X-Message-Number: 3966 Newsgroups: sci.cryonics From: (John de Rivaz) Subject: Evening Standard rubbished cryonics: opportunity to complain Date: Tue, 7 Mar 1995 07:45:49 +0000 Message-ID: <> I have been given a page from The Evening Standard which contain a vituperative article about Walt Disney. It started: >>>Those who hope to cheat death through cryonic preservation (sic) are curiously inconsistent in their beliefs. They pay up to $200,000 (two hundred thousand) up front so that the moment Jesus decides they's make a great sunbeam, and they expire from some terminal illness, they can be stuffed into a container and kept frozen until a miracle cure is discovered. Yet, if they really believed that the process worked, they'd have themselves chilled the moment the first lump was diagnosed, so they'd still be in prime condition after defrosting. It is tempting to think that those cryonics companies will sooner or later be declared bankrupt, their power will be cut off, and their customers will then suffer the ultimate indignity: being hosed down the drain. Walt Disney was deluded enough to have himself frozen, but ... <<< (I am not going to waste time in typing in stuff about his fading reputation.) Here is what I wrote to the editor in reply. I hope others will add their comments in separate letters. Letters from overseas no doubt will have special consideration because most of the letters will be from the UK. The Editor, The Evening Standard, Northcliffe House, 2, Derry Street, London W8 5EE England - UK Monday, 6 March 1995 Dear Sir, Your article concerning Walt Disney "The Iron Fist of Toontown's King" by Victor Lewis-Smith on page 31 of 24 February 1995 contained aaccount of cryonic suspension. It is clear from the tone of the account that Mr Lewis-Smith seems to relish the idea of cryonics companies going bankrupt and their clients losing their lives and their funds. Well, he has the freedom to take pleasure in other people's disasters, as long as he doesn't add to them or cause them to happen in the first place. However I do feel concerned that the article contained serious inaccuracies of fact: 1 The costs are $28,000 with the Cryonics Institute, not the figure mentioned. In addition there are transport costs from the UK to the US of around $4-6,000. 2 The costs do not have to be paid up front until the person dies. 3 It is not true that cryonics clients with incurable diseases won't get frozen before they die - they aren't allowed to. Lawyers do not allow people to be frozen when a fatal disease is beyond treatment by present day medicine. In the USA, a doctor (of mathematics) with an incurable brain tumour applied to the courts for the freedom to chose the option of suspension before the tumour destroyed his brain. He was refused on the grounds that if it were allowed it would cause lawyers solving homicide cases some inconvenience. 4 The process of cryonic storage is not dependant on an electricity supply. The bodies are kept in dewars of liquid nitrogen which are topped up once a fortnight from a delivery of this very common industrial chemical. 5 Walt Disney is not in cryonic suspension. I hope that you will put the facts straight, whatever opinions your contributors have. If any of your readers are interested in following this up, then they can contact Barry Albin, of F. A. Albin & Sons, of Arthur Stanley House, Culling Road, London SE16 2TN. This is a firm of funeral directors established over 100 years who are the UK agents for the Cryonics Institute. -- Sincerely, **************************************** * Publisher of Longevity Report * John de Rivaz * Fractal Report * * details on request * **************************************** **** What is the point of life if it ends in death? **** Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=3966