X-Message-Number: 57 From att!arpa!RELAY.CS.NET!dupont.com!JLCL01!BEATTYR Sat Jan 28 07:22:37 1989 Received: by att.ATT.COM (smail2.6 att-mt) id AA04405; 28 Jan 89 07:22:37 EST (Sat) Received: from relay2.cs.net by RELAY.CS.NET id aa06085; 28 Jan 89 7:21 EST Received: from dupont.com by RELAY.CS.NET id as08510; 28 Jan 89 7:19 EST Date: Fri, 27 Jan 89 17:09 EST From: "(Roy R. Beatty) Keane, Inc. [BEATTYR] 302-774-0335 B-10217" <BEATTYR%JLCL01%> Subject: CRYONICS - Alcor vs ACS? To: ho4cad!kqb% X-VMS-To: @BWINE:[BEATTYR.MAIL]CRYO,BEATTYR Status: R Kevin, The latest issue of _Cryonics_ contains a letter from H. Jackson Zinn, president of the rival American Cryonics Society expressing his "all-out support for Alcor in the suit against the Department of Public Health Services... ." A cryonically cool Mike Darwin replies, "If ACS is sincere..." and he continues on a course inevitably leading to zero degrees Kelvin. 1) What cause does Alcor have for thinking that ACS's offer of support (moral or substantial) is insincere? 2) Was there a single incident precipitating this falling-out? Or has there been a history of snub and counter-snub? I don't want to litter this conference with schizmatic melodrama, but these organizations are among the few practitioners of cryonic preservation. I guess bonds become brittle at low temperatures. Roy [ First, some background for the other readers. ALCOR is filing suit against the California Department of Public Health Services because it will not issue to any cryonics organization a VS-9 form, which is needed for disposition of a person's "remains" after a doctor declares the person dead. Since the California cryonics organizations, ALCOR and ACS, do not have VS-9 forms for any of their frozen members, they are, according to the DHS, violating the law. Two things that make this especially frustrating are: (1) the laws do not provide any mechanism whereby a cryonics organization can qualify to receive a VS-9 (because the California legislature never got around to passing the law specifying how one can qualify), and (2) many organizations, such as tissue banks, routinely store body parts without having a VS-9, yet are not harassed by the DHS. What makes this issue especially important is that if storing a person (who was recently declared dead) in cryonic suspension is, according to the DHS, an illegal act, then suspension organizations may find themselves unable to get access to their members to place them into cryonic suspension! The suit that ALCOR has filed against the DHS thus is important to all cryonics organizations in California. It is also important to all other cryonics organizations worldwide because it establishes an important precedent. If an organization of the quality of ALCOR loses and cryonics becomes, in effect, illegal in California, then all other cryonics organizations worldwide will likely have a much tougher time staying in business. As for Mike Darwin's reply to Zinn's offer of assistance, I think that except for the initial phrase ("If ACS is sincere ..."), his reply was not as cold as you suggest in your message. (He mainly stressed the amount of money and time required and the need to fully inform one's members of the implications of the suit.) ALCOR and ACS have long had numerous differences (several of which are described in the April 1987 issue of Cryonics) and I think it is clear that Mike Darwin has not forgotten them. I do not, however, know why he worded his reply the way he did. - Kevin Q. Brown ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=57