X-Message-Number: 3247
Date: 11 Oct 94 22:36:53 EDT
From: Mike Darwin <>
Subject: SCI.CRYONICS lies, inneuendo and cryonet message 1627
The following is an edited test of the reply to Dave Pizer and Keith Henson
which I posted in January of 1992. The reader may draw his or her own
conclusions about why it is necessary to post the relevant parts of it again
Before reprinting my post I wish to add the following points:
1) Curtis Henderson and to a lesser extent Saul Kent, personally paid for almost
of all of Steven Mandel's cryopreservation costs. Curtis often paid
(personally) the liquid nitrogen bills of other patients including Ann DeBlasio
(Nick was often late or not forthcoming with payment).
2) Mandel and DeBlasio were removed from Cryo Span's care against the advice of
Curtis Henderson (Saul was not around at that time). In the case of Nick
DeBlasio (Ann's husband) I also gave him very good advice which he chose to
ignore. Some of that advice was given in the presence of Carlos Mondragon in
Carlos' New York apartment!!! (This was after the FIRST time Nick had let Ann
thaw out).
3) During the entire period of operatuion of CSNY and Cryo Span no patient was
ever allowed to thaw out.
4) During that period in cryonics there was tremendous emphasis on getting
patients frozen. Indeed, Bob Ettinger was among those advocating and assisting
with this policy. He asssisted on several occassions by loaning equipment and
chemicals and even flew to Iowa to bring DMSO and assist with the
cryopreservation of Mildred Harris. I bring this up not to criticize Bob or
anyone else, but rather to point out that these were the standards of the time.
Indeed, Bob even helped in circulating pleas for financial support for unfunded
frozen patients such as Marie Phelps Sweet.
5) Dave Pizer, Steve Bridge and Mike Perry are all intimately aware of these and
the other circumstances surrounding the termination of the care of the CSNY/Cryo
Span patients. In Dave's case his behavior may be attributed to malice and/or
stupidity. The silence of Bridge, Perry and others is more difficult to explain
since I believe that they know full well that there was not only no malfeasance
involved in the termination of these patients' care, but rather that their care
would not have continued as long as it did or have been initiated in the first
place if not for the efforts of Curtis Henderson and Saul Kent. Their silence
is in itself unspeakable.
6) Speaking of Ponzi rackets, the cost structure of all existing cryonics
organizations leaves much to be desired in terms of accounting for inflatiobn,
cost increases and other contingencies. Alcor's recent abandonment of the 10%
rule does nothing to reinforce my doubts in this areas where their operation is
concerned.
7) Finally (before proceeding to my prior posting) I find it ironic that Dave
should make the charges he does when Alcor has, by understanding the following
history:
a) Two neuropatients with essentially no funding (except that obtained through
the 10% rule): A-1057 and A-1056
b) One neuropatient on whom the insurance did not pay off due (reportedly) to
fraud by the client and thus who has little if any funding.
c) Patient A-1165 who came in at well below the usual minimum of funding.
d) A whole body patient A-1142 who has essentially no long term funding (charity
case).
e) Patient A-1410 whose cost of suspension exceeded revenues taken in by I
understand approximately 15K.
f) A neuropatient who committed suicide without adequate insurance funding and
who is also underfunded (amount not known).
That means that of Alcor's 27 patients, 7 are being subsidized by the others or
by the general operating fund (other members). I participated in and advocated
the acceptance of some of these un and underfunded patients and I still think it
was a good thing to do in those cases.
My point here is that people in glass houses should not throw stones and that,
if the issue of care and funding is to be fairly discussed, it should be noted
that a good hunk of the cost of caring for those 7 patients is being borne by
Alcor members both living and in suspension. And that is a big hunk of cash
indeed.
So, in some ways, nothing has changed in 25 years:
Date: 15 January, 1992
...I must also state here that this account has been written from my own
memory and without consultation with Saul Kent or anyone else.
I want to make clear from the outset that when Pizer says "I believe
people would like answers to these questions, (sic about the loss of 7
CSNY/Cryo-Span suspension patients) NOT to humiliate you, but to try to
know if you have learned from previous disasters" he is asking the
"questions" in a loaded, prejudicial manner with the clear implication
that there was wrongdoing on Saul's part. This would be obvious to anyone
who has had a high school debate class. Further, if such a question were
asked in that fashion in any blue-collar bar the interrogator would *know*
his error once he recovered consciousness and emptied his mouth of his
teeth.
