X-Message-Number: 33393
From:
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2011 03:08:35 EST
Subject: Melody Maxim's Distorted Reality 26
Content-Language: en
The state hasn't a clue about how to regulate cryonics without destroying
it. They simply do not have the requisite information, or the requisite
time and proprietary interest; if cryonics is regulated out of existence or
made impotent (e.g., you must wait 24-hours before you can begin your
procedures as is the case in France) few if any in government will even notice,
let alone suffer, as a consequence. If cryonics is to survive in the West it
will do so by establishing and enforcing its own regulation. Such an effort
takes a great deal of time and energy and requires discipline and
compromise. Efforts to achieve self-regulation in cryonics go back to 1968 when
the
Cryonics Societies of America was created. That effort and the few made
subsequent to it did not succeed. Reasonable standards for proper conduct in
the areas of financial and ethical conduct as well as in the areas of
biomedical and cryogenic care are not impossibilities in cryonics, and in fact,
much of the work involved has already been done and exists in
intra-organizational policies and procedures. What is needed is to follow those
policies
and to make them enterprise wide and binding. If that is done then when
state regulation comes, as it will, a solid and workable framework will exist
to be adapted and encoded into law.
Finance Department
(Login Finance_Department)
Veteran Member
Misinformation, and Regulation, re: CI February 5 2009, 8:58 PM
Jordan claims "Regulation is interfering with care at CI." As far as I can
tell, this is a myth. I have suggested workarounds already to the only
expressed objection to CI being a "cemetery" - that of CI being prevented from
doing anything on their site to their patients other than storage. The
cryopreservation has to be done by someone else, in this case their contracted
funeral home Walsh. The workarounds are obvious, and if there is any
"interference" it is due to CI's failure to implement them. Some examples: There
is nothing preventing CI employees from contracting out their services to
the funeral home. There is nothing preventing CI from renting out space to
the funeral home; namely, their lab room.
OTOH, IMO, the minor "regulation" of CI by it becoming licensed as a
cemetery, has immense positive benefits and protections to CI patients. There
is
a large body of law, going back centuries in the common law, protecting
those in cemeteries from disturbance, plundering, and such. The Alcor model of
the patient being a donated research specimen, has no protection for the
patient whatsoever!
The more I think about this, the more I am leaning to being in favor of
cryonics storage companies nationwide being licensed as cemeteries.
Now to the subject of regulation, which the licensing of a company as a
cemetery barely qualifies as. Cryonics would be seriously hampered at this
very early phase of its development, by having the government tell it how it
can and cannot cryopreserve patients. The science is not far enough along to
make it even possible, in my estimation. I'm sorry I must thoroughly
disagree with melody that cryonics has "failed". Cryonics has not even reached
the betatesting stage, comparable to any emerging technology. Cryonics can
only be deemed to have failed if science never finds it possible to
resuscitate a cryopreserved individual.
Mike Darwin
(Login mgdarwin)
Veteran Member
Practical Workarounds February 6 2009, 6:12 AM
The workarounds you (FD) suggest are not viable for several reasons I'll
give directly, but some others, detailed below, should be.
Licensing for embalming establishments is typically by site, and the
expedient of a mortuary renting or leasing a room in the CI facility would not
qualify. What's more, such a maneuver defeats the intent of the law and CI's
agreement with the Michigan necrocrats; namely that CI will respect the
restraint of trade imposed on cemeteries which precludes them from offering
embalming and other 'mortuary' services. This legislation was enacted to
prevent the establishment of highly efficient integrated
mortuary-cemetery-florist operations such Forest Lawn and Rose Hills in
California.
Few things will get you into trouble with bureaucrats faster than trying
to end-run them in such a transparent way.
As I understand it, CI still has at least potentially viable options:
1) They can return to the state regulators and explain their situation and
ask for permission to carry out perfusions in their own facility under the
supervision of a licensed Funeral Director. As I understand it the rule
against CI doing perfusions in their Sorrentino Court facility was not a
*hard and fast one.*
2) CI could build or have professionally fabricated a self-contained
mobile operating room which could be deployed on the site of the contract
mortuary when needed. A wide range of platforms exist to accommodate such needs
and there is plenty of well established expertise sitting idle in the
current economic climate. The pictures below are examples of custom built mobile
facilities; they show what is possible. It is important keep in mind that
such a facility can be incorporated into a trailer as opposed to being
integrated into a coach and this option would greatly reduce the cost and
likely
extend the working life of such a facility.
Obviously, using a vendor to do this would be costly, but it can also be
done in-house using a 40 ft. trailer shell purchased either new or used.
This mobile perfusion facility would be inspected/licensed as part of the
Funeral Directors establishment and would be only be used by CI in Michigan
on the site of their contract Funeral Director. Of course, such a facility
would have the advantage of being deployable outside the state of Michigan
if the need arose. A mobile facility eliminates much of the capital
expenditure and risk associated with a permanent
3) CI members could create a another corporation and purchase an existing
funeral establishment which would exist primarily to serve CI, but would
also continue to operate offering conventional disposition serving the
community and generating sufficient revenue to offset expenses. A funeral
establishment need not be an elaborate operation; many embalming and
repatriation
services operate out of industrial parks. This option would have many other
advantages, including the opportunity to gain legitimate access to
cadavers for teaching and training purposes. Providing disposition as an
incentive
in order to allow use of a body for teaching or research is not only
legal, it is a requirement of law in many jurisdictions.
4) CI could find a more cooperative mortician with more space and possibly
arrange to pay for semi permanent space and facilities. In other words,
find a mortuary that will facilitate the creation of a prep room dedicated
solely to cryonics operations. Nothing in the law, as I understand it,
prohibits CI from paying a licensed funeral operation to provide the
specialized
facilities they need.
5) At a minimum, CI could build a perfusion cart and modular, easily
transportable mobile supplies cabinets to be deployed in a mortuary that is
more
cooperative and that has a larger prep room than is currently available to
CI. All the equipment necessary for carrying out perfusion, including
monitoring, data acquisition, temperature control and initial subzero cooling
could be integrated on an easly transportable cart (gurney), much like the
mobile advanced life support system (MALSS)cart originally developed by Jerry
Leaf and Hugh Hixon in the early 1980s, and further refined by Alcor in
the early 1990s:
All of these options were submitted for consideration by CI about two
years ago.
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