X-Message-Number: 2964
Date: 07 Aug 94 05:08:38 EDT
From: John de Rivaz <>
Subject: CRYONICS And What If it Really Does Work?

And What If it Really Does Work?

by Paul Michaels

(Republished from Longevity Report 42. For further details about Longevity
Report Please e-mail )

Roanoke is a pretty, tree lined, suburb of Oak Park, Detroit, Michigan USA.
The houses are well spaced, set back from the road and no two designs seem
quite the same, indeed within this setting some are unique.

Unique not in its appearance but in its occupants is number 24443 Roanoke,
for this is the home of the founder of todays Cryonics movement Robert
Ettinger and his delightful Wife Mae. 

Back in the early 1960's Bob Ettinger proposed that people could be stored
in liquid nitrogen, after being declared legally dead, where the decay
normally associated with demise would be suspended until the future,
when these persons could be revived, rejuvenated and restored.  
This theory was  eloquently presented in the genuinely readable book
"The Prospect of Immortality". 

Then, indeed as now, there were many detractors as to the validity and
desirability of this radical life affirming philosophy. (Proving yet
again that for every signpost to the future there is 100 Guardians
of the past). 

Convinced of the rationality of his ideas Robert Ettinger did what he
could to promote his idea, and has devoted a tremendous amount of effort
and time to discussing and arguing his case for Cryonic preservation,
not only for the deceased but also the terminally ill.  

(This in no way implies compulsion, Cryonics is only for those that choose it,
witnessed by the fact that while both Bobs Mother and first Wife are suspended,
Bobs Father chose to forgo the procedure).

My own experience and perception of Cryonics had been quite distant,
sure I had read the books, seen the TV documentaries and so forth. 

Yes all very interesting I thought as I watched a Cryonics member,
in a TV programme, tell an interviewer why he would be revived sometime
in the future, to worlds of indeterminate wonder and possibility. 

Yes all very interesting but I wasn't going to need it, science was working
on the ageing problem, before too long breakthroughs would be made and life
would get longer, increment by increment, and before we knew where we were
death would be matter of individual choice. 

I think I felt like this for twelve years or perhaps longer, I read anything
and everything I could on ageing research, I started a small company selling
anti oxidants by mail order, as these appeared a vital factor in helping
to fight many facets of the ageing process. 

I still feel that my original thoughts of a lifespan increase have validity,
but the research is slow and underfunded, more money is probably spent
researching new flavours for potato crisps than understanding the decline
of our cellular systems. 

Slowly and imperceptibly it began to dawn on me that perhaps I needed a real,
meaningful LIFE insurance policy, as opposed to a Death insurance policy. 

Cryonics was my only rational solution. 

My wife and I discussed it often before actually deciding to do something
about it.  Are you really aware how excruciatingly difficult it is to come
to terms with the repulsive fact that you, and the ones you love, are going
to die one day? (Of course you are, aren't you?)   

Just imagine, one day you close your eyes and CLICK- the universe ends. 

No wonder people put off making out their Wills.

At the time we decided to sign up for Cryonics there were three organisations,
all in the USA. (By the time this gets published there may be four). 

Frankly at $140,000-00 (Yes $140,000 or approximately 100,000-00) per
person I couldn't afford that sort of price, especially not if I wanted
to sign my family up as well, and without them the proposition seemed
far less attractive. 

Yet that is pretty much the charge made by the two Californian based
Cryonics Companys (Alcor and Trans Time). The charge is for full body
suspension, there is a lower cost option of head only suspension but
for a whole number of reasons I wanted the whole body contract option.
(One of the main considerations was that I had seen proposals that our
memories may not be just stored in our brains but in other parts of the
body also. While this is far from a fact I feel it to be of importance,
there are other factors, but this is a debate for another time and place). 

