X-Message-Number: 32138 From: Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 11:40:58 EST Subject: Suspended Animation Inc. Suspended Animation Inc. (SA) for several years has had a contract with the Cryonics Institute (CI) allowing CI members to choose SA services when death is expected or occurs. The CI web site has promoted the use of SA services. The original contract was blatantly unfortunate in some respects, the blame lying mainly with Ben Best, David Ettinger, and myself. A while back the contract was modified, but only now, finally, the promotion of SA on the CI web site has ceased. Mention of the availability of SA services is there, but without advocacy. There is also a segment on pro's and con's of the choice of SA services. The changes are those proposed by David Ettinger, the CI directors having previously agreed to give him that job. So finally the worst of that is over, and I thank Ben for finally cooperating. But in my opinion there are still problems. For one thing, those CI members who have already signed up for SA services may be unaware of the changes and need to be informed. Also, the segment on pro's and con's in my opinion is inadequate and inaccurate. For example, it says that a member can choose between using a funeral director or using SA, and also that SA can provide washout etc. Actually, a funeral director, to the best of my knowledge, must always be involved, in part to provide or authorize transportation of the body. Also, in Michigan and presumably other states, only a licensed funeral director may cut or inject a dead person. (Obvious exceptions e.g. for medical school anatomy classes and pathologists.) Further, there is the question of legality of some of the medications SA has used or advocated. Further, some of the potential problems with SA are understated or ignored. Anyway, a big correction but still work to be done. Robert Ettinger Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32138