The story of CSNY and Cryo-Span is an interesting one, a tragic one,
and one from which there is much to learn. Unfortunately, it is the Board
of Directors of Alcor and some of its staff which needs to learn the
lessons this story has to teach, not Saul Kent.
To tell this story I must take you back to another era very different
from the one cryonics is now in. It was a time when NO ONE was interested
in cryonics but a tiny handful of people. There were perhaps 30 SERIOUSLY
INTERESTED PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. There was a great deal of superficial
media interest, but little serious interest.
Curtis Henderson, Saul Kent, an attorney named Richard Vingello and a
small group of local investors formed Cryo-Span to deliver cryonic
suspension services to the Cryonics Society of New York. Within a very
short period of time -- from July 1968 to May of 1970 -- five of the
"seven" patients Dave alleges were "lost" were placed into cryonic
suspension via CSNY and Cryo-Span. During this period Curtis Henderson
was running Cryo-Span on a day-to-day basis and Saul's responsibilities
were largely to remain employed, funnel significant amounts of his income
into putting out the CSNY newsletter *Cryonics Reports* which he paid for
out of his own pocket often as not, and carry an enormous administrative
burden.
This burden consisted of answering all information requests (there
were many at that time), carrying on an extensive correspondence,
organizing meetings, and trying to get improved support from members. His
efficiency at this was legend. I am a testimony to both his efficiency
and his thoroughness. I got my information packet from CSNY a few days
after I wrote, and Saul began a correspondence with a 12-year-old boy that
lasted nearly a decade. I assure you I was treated no differently than
hundreds of others. While Saul handled much of the administrative burden
and tried to get improved membership and support for cryonics, Curtis took
care of the patients.
It should be remembered that this was a different era in terms of
printing and that the desk-top publishing industry was not even a gleam in
Steve Jobs' eye. Printing *Cryonics Reports* and producing it was
extremely costly and time-consuming. Indeed, most magazines of that size
and quality would have a paid, full-time staff of 1-2 people. The cost of
typesetting and printing the magazine ran into the hundreds of dollars
every month (1968 dollars!). Saul absorbed most of this cost and spent
all of the time required. For this he was paid nothing and for this he
was reviled by a small but vocal segment of the cryonics community at that
time (nothing has changed in 25 years).
Meanwhile CSNY had frozen five patients. It is important to
understand several things about these suspensions:
1) All were initiated by the next-of-kin after the patient's legal death.
2) All upkeep was paid for on a year-by-year basis by next-of-kin.
3) In several cases little or no money was paid and the responsibility
for caring for these patients was borne largely by Curtis Henderson and
Saul.
While the idea of trust funds for long term care of patients was
around from the beginning (see Ettinger's *The Prospect of Immortality*)
no one really knew what the costs would be in any realistic way. It
turned out that even if the first patients had provided long-term care
trusts in the amounts then recommended, they still would have been grossly
inadequate. Cryonics was simply too new with simply too many unforeseen
contingencies.
I have heard through Mike Perry that Pizer is privately stating that
"Saul should have known better than to freeze people without long-term
funding after they froze the first person or two." Easily said now.
However, as I have been at pains to point out, five of Pizer's "seven"
were suspended in roughly a two year period. This gave little time for
feedback. And there were precious few people to receive such feedback.
Cryo-Span consisted of essentially two active people: Curtis and Saul.
The cryonics community as a whole was an isolated and fragmented group of
individuals held together largely by letter writing via the US mail.
Indeed, if there were two cryonicists in any given area, this was
remarkable, and such individuals were considered lucky beyond words. You
have no idea of the loneliness and the isolation we felt. There was NO
ONE who thought what we were doing was rational and we had almost no luck
whatsoever in persuading others to join us. It was a terrible time.
What no one anticipated was the magnitude of the burden of caring for
these patients. A business, any business, requires a great number of
things: paying bills, maintaining insurance, invoicing customers,
preparing tax forms, cleaning and maintaining the equipment and premises.
In short, an enormous amount of overhead much of which exists regardless
of whether the business is small or large, profitable or unprofitable.
Curtis and Saul were faced with running such a business with essentially
two or three customers at any one time, most of whom could not afford to
pay for the real costs of the service. Of course Curtis and Saul could
have thawed the patients out right then and there. But they didn't
because they were hostages to their decency and loyalty tothe patients and
because they, like the rest of us, JUST COULDN'T BELIEVE THINGS WOULDN'T
GET BETTER IF ONLY THEY COULD HANG ON LONG ENOUGH. Instead, things just
got worse.