For this sum both organisations will collect your remains as soon as
possible after legal death has been declared, pack them in ice, remove
the blood and replace it with what is, essentially, a sophisticated anti
freeze. The remains are then cooled to liquid Nitrogen temperatures and
stored in a container filled with liquid nitrogen (a temperature of minus
195.79 degrees C) topping up the liquid nitrogen as and when required until
the time the person can be revived. 

Until recently all the people signed for Cryonics lived within the USA,
which although a large land mass made the collection and storage of
Cryonics patients a relatively uncomplicated matter. (I use the term
uncomplicated in its widest possible sense). 

Living in the UK presented far more obstacles, especially concerning
rapid cooling and preparation of the body after the declaration of
legal death. As you can imagine this procedure is not an everyday
undertaking (pun intended) and requires a deal of expertise to ensure
it is done correctly.

Alcor sort of solved this problem when a UK Businessman put up enough funds
to provide a unit in the south of England to which the patient would be taken,
cooled in ice to await a team from Alcor USA, who would prepare the body and
arrange for rapid despatch to the USA storage facility.  Trans Time have no
representation in the UK and show no interest to date of wanting to be
involved in the European marketplace. 

OK Alcor, well and fine, but that still left the prime deterrent:  

CO$T 

The insurance policy funding route was way too expensive at my age
(then 45) and I don't happen to have 300,000 to spare. (In fact I
understand with the extra UK arrangements it would be more expensive
than in the USA). 

There came the sound of a door being well and truly closed and locked,
with me and my family on the wrong side.  

Well of course there was the Cryonic Institute in Michigan USA, but hadn't
anyone I had met involved with Cryonics in the USA always had rather
disparaging things to say about them.  

They used poor equipment, the patients were stored in an undesirable area
of Detroit, all in all the Cryonics Institute were a slow, low profile,
shabby outfit. 

Yet their charge for Cryonic suspension was $28,000-00 per person for the
full body, a massive difference. Also they had held this price for years,
even through periods of high inflation in the 1970's. 

We had to know more about them, so we started to exchange letters with
The Cryonics Institute, we found out that CI had only one full time
employee and a "no debt" policy. They owned everything outright and
invested their funds prudently across a wide range of investments,
thus providing an excess of funds needed to maintain the facility and
patients. 

Also things are considerably cheaper in Michigan than in California and,
all things being equal, CI looked, at least from the UK, a reasonable bet. 

My wife, my son and I signed up with CI. There came the sound of a door
being pushed open into the future. There was, as always, a drawback,
and that was CI had no representation in England, no facilities or desire
to open any. 

So I started to write and ring around Funeral Directors in the UK in an
attempt to find one who would be prepared to collect a CI patient after
legal death declaration and do a basic body washout, replace with a
Glycerine solution and ship the body, in ice, to the Michigan facility
for cool down to liquid nitrogen temperature and storage. 

I was not very successful, I exchanged many letters, spent much time and
could not find any Funeral Director who would show more than a passing
interest. However, quite out of the blue, an English Funeral Director
called Barry Albin who had seen some of John de Rivaz pro Cryonic
suspension articles in one of the Funeral specialist magazines, decided
while on a visit to the USA, to call Robert Ettinger. 

Following their meeting Albin and Co were appointed the Funeral Home of
choice for European CI patients. Barry Albin, an engaging, lively person,
(not at all my idea of a Funeral Director) has manufactured a purpose built
transport casket. Made from solid oak and lined with titanium zinc and
double sealed with a styro foam lining for insulation has produced an
excellent solution to the European resident who wishes to be signed for
Cryonic suspension. 

At the time of deanimation, as most Cryonicists call death, Albin and Co
state they can collect the remains in an open titanium zinc container,
in their ambulance, and perform the washout and anti freeze infusion while
packed in ice in this container, during the journey back to Albin and Co
London premises. There the patient is placed into the purpose built casket,
with either wet or dry ice, and shipped by air to Michigan. Barry thinks
that from the moment they are notified of the need for their services the
entire operation can be carried out and the patient would actually be
received in Michigan Usa WITHIN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. 

