X-Message-Number: 5017
From: Peter Merel <>
Subject: Human Testing ...
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 10:45:47 +1000 (EST)

I'm afraid I've misplaced the reference, but as I understand it CryoCare
is intending to sample a few microlitres of neurons from each suspendee
in order to evaluate and improve its suspension procedures.

While I'm yet to sign up (yeah, yeah, bite me) I've been thinking that CC
are probably the mob for me, so I gave this a little thought. Although
I appreciate the need to evaluate these procedures, I'm worried on three
counts:

. the samples, if always taken from the same spot, may not be representative
of the quality of the procedures with regard to the whole brain.

. if samples are taken from random spots, it might be that one of the spots
contains information that is difficult to interpolate, especially if the 
technology used to reanimate the suspendee is less potent than nanotech.

. in general, the procedure seems to go against that "first, do no harm"
bit that doctors are so nutty about.

Now I don't know if it is practical or ethical, but another way to do this 
testing occurred to me. I know that it wouldn't be possible to get access
to the bodies of people who haven't signed an agreement with CC - even if
they'd signed up for organ donation it's unlikely that the authorities 
would see cryonics research as a valid purpose at the present time - but
it occurs to me that there might be a another source of fresh human bodies.

Somehow a lot of my ideas in this arena turn out to sound pretty ghoulish,
and this one is certainly no exception, so if you're easily shocked read
no further. 

What I'm thinking is that there are a lot of people who die in jail.
Not people who are executed, but people who get into knife fights and
so on. People in jail are often very poor, desperate and short sighted
- ie. they'd be willing to sign an agreement in exchange for not much
money. The agreement here would be that upon their death their bodies
would be donated to CC.  I daresay that arrangements could be made with
prison authorities and doctors to make sure that appropriate cooldown
procedures were followed, so experimental conditions could be very well 
controlled. 

If this could be done, then CC would have a ready (steady?) source of
human experimental subjects whose brains could be sectioned and
examined in their entirety. There are only two risks I can see in
this:  first, it's one of those arrangements that the tabloids would
just love to report, and second you could get the bodies mixed up ...

Comments encouraged, flames ignored.

Pete.


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