X-Message-Number: 3296
Date:  Wed, 19 Oct 94 13:01:22 
From: Steve Bridge <>
Subject: CRYONICS James Bedford funding


To CryoNet
>From Steve Bridge, Alcor
October 19, 1994

Additional notes on James Bedford funding.  Apparently I added my own bit 
of what turns out to be misinformation.

     In message #3255, I posted the following:

[Charles Platt]
>>James Bedford is stored by Alcor as a charity case who is paid for out 
>>of other patients' funds. 

>     Actually, Dr. Bedford is not a charity case.  Jerry Leaf and others 
>covered Bedford's nitrogen bills for several years after Alcor assumed 
>responsibility for Dr. Bedford in 1982.  Jerry also added extra funding 
>to his own life insurance so that Dr. Bedford would be covered in the 
>future.  Sometime after Richard Jones went into suspension in 1988, a 
>large extra amount of funding from the Jones estate ($200,000, I believe) 
>was added to the Patient Care Fund by Alcor's Board of Directors to cover 
>past underfunding and to provide future security.  And when Jerry Leaf 
>himself went into suspension in 1991, his extra funding was added to the 
>Patient Care Fund to protect all the patients, including Dr. Bedford.

     I got the information on Jerry's contributions and extra insurance 
from an article by Mike Darwin ("Dear Dr. Bedford") in the July, 1991 
issue of CRYONICS.  Jerry apparently had told people at the time that he 
had purchased the extra insurance.  The actual deposit records from that 
time were in storage in another room and it took a while to get to them.

     It now appears that Jerry had not actually purchased the added 
insurance, and he became a suspension patient himself a few weeks after 
the article was written.  So Bedford's suspension expenses are covered by 
the extra Jones funding and overfunding by other patients.  These expenses 
are not covered by payments from current living members.

Steve Bridge, President
Alcor Life Extension Foundation

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