To find someone of Barrys obvious competence and ability to get things
done is quite astounding, and indeed fortunate. 

The cost of Albin and Co's service is currently 3,000 (say $4,500) and
this can be funded either through Albin and Co trust arrangements, CI's
trust arrangements or some mutually acceptable method. 

This means that we now have, in the UK, a way of obtaining full body
suspension, preceded by a professional preparation and shipment, for
the sum of around $32,500-00 (say 22,000-00) per person. Yes, still
quite a large sum BUT 75% LESS THAN ANY KNOWN ALTERNATIVE! 

In any event most people spend more than that in a lifetime on Motor Cars,
Houses and possibly even Holidays, and a Life Insurance premium on 22,000
really is virtually inconsequential at almost any age.....Go on -  check
it out.

So what prompted me to write all this, especially when I don't remember
having ever written in about Cryonics before.................. 

Well, I visited Barry Albin's London premises to check out the casket for
CI on the 17th September 1993 and was impressed by the sheer professionalism
and expertise of this business, established incidentally over two hundred
years ago, I spent a couple of hours with Barry and was shown every courtesy
by a very busy person who is well aware that he is unlikely to make any
money from Cryonics within the next 10 years or so, and yet I got the strong
impression that he felt Cryonics is a logical extension to the Funeral
business and he is delighted his is the first company to establish
transatlantic links with an American Cryonics organisation. 

On the 21st September 1993 I landed in Detroit Metropolitan airport,
after the Customs formalities I wandered into the arrivals lounge and was
met by a man in his early seventies holding a picture of a Phoenix rising.
(He had told me he would be with a big bird but in my quirky English way
I had assumed something different!) 

Bob's second Wife Mae was also with him and although we none of us had met
before I was treated like a long lost friend. 

They drove me to their home in Roanoke mentioned at the beginning of this
article,  and proceeded to overwhelm me with hospitality. 

I had to be careful about what I said to Mae because I only mentioned I
wanted to buy a new Walkman as mine was broken and the next thing I knew
she was telephoning all the electronics stores to find which one stocked
the one I wanted and then insisted on driving me to the Shopping Malls
in which they were situated and staying with me, walking through these
huge complexes. 

Mae is, I think, 79 and very busy most all of the time looking after Bob
and helping to run CI, that they should afford me so much time and goodwill,
and put up with my onslaught of humour speaks volumes for their good natures. 

I was put up (or should that be down) in their spacious basement for my one
week stay and during that time I went to look at premises for sale in the
local area. CI's current premises are now reaching capacity with 11
patients in storage (and two cats!)  

Bob wants to purchase a unit around 8000-9000 sq ft in size. CI already
has the funds for such a building so the "no debt" policy continues. 

We looked at two units and the one I liked the most was in an area about
15 minutes from Oak Park in a place called Troy. The site was semi
landscaped at the front, with a large grass lawn and several trees.
The unit had an attractive brick and glass frontage, and was set off
by the trees. I thought how attractive this would look on any future
CI promotional brochure. 

Industrial areas look VERY different in Michigan to the ones I see in
the UK! 

On Thursday 23rd September we went to "The Lab" as Bob calls it, where
the patients are stored in large white fibreglass containers. There I
met Andy the one full time CI employee. He and Bob showed me around the
unit and I could see why the search for larger premises was underway.
Space was really at a premium. 

Actually the detractors of CI were right about one thing, the area in
which the patients are currently stored does look fairly run down and
unattractive.  

Yet none of the patients were complaining about this. In any event if
the new premises end up looking like either of the one we visited then
nothing I was told about CI will have any substance. 

I was very impressed with the way CI does as much as it can themselves,
Andy and Bob showed me some fibreglass strength experiments they were
undertaking, I also learned that storage in fibreglass units is a lower
cost option than stainless steel for three reasons one/ The actual cost
of the raw material is lower. two/ The "boil off" of the liquid nitrogen
is less and three/ It is far cheaper and easier to repair. 

