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 



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