X-Message-Number: 3086
Date: 08 Sep 94 22:21:27 EDT
From: Mike Darwin <>
Subject: CRYONICS Reply to Pizer


If Dave Pizer's reply was meant to be temperate or to settle things down, I
don't think he suceeded.  Maybe I can inject a little calm and correct a few
misperceptions.

First of all, I'd like to address Dave's remarks about total body washout vs.
freezing and who's doing what, etc.  Dave says:


>>Harris and his group spend a lot of money on WASHOUTS.

>>Ettinger hired people to study actual FREEZING of tissue.  

>>IMHO it is more important to study damage done in freezing than in
>>washouts.  It is true that Ettinger's work is in the early stages, but
>>it is an important step and I think Bob Ettinger should be applauded
>>and encouraged for this work --- not attacked.

>>Further improvments in technology in washouts is like improving the
>>technology in manufacturing dynamite fuses.  It might make the dynamite
>>go off a little quicker but it has no further impact on (or protection
>>against) what happens to the nearby matter after the dynamite has gone
>>off.  In other words, there are a lot more changes in one's brain AFTER
>>the temperature drops below the freezing point then before.  Knowing
>>what happens after sheep brains are frozen is much more valuable than
>>knowing what happens to dog brains before they are meerly washed out.

First, let's separate the various parties here.  Who exactly are "Harris and
his group"?  Well, there are several companies who occupy the building here in

Rancho Cucamonga and they have different management and the do different things.
We (when I say "we" here I mean the companies collectively and individually)
have done just about everything possible to point out that there are separate,
discrete and DIFFERENT organizations with different objectives and different
sources of funding.

It is true that 21st Century Medicine is pursuing canine total body washout
research.  It is not true, as Dave seems to imply, that we are spending large
amounts of money trying to make the dynamite go off a little faster.  The
objectives of 21st's canine TBW research are to make marketable improvments in
contemporary clinical medicine.  There are a number of medical procedures where
circulatory arrest of extended duration is desirable.  Currently the limits on
such arrest are about 45 minutes at 15xC.  Even with these modest periods of
arrest there are serious problems of a lasting nature for about 25% of the

patients.  And, the fact remains that many procedures that would be do-able with
longer periods of circulatory arrest are not because of current limits.


A wide range of solid organs such as the kidney, liver, pancreas and  gut can be
viably stored and transported by simply flushing them with an appropriate
solution and cooling them to near 0xC.  These advances have become possible due
to an understanding of the mechanisms of injury in deep hypothermia.


Unfortunately (in my opinion) the lessons of the organ preservationists have not

been applied to the operating room.  Surgeons still carry out circulatory arrest
with blood and at fairly high temperatures (because they are using blood they
cannot cool too deeply).  Development of TBW technology offers the promise of
applying some of the basic lessons of the organ preservationists to clinical
medicine, possibly to great advantage.  Some of the benefits possible are:

*en-bloc flush-store preservation of cadavers to facilitate multiple organ
harvesting.
*treatment of massive, disrupting trauma (as in military settings) by inducing
flush-store hypothermic preservation and transport of the patient to more
sophisticated facilities.
*extended circulatory arrest time for neurosurgical and cardiovascular
procedures which require complex dissection or reconstruction of blood
vessels...

As the above list hopefully makes clear,  there are many advantages to
development of this technique today that are unrelated or only tangentially
related to cryonics.  There is also commercial potential here and there are in
fact two publically traded stock companies with research interests in this area
(Cryomedical Sciences and BioTime) which have raised  upwards of 20 million
dollars to pursue this work.

Some of the people involved with 21st and/or who contract with 21st for related
research have little or no interest in the application of TBW technology to
cryonics.  And, if such technology turns out to be commercially viable, it will
probably not be because of its application to cryonics patients (although
cryonics patients may well benefit).  

21st was not created to do brain cryopreservation, its mission is not primarily
cryonics, and it would not be approriate for it to spend its resources in that
way.

So much for "washouts" and 21st.

Now, as to Dave's other allegations about "Steve's Group".  It is *not* true
that "Steve's group, (whatever that means) Steve himself, "Darwin" (meaning me)
or others working on cryonics related matters here are not engaged in serious
brain cryopreservation work..  This implication simply is not true and I must
confess I deeply resent it because I am personally paying for most of it.  BPI
has been freezing dogs and rabbit brains for nearly a year.  I have hundreds of
electron micrographs sitting on my desk, with a fresh batch from a 6M glycerol
frozen-thawed-fixed dog having arrived today.  In fact, in terms of man hours
spent, I would say I'm spending more on FREEEZING and EXAMINING frozen brains
than I am on TBW work.  I am also funding this work myself almost exclusively,
with some input from a few others.  And I certainly agree that this work has
great importance to cryonics.

But let's go back to the TBW work for a minute and its relevance to these brain

freezing studies.  First of all, one of my biggest headaches is sorting out what
causes what when I look at EMs of frozen-thawed brains.  Our TBW work greatly
benefits our other research work in that we have discovered that TBW is not
innocuous and must be done just-so in order to get survivors.  This tells us
about what we need to do to prepare animals for cryopreservation so that the

injury we see is *just from the cryopreservation.* (And even here there are many
headaches and artifacts).


TBWs also act as a powerful check on basic bypass and surgical technique.  If we

can't recover dogs alive and well from TBW what kind of damage are we doing?  If
our bypass technique isn't good enough to get dogs back, why isn't it?  The

point here is that TBWs serve as powerful training sessions and they have taught
us important things about perfusate formulation too.  Some things which we've

tried (and felt very confident of) were disasterous and caused massive injury in
the animals.  Without feedback from washouts we'd have no easy way of knowing.

