X-Message-Number: 6404
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: head-only and an important message
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 23:03:47 -0700 (PDT)

Hi again!

To Brad Templeton: OK, so we DO continue to cryopreserve heads. Given the 

curiosity of the public, and given that cryonics societies are far from unified,
just how do you suggest that we prevent the fact that we freeze heads from
coming to public notice? Seriously. And the last thing we want is for someone
else (say a reporter for Weekly World News...) to find out that we freeze heads
and tell all about it, with suitable references to the various horror stories.

Not only that, but how do we get people to join if they don't want to or aren't
able to pay for whole body suspension? 

We cannot be forever held to public ideas about cryonics or immortality. Those
ideas were and are wrong in the first place, and to "make believe" we hold
them will only cause us trouble.

And now for something MUCH MORE IMPORTANT:

I get the LIFE EXTENSION Magazine, and am a member of the Life Extension 

Foundation, as (probably) many others on Cryonet. The most recent (August) issue
is an article in which Mike Darwin states that Greg Fahy has been able to 
cryopreserve rabbit kidneys using vitrification. (Knowing how magazines get
put together, even the fact that Mike's article says this does not imply that

Mike HIMSELF either would say it or believe it --- but that's how it came out 
inthe article).

Since I had very recently discussed the state of Greg Fahy's research on 

vitrification with Greg himself, and that was not what he told me, I was 
curiouswhat was going on and sent off an email message to Greg this morning.

His reply:

>Dear Tom:
>
>I saw that statement myself just yesterday, and was amazed that Mike made
>it. I don't know where this came from. Nothing substantial has changed since
>I last communicated with you. I am dying to get to the point where we can 
>announce something like this, but we are far from it. Certainly, we are months
>away from such a thing, at a minimum.
>
>In summary, there is zero substance to this statement. It is conceivable that
>Mike really means the organs are POTENTIALLY cryopreservable, since I have
>suggested this MIGHT be the case, but this is far different from a bald 
>statement that it has been achieved.
>
>I will bring this to Saul's attention, and have a retraction printed.
>
>Please let everyone know that this rumor is untrue. Regrettably! We have not
>attempted to cryopreserve a single kidney and recover it with sufficiently 
>rapid warming techniques to have any hope of success. We hope to try this 
>before the end of the year, but even then it is anyone's guess what will 
>happen.
>
>Thanks for asking me about this.
>   ------------------
>Greg

As many people know, I believe vitrification is our best chance for near-term
major improvements in suspension. I would certainly hope that Greg gets more
support in his efforts to bring it about. Any notion that it has already been
done, of course, cuts into further support --- not to mention giving many
people a quite false idea of our current technological state.

And I would also hope that anyone who reads this message will do what they
can to put a stop to this rumor --- as much as I wish it were really true.

			Best and long long life,

					Thomas Donaldson


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