X-Message-Number: 6177
From:  (Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Re: Timothy Leary Renounces Cryonics
Date: 10 May 1996 06:02:11 GMT
Message-ID: <4mum53$>

References: <4ms5f4$> 
<>

In message-ID: <> 
tcom.com (hEpCaT) writes:

   >>At this point, I'm even more confused than Steve Harris
thinks I am.  He begins his comments by contradicting what Platt
said and asserting that BPI had only withdrwan standby 
services.<<

   I've not aware that Platt ever said differently.  Care to
provide the quote?  If he did, he was in error.  

   >> Why then would CryoCare have been looking for another
provider? <<

   Indeed, but that's a question for Cosenza, and it only shows
how hard it is for Cosenza to grasp that somebody was trying to
do the right thing.  The truth is that CryoCare and 
Biopreservation both had certain reasons to consider withdrawing
from the case (see CryoCare president Brian Wowk's message), but
felt obligated not to do so, until another cryonics provider had
been found to take responsibility (physicians withdrawing from
cases in which there are few alternatives to the patient, often
have the same ethical obligations).  This problem ended when
Leary ended the contract unilaterally without picking an altern-
ate provider.  

   Again, it is *Cosenza* who must explain why an organization
that was ruthless enough to supposedly (according to Cosenza)
drop Leary flat, *then* should spend any time at all trying to
find a substitute provider for Leary.  Yep, this is confusing,
all right.   Refusal to believe the truth often brings confusion,
because a twisted view of reality often includes scenarios which
don't make much sense.  Of course, I'm aware that Cosenza has
never experienced seeing his own organization trying to find
another cryonics provider for a person in trouble (because it
never has), so he may not have a personal reference point for
this novel idea.  Sometimes if you've never personally seen the
ethical thing actually done, you don't believe anybody ever does
it.  Too bad.

   However,  Cosenza's choice of role-models are his problem, and
it's not my job to educate him about medical ethics.   If Cosenza
has any real curiosity about the factual question of whether
Leary dropped CryoCare or CryoCare dropped Leary, he has but to
phone Leary himself and ask what the truth of the matter is. 
Very simple.  I'll be glad to provide the Leary house phone
number if Cosenza doesn't have it.  (Although, since Cosenza
seems to believe he's as privy to information about Leary as I
am, it stands to reason that he already has Leary's number, and
is on speaking terms with him.)  Or Cosenza can phone Alcor's
president Steve Bridge, and ask him if CryoCare, at the point
that it initiated contact with Alcor, represented itself as still
under contract with Leary, or not.  These matters are not things
for which Cosenza must rely on CryoCare's word.  So why argue the
matter?  Make those phone calls, Cosenza.  We'll hold you to it.

   >>Harris thinks that Darwin's nastiness was forgivable under
the circumstances and because "Leary's friends are not cryonics
membership" he chides me for expecting that they wouldn't be
treated with contempt. If you can't bring yourself to respect 
other people's beliefs, the least you can do is fake it, 
especially if you're on your way out the door anyway.<<

   If other people's beliefs include the idea that bad medical
care is okay, I don't have to fake agreement.  *Especially* not
if I'm on my way out the door....

   >> As for my knowledge of the circumstances, it is no more
second-hand than Harris'. <<

   I've been to Leary's house many times in the last six months,
and had innumerable conversations with half a dozen of his
physicians, and with Leary.  I'm the one who set Leary up with
the medical care system he has now, as a matter of fact.  Make
that phone call, Cosenza, and educate yourself.

   >>Finanlly, Harris says quite a bit about *CryoCare* as a
provider of standby and suspension services. If CryoCare has
acquired these capabilities, I'm surprised they haven't made it
more widely known.<<

   I'm simply using "CryoCare" as shorthand for "CryoCare and its
contract suspension provider."  For the record, CryoCare made the
final decision to remove standby services.  The actual 
suspension provider which provides these under contract did not
make this decision, but agreed to abide by CryoCare's wish either
way.  

  >> I was under the impression that CryoCare was ONLY a 
"contract organization" like Jack Zinn's International Cryonics
Foundation and didn't own so much as a thermometer.<<

   Yep, that's true in once sense.  At the same time, an 
insurance company can "provide" its enrollees with medical care
without owning a thermometer, either.  It contracts the actual
services out, but acts as an intermediary for finances.  It all
depends on how you look at things.  In any case, it's a silly
semantics thing to argue over.


                              Steve Harris, M.D.


Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=6177