A cryonics business (at least as soon as you have patients to care
for) carries with it another kind of overhead and that is maintaining the
patients. This becomes a problem only if you work during the day since
liquid nitrogen is only delivered during business hours and then only
WITHOUT an appointment (sometimes, if you are lucky they will tell you if
they can make it in the A.M. or the P.M., but don't count on it). This
means that if you have a day job, you will soon LOSE it. This happened to
Curtis Henderson (and Cryo-Span was NOT a profitable operation that could
pay him a salary!). Indeed, Cryo-Span *consumed* rather than generated
capital. (Later Curtis solved the LN2 problem in part by going to pick it
up himself: but he still had to do it during business hours.)
I know about all this for two reasons: First, when I was 16 I went
out to Long Island and spent a good hunk of my summer vacation there
living with Curtis and his family and "working" in the Cryo-Span facility.
Second, I am one of the few men alive who started a cryonics facility and
spent those long days waiting for the LN2 truck to pull up.
What very soon happened was that some of the patient's relatives quit
paying, payed only sporadically, or argued, bitched, and moaned beyond any
possible comprehension. These ravings were unequalled in cryonics until
recently. For those who wish to appreciate their flavor you have only to
look at what has been posted on this net in the last few months to
appreciate the sheer mean-spiritedness and gross stupidity. that went on
at that time.
In some ways the two situations are very close and the ironies are
not lost on me: the cast of characters was much like it is now. Perhaps
cryonics attracts such ilk out of proportion: more likely it is the
phenomenon of the "crud rising to the top." By this I mean that people
willing to take responsible positions in cryonics are often the least
qualified to do so. However, those better qualified to, i.e., stable,
nonsociopathic individuals with sound judgment have too much to lose and
are unwilling to work for so little remuneration. There are occasional
exceptions to this: quality individuals with courage and commitment who
will make sacrifices in taking positions of responsibility. But damn few.
The result? The crud rises to the top.
Why were the relatives unhappy? Why were they unable or unwilling to
pay? The unhappiness is the most difficult to explain. However, since I
interacted with many of these people I feel I am in a good posirion to
understand it.
Several of these people were what might tastefully be described as
far out on a limb of the bell shaped curve of normal in terms of
socialization; this is to be expected in the early days of something like
cryonics. Several of the relatives placed their "loved" ones in
suspension to "make up" for a lifetime of manipulative abuse, making
amends for which, had become complicated by death. How fortunate cryonics
was for these people: now they had a fresh pool of people to heap abuse
upon. Nick DeBlasio was a case in point; a former New York cop with an IQ
of about 80, a bluster, wear 'em down with argument (rational or not)
mentality, (sound like anyone else we know?) and a gun which he used to
threaten hospital officials with (and anyone else he disliked, which was
to say nearly everyone). Pauline Mandel was a female version of Nick
(minus the gun) -- in fact they were engaged to each other at one point!
And of course there were relatives like the Halpert/Dastals who had
absolutely no interest in cryonics at all and thought it was nutty,
disgusting thing. Since cryonics was small, totally impoverished and
completely defenseless at that time these people could do a lot of harm
and believe me, they knew it and lost no opportunity to do so.
Complicating the matter was that no one had any money. The
relatives of most of the patients were largely working class people. And
yet the bills had to be paid. But perhaps the real reason for a lot of
the acrimony was the complete and utter failure of expectations. NOBODY
EXPECTED CRYONICS WOULD TURN OUT THAT WAY. You see, it wasn't supposed to
happen like that. It was supposed to catch on, big companies were
supposed to get involved. There were supposed to be economies of scale.
The pioneers and their families were supposed to be looked up to, not
laughed at. Cryonics facilities were supposed to be gleaming, and solid,
and staffed by technically sophisticated people; not be dirty little
industrial bays with a man bleeding himself to death trying to take care
of the patients. It wasn't supposed to be like that! And everybody felt
cheated, and everybody was MAD. I know, because when I found out how IT
REALLY WAS I felt cheated, and I felt angry. BUT I DIDN'T TAKE IT OUT ON
CURTIS HENDERSON OR SAUL KENT. These then are the reasons for the
situation unfolding as it did.
