X-Message-Number: 33354
References: <>
From: Gerald Monroe <>
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2011 11:27:08 -0600
Subject: Re: CryoNet #33350 - #33351

--bcaec53f8d75e9435a049d1ea4bf

Quick clarification : I was referring to the "assisted suicide" portion of
the Death with Dignity Act.  Whoever the patient is would have to push the
plunger or the red button or take the pills themselves.  This part would
have to be video recorded, unfortunately, and  the patient would state
clearly that they understand that there is not a guarantee of revival and
that regardless of the outcome of the cryonics, they do not wish to live the
last 6 months of their life in excruciating pain while their mind slips
away.  Or something to the effect, I'm not a lawyer.

The advantages for the preservation could be substantial.  It's not just
post-death when the brain suffers ischemia and damage...many terminal
patients lose blood flow to the brain or the tumors spread there and suffer
permanent pre-death brain damage.  And this damage happens over a period of
weeks, such that the affect cells have a chance to commit apoptosis and be
completely cleaned up by the macrophages.  This kind of brain damage *would
be impossible to repair with nanotechnology.  The memories stored in these
cells would be destroyed as if they had been incinerated*.

Perhaps we could convince the public that a cryo-preservation is death with
dignity?  The patient goes to sleep knowing there's a chance this isn't the
end, and doesn't have to suffer through the last terminal stage of their
illness.  Their body doesn't rot into stinking mush afterwards (at least
their brain doesn't) but is cleanly stored away.

One last comment : there's another 'loophole' in the laws that was used in
at least one cryonics case.  If you're completely dependent on artificial
life support, you can order the machine *turned off*.  It does *not *count
as a suicide or euthansia, but "*refusal of treatment/allowing nature to
take it's course*".  Medical ethics sees a huge difference between an action
and an (in)action, even when the results of said action or inaction are the
same.  A patient was on a ventilator and asked it to be turned off.  He was
declared dead within a few minutes and the CI team was able to rush in to
preserve him.  Mike Darwin thought the results in this case were much better
than normal because there weren't blood clots visible in the capillaries of
his brain that block perfusion of the cryo-protectant.  The blood gas
numbers also looked a lot better.

But even this man suffered tens of minutes of ischemia because he didn't
have the vascular connections to the heart-lung machine already established,
and the team had to wait more than 5 minutes after the patient stopped
breathing for legal death to be declared.  A large dose of drugs self
administered lawfully as part of "death with dignity" would stop the heart
immediately, allowing a doctor to declare legal death more quickly and at a
time when the cryonics team is fully prepared to act.

--bcaec53f8d75e9435a049d1ea4bf

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