X-Message-Number: 5
From: Kevin Q. Brown
Subject: Alcor
Date: 28 Jul 1988
This is the third of three postings describing the three organizations that
provide cryonic suspension services. All three postings are transcribed (with
permission) from interviews published in the Winter, 1988 issue of Venturist
Voice. (Write to The Venturists, 1355 E. Peoria Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85020.
Venturist Voice is currently free, but donations are gladly accepted.)
This posting is on Alcor Life Extension Foundation. The previous two were on
the Cryonics Institute and the American Cryonics Society.
- Kevin Q. Brown
...{att|clyde|cuae2}!ho4cad!kqb
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Alcor Life Extension Foundation
12327 Doherty St.
Riverside, CA 92503
800-367-2228
714-736-1703
Information supplied by Carlos Mondragon, President, March 14, 1988.
Alcor was founded in 1972, and currently has 100 full members. Full members
are those who are signed up for cryonic suspension with Alcor. We also have a
category, "associate member", for the relatively rare individual who wants to
pay slightly reduced dues ($40 rather than $50 per quarter) and does not want to
sign up for suspension. Currently we have about 25 associates. Members and
associates receive our newsletter, and additionally we have about 100
non-members who subscribe.
Organizations associated with Alcor include Cryovita, a private, Subchapter-S
corporation which provides services to Alcor from time to time in research,
and for patient suspension, and Mizar Limited, an English cryonics organization,
some of whose members are suspension members of Alcor.
Our facilities are located in an industrial park. We have a building with
approximately 5,000 square feet of floor space, including a lower floor of
3200 and an upper floor of 1800 square feet.
We have the two options for frozen storage, whole body and head only or neuro.
The cost for the neuropreservation option is $35,000; the cost for whole body
is $100,000. Additionally, suspension members pay a starting fee of $300 for
paperwork assistance and $200 annual dues (or $50 quarterly). The dues cover
the expenses of our emergency response system. With both the neuro and whole
body options the fees are designed so that after the initial cost of
suspension, the remaining funds when conservatively invested will provide enough
income to pay for indefinite storage in liquid nitrogen, and enough additional
income to be added to capital to offset the effects of inflation. The costs
of suspension alone are approximately $7,500 for neuro (leaving about $27,500
for investment) and anywhere from $10,000 - $20,000 for whole body (leaving
$80,000 - $90,000 for investment). Costs of suspension are significantly
reduced because all suspension team members (who are required to be suspension
members of Alcor) are volunteers and are not paid for their services.
Funds that remain after a cryonic suspension are allocated to our Patient Care
Fund. This is meant to provide an indefinite income to keep all patients at
liquid nitrogen temperatures until they can be reanimated, however long that
may be. The fund is very conservatively managed under guidelines established
by the Board of Directors and with the advice of a Patient Care Fund Investment
Committee. The portion of that income that is not spent on patient care
directly is added to capital so we can offset the effects of inflation.
Additionally, it is Alcor's policy that ten percent of all income received by
the organization is diverted to the Patient Care Fund, another means of
enriching that fund and mitigating the effects of inflation. An Alcor member
must provide the minimum funding for his or her suspension and storage to
Alcor directly, and it then goes into the Patient Care Fund and is not
maintained as a separate account. Funding above the minimum, however, can be
administered by relatives or outside organizations, or in any manner the
member wishes.
It is also Alcor's long term policy that we will make every possible effort
to avoid the thawing of any patient. We require authorization from our
whole-body members for conversion to neuropreservation if for financial
reasons they cannot be maintained as whole-body patients.
As a service to suspension members we will suspend their pets on an at-cost
basis.
Our suspension protocol involves (after death) replacing as much blood and
water from the body as possible with cryoprotective agent. This is
accomplished through the use of a heart-lung machine. If a patient dies in a
hospital and is pronounced dead by a physician we do cardio-pulmonary
resuscitation and oxygenate the blood to stabilize the patient. We also have
an ambulance service for transport of the patient to the faciliity, as well as
the MALSS (multiple advanced life support system) which uses an EMCO cart
(extracorporeal membrane oxygenator). We also have suspension facilities in
South Florida which would enable us to do a cryonic suspension there, after
which the patient would be transported to the Riverside facility for permanent
storage.
Suspension team members must go through a training program which includes
testing, and must attend regularly scheduled experiments to keep their skills
honed. Our suspension team includes a cardiopulmonary perfusionist, a
hemodialysis technician, and a physician in addition to volunteers who have
acquired their skills through our training program.
We accept suspension members in remote locations, and service for them is
really not much different than for people close by. Once we know that
somebody is dying we send our team out to their locale -- this of course
requires our assessment of whether death is imminent, for which we have
experts who can make this judgment. It is possible, of course, that someone
would deanimate unexpectedly, in a remote location, with no team members
present, and then we'd have to negotiate as best we could with the local
hospital or mortuary for proper procedures for them to follow until we could
get somebody there. In general we encourage members to consider moving near
one of our facilities (in Southern California or South Florida) if death
appears imminent (and also on general principles).
As for our management structure, we have a Board of Directors and the four
offices of President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer. Officers and
Board members are selected by the Board of Directors. Directors are suspension
members of Alcor who are generally chosen because of long-standing commitment
to Alcor and cryonics, as well as their projected contributions while on the
Board. Basically our structure is the same as most nonprofit, charitable
foundations, who elect Board members the way we do.
Alcor has an ongoing research program to develop better techniques for
cryonic suspension, to assist in training our suspension team, and to gain
knowledge that could have applications in areas outside of cryonics, such as
general medicine. So far we've had a series of total body washout experiments
using large dogs, which have been successful, and have completed a study of
postmortem changes in brain structure using electron microscopy.
We provide a free information package on request, publish a monthly newsletter,
Cryonics, and whenever possible accommodate the press through interviews.
Officers of Alcor on occasion make speaking appearances at schools or civic
organizations.
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