But what actually happened to the patients Dave alleges that CSNY and
Cryo-Span lost?:
Steven Mandel: 24 year old aeronautical engineering student who had
started to sign-up with CSNY when he died of chronic enteritis on 28 July,
1968. Mandel had purchased a New York Life policy and had lied to the
company about his health: he was already in the final stages of enteritis
when he procured the policy and he died a few weeks later during surgery.
New York Life quite justifiably refused to pay. Pauline Mandel (Steven's
mother) proceeded with his suspension. CSNY never collected any money for
the dewar Steven was placed in, and collected only a few hundred dollars
for liquid nitrogen bills. *Sometime around 1974 Steven was allowed to
thaw out and decompose by Robert F. Nelson to whose care HE HAD BEEN
TRANSFERRED TO BY STEVEN'S MOTHER, PAULINE.*
Andrew Mihok: a middle aged heart attack victim who was placed into
suspension briefly by his wife. Mihok was in suspension only a matter of
hours before it became apparent that this was not something the family
could afford, and that further, the wife was not adequately informed about
the risks and benefits of cryonics. CSNY acted in this case only because
there was no time to lose since the patient was already "down." *Both
CSNY and Mrs. Mihok agreed that proceeding beyond dry ice was
inappropriate -- indeed this patient probably never even reached dry ice
temperature.*
Ann DeBlasio: a 43 year-old breast cancer victim whose husband Nick had
her placed into suspension. *Nick DeBlasio, acting on advice from and
with the help of Robert F. Nelson removed Ann from Cryo-Span's care and
placed her in a facility operated by himself and Nelson. Ann was allowed
to thaw out and decompose (along with another woman Nelson placed in the
dewar with her) in the summer of 1980.* I am intimately familiar with
this case since it was a colleague and I who removed Mrs. DeBlasio and her
companion, badly decomposed and *in pieces* from this unit. I did this
primarily to save cryonics the scandal. It was one of the most unpleasant
experiences of my life.
Paul M. Hurst, Sr.: a 62 year old man placed into suspension by his son (a
psychology professor) Paul Hurst, Jr. I never met Paul Hurst, Jr., but by
all accounts he was a very pleasant and fair man who paid his bills and
discharged his obligations well. Around 1974 Mr. Hurst, Jr. decided to
move to Australia and his financial situation was such that he could no
longer care for his father. *As his father had been suspended only after a
lengthy delay and had been embalmed prior to suspension as well, he
decided to discontinue the suspension and had his father conventionally
interred.*
Herman Greenberg: a 51 year-old accountant who was placed into suspension
by his daughter Gillian Cummings in May of 1970. *Mr. Greenberg's
suspension terminated when his wife ordered his removal from suspension
after the death of their daughter in the Cryo-Span facility where she was
living in her car.* It should be noted that Gillian was living in the
facility and working on an ice cream truck to make enough money to keep
the liquid nitrogen bills paid and her father and the other patients at
the facility frozen.
There are two other patients which Cryo-Span or its personnel had
some degree of involvement with. However, one of these patients was never
cared for by Cryo-Span:
Clara Dastal: a 60 year-old woman who I was in part responsible for
suspending. Thus, I take Dave's charge that we were in some way mistaken,
immoral, or wrong in continuing to suspend people quite personally since
Clara is one of Dave's "seven." Mrs. Dastal was the exception to all the
rest. She was a CSNY member with fully executed paperwork and a trust
fund established to pay for her care. Failure to suspend her would have
exposed CSNY to enormous civil liability and would have been immoral in
the bargain. Following her suspension Mrs. Dastal's two loving children
went to court, broke her trust, and obtained a court order for her
interment. However, they did the latter only after first listening to Bob
Nelson tell them that they were being "gouged and ripped-off" by Curtis
Henderson and that they could store their mother cheaper with him. After
receiving payment of $2000, Nelson absconded with the money and never
picked Clara up from CSNY. The Dastals, (Claire Halpert her daughter, and
Richard Dastal her son) gentle folks that they were, hired a private
detective, went after Nelson with a vengeance, and in the process
uncovered the Chatsworth disaster and exposed Nelson for the lying,
murderous fraud that he was.
Michael Baburka: I understand that Mr. Buburka was dead several days
before he was found in the New York subway and that he had been autopsied.
Mr. Buburka was placed into suspension by his son circa 1980 with
assistance from Curtis Henderson. He was stored in a miniwharehouse by
the son *until the authorities were called to the site and found his
decomposing body in the dewar. Saul Kent had long left the New York area
before this suspension was undertaken and both CSNY and Cryo-Span were
defunct by this time. Indeed, as I recall, Saul knew nothing about this
suspension until long after it had happened. Curtis became involved only
because of the desperation of the son.
