X-Message-Number: 6205
Date: 15 May 96 04:22:25 EDT
From: "Steven B. Harris" <>
Subject: Standing By

Dear CryoNet:

   I had stated that in withdrawing standby support from Tim
Leary, CryoCare simply withdrew something that Alcor generally
never offers in the first place.  I should have been specific and
said "generally never offers under such circumstances."  Steve
corrects me to say that Alcor does offer standby, albeit for
people willing and able to make extra financial arrangements. 
Okay, I stand "corrected."  Of course, this is not germane to the
Leary case, and I don't think it's germane to most of cryonics. 
The reality doesn't stand up to the implication.  Steve doesn't
say how many of Alcor's clients have actually credit-card-guaran-
teed their standby service, but he does say somewhat misleadingly
that it is the "most common choice."  Would it not have been more
honest to say that Alcor *offers* formal credit-card financed
standby, but that to date, few have accepted?  "Most common
choice" implies in use that a reasonable number of people do this
sort of thing (since making comparisons is silly for small
numbers of people).  I'm curious, however, as to the absolute
number of people who have chosen the dedicated credit-card option
at Alcor.  Two?  Three?  

    As for CryoCare, I'll let Brian speak to this point if he
likes, but I don't know of any CryoCare client who has 
guaranteed a remote standby with a credit-card (though CryoCare,
too, allows the option).  BioPreservation's policy is that it
does the best it can, and it tries to arrange a remote standby
for everyone within the continental U.S.  Without a credit draw,
however, BioPreservation can't make guarantees, either (which was
the point of the Leary case, lost on Cosenza).  Yes, BioPreserva-
tion did get financially burned on the Leary case, but I don't
think the learned lesson will be to cut standby policy across the
board.  Most of CryoCare's members are people of integrity and 
commitment, who are not self-destructive.  In the end, I think
CryoCare will do okay by standing by these people.  

   I am somewhat taken aback at Steve Bridge's suggestion that
most of Alcor's last patients have been sudden deaths, or deaths
with only two hours warning.  Let me be the first to note that
everybody dies suddenly, in one sense. ;-9.  The question is:
who gives warnings first, how long before are they given, and can
anybody read the warnings?  Some of Alcor's last suspendees did
give warnings,  and some didn't.  As to Alcor reading the
warnings, it seems to me that Alcor missed all kinds of warnings
in half the cases Steve mentions.  A woman in her nineties with
severe medical problems, for example, while not deserving full
remote standby merely on that basis, at the same time does
deserve some level of remote deployment of equipment, much as was
being done by BioPreservation with Leary (who has about the same
life-expectancy).  Similarly, a man with a brain tumor on
high-dose steroids deserves also to have an unusual level of
attention, for such people statistically have a very short time
to live.  

   As for getting called when members get very sick, I have long
noted that a cryonics organization which is no help in medical
matters won't get *called* for serious illness; and yet all too
often that is what "dying" looks like to inexperienced family
members in denial: just serious illness.  Thus it is that too
often the policy of "Don't call us to help for serious medical
problems" translates effectively to: "Don't call us until they're
dead."

   Now Steve Bridge is probably aware of all of these things, but
writes, rather misleadingly:  

  "I will agree that Alcor does not yet have a cryonics physician
as deeply versed in internal medicine, aging, and modes of death
as is Dr. Harris.  Therefore, our ability to offer medical advice
on the patient's disease which might allow the patient to live
longer is necessarily less than CryoCare's." 

    Such an admission!  As if living longer were the only issue,
and medical matters had nothing to do with prediction of death or
quality of cryonic suspension.  In the most appalling episode to
me, one of Alcor's recent suspension cases was a friend of mine
who was rushed by paramedics to a Phoenix hospital quite near
Alcor, in the company of a close companion who was also a member
of the Alcor suspension team (and was at that time, and later,
relied upon to function as such)-- and yet Alcor did not realize
there was a potentially serious medical problem.  Or, I should
say, they didn't until I realized what was happening from 600
hundred miles away in Utah (about 5 seconds after being told the
medical facts over the phone), and then immediately called the
Alcor lab myself to tell them there was danger to one of their
members right next door, so to speak.  The man died about 15
minutes later, and (needless to say) the Alcor transport team
wasn't there.  Remote standby is a relative thing.  Knowing the
facts of this Phoenix case full well, Steve Bridge nevertheless
dares to write, in complete irony:

   "CryoCare's ability to provide *medical and nursing 
assistance* is of course better in southern California than is
Alcor's, because Mike Darwin lives there and Steve often visits
there."

   Rather crass under the circumstances is the assertion that it
is mainly physical *proximity* which allows CryoCare or 
BioPreservation to render better medical and nursing assistance
than Alcor.  How's that again, Steve?   Implied by Steve's
emphasis on only medical and nursing assistance is the idea that
not even proximity matters in quality of *cryonic* assistance
(else why wouldn't it be mentioned, and why wouldn't CryoCare
then do better suspensions for Alcor patients physically near it,
and vice versa?).  And (of course) again also there is implied
the idea that medical knowledge isn't germane to quality in
cryonic suspension either.  That's the subject of Steve's next
sentence, in which he suggests that such things aren't even the
proper responsibility of cryonics organizations, and so 
(presumably) can be safely left out.  But those who know some
history, or even those with just common sense, will understand
how ridiculous such ideas are.  Medicine cannot be separated from
cryonics.  Or it can't without a lot of nasty surprises to the 
cryonicists.

   Of course, I'm not denying that doing things closer to home is
easier, all other things being equal (which they rarely are).  
There is truth to this idea, to be sure, but one can only be
amused at Bridge's suggestion that Alcor, after moving away from
their largest physical concentration of members, should be now
excused because their standbys are thereby made more 
difficult and expensive than many of CryoCare's will be.  This
has the feel of the Menendez brothers asking for clemency on the
grounds that they are orphans.  Nobody forced Alcor to move to
Arizona.  

   Let us all remind Alcor of the facts of life.  Distance is a
factor in a good suspension, and CryoCare's advantage in being
nearer to many of its members would also be advantage in being
nearer to many Alcor members.  And yes, even in the best of
worlds, part of the commitment to cryonics must involve travel. 
Travel can be accomplished in cryonics at present levels of
funding, and often has.  I personally traveled from Utah to
California several times expressly to see Leary, and another
physician acting for CryoCare actually flew in from Philadelphia
for the same purpose.  I noticed that a lot of Alcor staff
members managed to travel from Arizona to California to party at
Leary's in the days when he was still an Alcor member; and not
long ago a lot of Alcor suspension team members were on their way
to an out-of-state party when a member deanimation overtook them
in yet another state.  We all seem to find the money to do that
which is important to us, do we not?  Chance has often little to
do with it.  And while it is certainly true that (as Steve says)
many of CryoCare's members are "activists" with a lot of time and
financial commitment to state-of-the-art cryonics, this fact also
is not something that is just a matter of Alcor's bad luck.  It's
more a matter of bad karma, for that very commitment is one
reason WHY these CryoCare folks are no longer part of Alcor,
don't you know.  All it all, Steve's explanation of why Alcor has
had problems with standbys does not exactly make the tears flow,
or violins sound in the background.  Character is fate.  "You
reap what you sow," as somebody or other sagely observed here
recently.  Such standby and technical problems as Alcor has had,
have mostly arisen out of Alcor's past and present policies. 
It's the same for CryoCare and BioPreservation, of course, but
the difference is that CryoCare admits it.  


                                 Steve Harris, M.D.


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