X-Message-Number: 3053
Date: 04 Sep 94 13:35:07 EDT
From: yvan Bozzonetti <>
Subject: CRYONICS BC section 57

This is a copy of a letter sent to the BC Minister of Consumer Service. Its 
main objective is to bring new arguments on the conservation side outside 
the main Cryonics stream, may be something useful in getting the debate 
outside the passion arena.

From:				Paris, the: September 3rd. 1994.
Mr. Yvan Bozzonetti
Appt. 48
20, rue Rodier
75009 Paris
France



				TO:

				The Honorable Joan Smallwood
				Ministry of Housing, Recreation and
					Consumer Services
				Parliament Buildings
				Victoria, British Columbia V8V 1X4




  To the Honorable Joan Smallwood,


	I write you in the name of a small group of people interested in 
advanced medical researches. Our concern is about your Section 57 of the 
Cemetery and Funeral Service Act.

	The case has comes to us by the channel of the Canadian Cryonics 
Society. The objective of this letter is not to put some presure on you or 
your laws, nobody in our group is a canadian citizen, even less a British 
Columbia resident. We want only give ou some informations, without juging 
the cryonics' concept, value or consumer viewpoint. In fact, we are only 
interested by  a "side effect" and fallout of the potential cryonics 
practice: It could revals itself as a very useful activity for the comming 
generation. The explanation stands as follow and implies an analogy between 
flu, Aids and Alzheimer condition:

	Flu is a very azardous condition for many people and needs yearly 
vaccination to be keept at bay. This comes from high variability of the 
virus. Neverthless, that variability has a finite range defined by chemical 
laws. The same strain come back then along a near 80 years period. Because 
flu is found in many species at different stage of the cycle, we can find 
all strains at a given period. What we do not know is the succession order 
in human, if we could get corpses of people on two or three periods, we 
could do an universal vaccine.

	HIV, the Aids' virus, is high on the variability scale and there is 
no animal model. If we could get a sample of its victims over some tens of 
years, the chemical boundaries of its variability would come to light and a 
vaccine could be done, something not possible today. Before the advent of 
the current epidemy, some sporadic cases have been found in the past 30 - 
40 years. If the corpses have been keept in a way or another, we would be 
nearer to find a solution. If cryonics could be used and favored for Aids 
patients, it could revals itself very useful in some years independently of 
the cryonics displayed initial purpose.

	Another big problem is the Alzheimer and Alzheimer-like conditions. 
It seems to work somewhat as Creutzfeld-Jacob condition, the human 
counterpart of scrapie and mad cow ilness in animals. It seems we are 
facing an auto-immune reaction of the organism destroying its own cells 
because a normal protein has been folded the wrong way. For an unknown 
reason, that wrong folding seems able to propagate from molecule to 
molecule and from cells to cells. The Pr. Stanley Prusiner from UCLA has 
demonstrated there was many strains of scrapie ( different wrong protein 
foldings). The same seems true of alzheimer. A solution could comes only 
from the knowledge of all possible variants and once more cryonics practice 
could be benefical when, in some years, there will be the tool needed to do 
such analysis.

	To summarize, the diffusion of cryonics practices today could turns 
out as a key componement in most wanted researches of the comming years. 
Research budgets cannot aford to pay that work today, if there is an 
incentive for individuals to support the cost, it would be encouraged , not 
discouraged by governments it seems to us. Knowing that, would-be 
"cryonicists" could display a more altruistic atitude during their live and 
favor responsible behaviors.

	I apologize for that somewhat technical point an a limited english 
knowledge. The true objective we pursue is not to overturn your law but 
simply to inform you on your possible actions. May be you could find useful 
to get more informations along these lines from the BC scientific 
community.

			Yours Faithfully,

						Yvan Bozzonetti.

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