X-Message-Number: 4888
From: Brian Wowk <>
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 1995 19:03:18 -0500
Subject: Brain-only

	I disagree with Doug Skrecky that a "brain freezing" option
would revolutionize cryonics marketing.  The general public has
psychological barriers to cryonics that go far beyond issues of
cost.  If you offered cryonics for FREE, you would still be surprised 
at how few takers there would be.

	That's not to say there isn't a market niche in cryonics
for brain freezing.  I believe there is, but it could not be
done for $10,000.  $10,000 is the pure cost of long-term storage.
It does not consider the administrative pain (and I mean PAIN)
of organizing a cryopreservation, transportation costs, mortician
and pathologist bills.  Even finding people willing and able to 
extract brains for cryonics cases is not easy.  $20,000 is a
better estimate than $10,000 , and that's with *no* decent
cryoprotective perfusion.

	This proposal actually carries an undercurrent of hidden
assumptions and motives that need to be discussed.  In particular,
*why* do we want people lining up at our door to have their
brains frozen?  Cryonics for me is not a numbers game.  Decades
from now I will not measure my success in cryonics by how many
brains (in or out of bodies) I've stacked up and frozen.  Rather
I will ask, What is the "state of the art" that cryonics has
advanced to?  What technological and social infrastructure has 
come to exist to ensure that cryonics will work for me and
my family?  It is not obvious to me how recruiting hoardes of
dying people (yes, dying people-- I can't imagine young and healthy
people taking this option) to freeze their brain under terrible
conditions will advance the technology or medico-social
underpinnings of cryonics.

	None of this is to say that CryoCare won't offer a brain
freezing option in the future (on compassionate grounds, perhaps).
But I feel little incentive to do so now, and quite frankly
a dearth of time and resources to indulge in this particular
form of compassion.

Brian Wowk
President,
CryoCare Foundation


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