X-Message-Number: 620 Date: Sun, 26 Jan 92 17:37:03 PST From: Leonard N. Zubkoff <> Subject: cryonics: #614 - Re: Transport of Patient A-1312 [Henson] I really wonder about the benefit to the cryonics movement of posting the entire details of a suspension to sci.med, complete with all the warts. While I do feel it is appropriate that the full details be publicly available to anyone who wants them, thrusting this level of detail upon largely uninterested sci.med readers seems unlikely to leave a good first impression of cryonics. In order for readers to accurately evaluate the level of care cryonics patients receive, they need much more information about the specific procedures involved and the relevence of normal medical standards to the process; while some of this information is available in the introductory cryonics literature, none is presented in a typical suspension account. Dissemination of suspension accounts on the cryonics mailing list and in the pages of Cryonics magazine makes much more sense, as these readers can be assumed to have a greater knowledge of cryonics, and have at least been offered exposure to the introductory cryonics information. Thrusting incomplete cryonics information on sci.med readers seems likely to give them mistaken impressions of the whole process, as seems to be the case from the few responses I've seen to the sci.med article. >From all accounts, "Dennis" got an excellent suspension, possibly one of the best ever performed, but I don't really think this comes across from the article, possibly leaving readers with a mistaken impression of the care cryonics patients receive. If articles like this are to be posted on sci.med, I think it is important for the author to carefully monitor any responses and be prepared to publicly challenge unreasonable criticisms of cryonics or the particular procedures of the suspension. Leonard [ FYI: I just copied the sci.med messages on "Account of a Cryonic Suspension" (minus Keith Henson's original posting, which is in messages #601 and #602) and put them into message #0006. Several replies and replies to replies have accumulated so far and I expect more to follow. (That is why I put this into a 00* message, because it will be updated.) Note: Someday I may change the message number, not just the contents, for this message. (That is another way that the 00* messages can change.) Message #0000 will always show the current status of these 00* messages, though, so that if/when the 00* messages get reorganized, message #0000 will be updated appropriately to reflect those changes. - KQB ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=620