At last I was beginning to realise some of the reasons why there was such
a large difference in the prices between CI and the others. 

On Friday 24th September Bob and Mae took me on a tour of both the good
and not so good areas of Detroit. The older run down areas seemed to emit
menace and foreboding from the very brickwork and broken windows, in the
lane next to our car two other cars collided with a loud metallic crash....
I nearly jumped through the roof...nervous...me? 

From there Bob took us through to the lakeside areas where Michigan
borders with Canada, what a contrast, vast open areas of parkland,
lakes as far as the eye could see. Beautiful vistas, sparkling water,
huge expensive houses set well back from the roads and Autumn coloured
trees just everywhere.  

This has to be the major visual asset of the Detroit area millions of
fabulous trees, Oaks and Maples and others I didn't know but all stunning. 

That evening I was finally allowed to pay for something and I bought us
all a meal at a lakeside restaurant. It was a normal meal out for me with
the waiter trying to decide whether to come to terms with my humour or
simply ask us to leave. In the end we stayed and enjoyed fine food, fine
wine and even finer conversation. (It said on the menu "If you require
more water simply ask the waiter" as there were at least 1000 million
gallons of the stuff splashing the side of the building from the lake
I didn't bother). The rest of my time there flew away with a mega meal
at the Skyline restaurant, a mere 28 floors up, looking out into a rain
swept night, all in the company of other Cryonicists.  

The building was five years old yet looked, inside and out, as though it
had been finished yesterday. The night was excellent, Royse Brown, a very
active Cryonicist, signed with CI but also does work with Alcor and Trans
Time drove for three hours or more for the meal and conversation, then
drove back again, hope you enjoyed it half as much as I did Royse. 

I was taken to see a local presentation of Guys and Dolls in a local
theatre, run on a part time basis, yet it all looked and sounded as good
as anything I've seen put on at Shaftsbury Avenue. 

I got to take Bob and Maes dogs for a walk on the Sunday, the sun was
bright and the dogs showed me how to get right round the block, quite a
way for just two rows of houses. 

On Monday Mae actually let me take a taxi to a Mall for some last minute
shopping on my own (She didn't really, I made the arrangements and went
while she had a lie in). 

That evening Bob gave a talk on Cryonics to a group of Libertarians,
some nights you realise just how wonderful it is to be alive.  

I abhor almost all forms of authority, and to be in the company of a
group of people who feel the same is superb. The night evaporated before
my very eyes, humorous and serious, Bobs talk was one of the first I've
heard on Cryonics that wasn't confrontational. His approach is low key,
rational and positive. He obviously keeps well up to date with the latest
developments in Nano technology, Life extension research and makes his
case thoughtfully and with conviction. 

His talk was well received by everybody present, with the usual question
and answer session at the end. Mae and I took some photos (Say Mouse) and
that was the end of my visit to CI. 

All during the week I stayed in Oak Park doing the aforementioned things
people were coming in and out, Bobs Brother Alan looked in with some
medical equipment, another Lady whose name I am sorry I cannot remember
and so on. 

My thanks to you all, but primarily to Bob and Mae Ettinger it was a
trip I will never forget. 

I returned home the following day.

On the way back I decided I don't want to be frozen in liquid nitrogen or
frozen in anything at all really, I want to go on living, enjoying life
and the company of other like-minded souls, but in reality I know I have
made the best choice with the facts of life as they are now. 

And what if Cryonics really works? Well then we get another chance to
spend some more time together without the shadow of death. 

WOW! If you can be happy at all right now, knowing that it will all end
one day and you have no say when and if, think how much happier we can
be when we lose that shadow. 

Right, that's the Cryonics taken care of, now exactly how do we raise
half a billion 's to start the major anti-ageing research programme?  

Paul Michaels

9th October

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