great relevance too. Not only for cryonics, but for critical care medicine in general. << Actually, their findings (in the abstract cited) are of mostly ZERO relevance to cryonics or medicine. Why? Note that their blood substitute solution is ISOTONIC SALINE! Just plain salt water. No buffers, no oncotic agent, just NaCl. The abstract notes with tremendous understatement, " The optimal fluids to have in the circulation during circulatory arrest and reperfusions need to be determined." They actually know perfectly well that isotonic saline is a ridiculous solution, but (according to what I've been told) that was what the military told them to use as a condition of funding this research. I hope this research can continue with a more enlightened funding agency that won't force them to use 1960s perfusate technology. No hospital or cryonics organization in its right mind would ever use isotonic saline as a large-volume blood substitute. Don't get me wrong. I'm glad the Safar Insitute is out there and along with BioTime helping keep the torch burning in this field. But recent CryoNet posts are lacking in perspective. ---Brian Wowk -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.289 / Virus Database: 265.4.5 - Release Date: 12/3/2004 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25222