X-Message-Number: 4520
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #4512 - #4516
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 20:22:19 -0700 (PDT)

Hi again!

About the FDA:

One interesting development in the US Republican Party is that reform of the
FDA has been raised as a serious goal. Naturally that tendency deserves
every support we can give it, in the midst of our own work to improve our
methods. In the long term, the FDA MAY become one of our enemies... or the
efforts to restrict it will have succeeded. 

I certainly believe that we should work towards reversible cryopreservation of
brains. Just how to handle it when it comes seems an open question: lots of
things may be different, some better, some worse. I'll also say that if we
have to argue that someone suspended this way is "alive", then clearly there
will be plenty of people arguing on the other side. Since the FDA is (now)
a very conservative organization, it may be one of those arguing that the
suspended brain is NOT alive. This will leave us in much the same LEGAL
situation as we are now.

And even if the FDA signs on as an enemy of cryonics, that possibility simply
tells us that foreign societies may deserve more support than they now 
receive, as refuges for the rest of us.  

As for what I HOPE, I hope that by then the FDA either will simply not exist,
or will still exist as a far smaller agency with, perhaps, only the power to
decide that a brand of drug has been adulterated or not. And there is some
reason to believe that this hope will come true. If your congressman is a 
Republican, you might write him about the FDA. Saul Kent has been fighting 
the FDA for some time, and I'm sure that anyone who contacts him to do 
something in this battle will get a nice reception.

			Best and long long life,
	
				Thomas Donaldson


Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=4520