But, just from a training standpoint alone, doing the TBWs is, in my opinion,
worth it.

Our goal is reversible brain cryopreservation.  We started the TBW work (Jerry
Leaf, me and others at Alcor) as a first step towards this goal: you can't have
reversible brain cryopreservation unless you first have a perfusate and a
technique which allows you sufficient time to (without injury) introduce
cryoprotectant, cool the animal to a stable subzero temperature, rewarm, and

remove the cryoprotectant.  Finding a perfusate that will allow for noninjurious
preservation of the organism over a time course of 6-12 hours (the likely time
course of exposure during cryophylaxis and removal of cryoprotectant) is a tall
order.  We are fortunate that it is a project which also has real-time
application to clinical medicine (and thus opportunity for non-cryonicist
funding).

Dave also says that Steve and others have attacked Bob Ettinger for doing
research.  Actually, I know of no one who has done this and, speaking for
myself, I believe I have been uniformly supportive ofCI's research efforts.

Dave also criticizes Paul's comments about Ralph's Merkle's definition of
cryonics.  Actually, I happen to agree with Dave's perspective about Paul's

remarks.  I saw nothing wrong with Ralph's statement (which turned out not to be

Ralph's statement anyway) and I also thought Paul's remarks were intemperate and
unjustified.  But, the point is here that they were Paul's remarks -- not mine,
not Steve Harris' and they most certainly do not reflect how I feel  or BPI's
position.  I will grant Alcor, Steve Bridge and others who are associates of
Dave Pizer the same courtesy with regard to his remarks.  I'll assume they are
Dave's.

Dave also says Steve takes a slam at Alcor in his last paragraph.  Dave Cosenza

says the same thing.  I haven't talked with Steve Harris about this, but I think
I know what went "wrong" here and people on both sides probably share some of
the blame.  This is my guess about what happended:

1) We have all been told here that Bob and Mae plan to move to Arizona in the
near future.


2) To my knowledge CI and Alcor (and Bob and Mae) have no arrangements for Alcor
to provide care to CI patients/members.  Further, as far as I know Bob and Mae
are not Alcor Suspension Members.

3) CI does not currently have or offer (to my knowledge) remote standby type
capability and CI members who have gone down remote from CI are usually packed
in ice and transported by air to CI in Detroit.

4) The implication in #2 above is that *IF* Bob experiences legal death in
Arizona he would probably be packed in ice by a mortuary and shipped by air to
CI in Detroit.  Why would Alcor be involved in Bob's cryopreservation?  If
arrangements do exist or are to be put in place, that is another matter
altogether., but I would go on to add that it would come as fresh (and
surprizing) information to me and probably to Steve Harris as well.


In any event, I am pretty sure Steve's remarks were not meant to be about Alcor.

Now, having said this I would go on to say that while I thought most of Steve's
post was very good and very thoughtful, his last paragraph was at best,
ham-fisted.  I will be charitable and assume that Steve was actually expressing
concern and trying to urge Bob to a course of action which Steve felt would
benefit him.  But, if that was the case, I would be the first to agree it was
miserable failure.

I sympathize with this because I often screw-up in much the same way myself.

Still, this does not excuse the screw-up.  Bob's personal business about how  he
is cared for is his personal business.  And Steve's concerns (if that's what
they were) should properly have been the matter of a PERSONAL communication and
a PRIVATE one between he and Bob.  Sometimes personal and organizational
intersect; but in my opinion this was not such a case.

Finally, some personal perspective on this whole thing:

1) I see plenty of opportunity for cooperation or at least for useful exchange

of information.  I talk with Steve Bridge frequently, Hugh Hixon less frequently
( but still often) and I think both men would agree that we exchange useful
information.  I have tried to be as free as possible with the research results

of our cryopreservation survey work and, if Alcor wishes to use me as a resource
base, I think I can save them a lot of grief and money.  Similarly, Hugh and
Steve have helped out with technical questions I've had and my communications
with them have benefited me.


2) Sure, there will be some areas where proprietary work (patents, etc.) will be

involved, but a lot of this will be of minor importance in the day-to-day and it
will not (in my opinion) affect most of the opportunities for cooperation and
communication.


3) Competetiveness (both good and bad) and past tensions will continue to affect
relations.  But here it is VERY important to deal with indivuals rather than
with groups unless the problem is clearly a group one.  There are probably some
things that Alcor could do that would really get my goat that would not affect
others here at all -- even others like Steve Harris who have been deeply
involved in cryonics and Alcor in the past.  And vice versa with regard to
Steve.

What I am trying to say here is that I just plain value the advice and
information (and in some cases long-standing friendships) with some of the
people in Alcor too much to just write everybody off because of the actions of
individuals in the organization.  As I see it, I have a lot to gain from
improving and cordial relations with Alcor.  There are people Alcor will come

into contact with that I could benefit from knowing.  There is information which
Alcor has and which Alcor will get in the future that could benefit both me and
my business. Ditto Alcor and BPI.  The sooner EVERYBODY realizes that, the
better.

Finally, listen folks, there's plenty of business out there.  There are plenty
of opportunities.  Anyone who has seen the facility in Rancho knows I have a
full plate and that I am doing what I've always wanted to do.

Anybody who has seen Alcor's place in Phoenix should be able to appreciate that
they too have the place of their dreams and a full plate to deal with as well.
The point is, I'm happy, occupied and over my bitterness about the past vis a
vis Alcor.  (No, that doesn't mean there aren't still sore spots).  I also know
that there are real differences about how to handle (and spend) money, do
research, cryopreserve patients, etc.  And these differences need to be
discussed.  And yes, discussing them will sometimes raise hackles.  But let's
all try to be half-way decent about it.

Mike Darwin

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