Now let us return to Dave's accusations by innuendo. First, as can
be seen from the above, neither Cryo-Span nor CSNY EVER lost any patients.
Patients were removed from their care in every instance by the next-of-kin
who had either placed them into suspension or who had full legal and
financial control over them. Furthermore, it is my expert opinion that
NONE of these patients would have been placed into suspension if large
amounts of up-front money had been required. And, what is more, even if a
trust fund had existed to care for one or two of these patients it would
have had to have been large enough to have provided for operation of a
completely dedicated facility, i.e., a facility operated to care for that
patient and that patient alone since the pool of patients rapidly dwindled
to one or two with enormous overhead costs accruing to those one or two
patients.
Keep in mind also that there was a long period of time where the ONLY
reliable storage facility was the Cryo-Span facility. Californians and
others relying on Nelson were living in a fool's paradise at this time.
During the period of time that Cryo-Span operated its facility there
was an unrelenting and bitter series of attacks from Nelson and his
associates accusing CSNY and Cryo-Span of, of all things, *substandard
cryogenic care* (all the while Nelson's patients ROTTED). I spoke with
Curtis Henderson and Saul about this several times and I was told: "there
are many and serious problems here, please come out and see for yourself
what we are up against." *I did so*, in sharp contrast to the dozen or so
others who were content to sit on their asses and throw around innuendo
and lies about situations they knew NOTHING about. I was 16 years old at
the time and I had to work my tail off cleaning garbage off plates for a
summer at the Indianapolis Convention Center to save the air fare. What I
found was a gritty operation being maintained by a man in the throes of
serious alcoholism. A man who, with almost superhuman will, had
sacrificed everything: his family, his savings, his job, and his health to
keep those patients in suspension.
During my summer in New York I saw Curtis Henderson come home from
the night shift at Sonic (the people who made the K-Tell records once
advertised extensively on TV) where he held a job working under conditions
so full of hazards and toxic chemicals there are no words to describe it,
get up a few hours later, and take care of the patients. I saw him come
home with a broken arm one Friday, rest for a few hours and then drag
himself through the routine of getting liquid nitrogen before attending to
himself. I saw him care for those patients using his own money -- money
that should have been spent providing for the basic needs of his wife and
children. I cannot tell you the rage I feel when confronted with the
filth pouring out of the mouth of a creature of Dave Pizer's stature.
Filth couched in the language of friendship, fairness, and gentility.
I have known Dave Pizer for nearly a decade and worked alongside him
as a Director of Alcor (a position I opposed him having). During that
interval I came to expect as routine outright falsehoods, gross
distortions, and critical omissions of information in my communications
with him. I suffered through his defense of Robert Nelson and his
publication of an "exhonerating" series of interviews with Nelson. I have
long questioned his intelligence and now I must question his integrity.
You will note that of the patients "lost" by CSNY listed above, DeBlasio,
Dastal, and Mandel were lost with the help not of Curtis Henderson and
Saul Kent, but rather with help so generously provided by Robert F. Nelson
who Mr. Pizer has repeatedly defended not only to me, but to many others
in the cryonics community.
Earlier I spoke of what was to be learned from the CSNY and Cryo-Span
experience. Much was learned by that brooding, high strung lad who spent
his summer on Long Island at Curtis Henderson's elbow and his Christmas
vacation from his Junior year in high school perfusing Clara Dastal. Much
of what I learned became engraved in stone (or hopefully so) when Alcor
was created. Not accepting patients on a year-to-year basis, the 10% Rule
to cover inflation, increased costs, and the cost of reanimation, the
importance of utter honesty in communications with clients, the absolute
primacy of technical and scientific excellence over any other
consideration....
Alcor could learn much from the CSNY/Cryo-Span experience. Its
Directors and key staffers could learn to be honest about the shortcomings
and deficiencies of Alcor's suspension program as they perceive them. It
is not necessary that they agree with anyone else's assessments -- only
that they be honest about the ones in their own hearts instead of lying to
themselves and others. For as bad as things were at CSNY, neither Saul
Kent nor Curtis Henderson ever tried to hide them, not from me, not from
anyone, not for one moment. Indeed, if I learned my supposedly tactless
and ruthless honesty about such matters from anyone it was from Curtis
Henderson whom I wish to publicly thank for that most precious and
painful of gifts.
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