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. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=3053