X-Message-Number: 653
Date: 15 Feb 92 01:58:16 EST
From: "Steven B. Harris" <>
Subject: Reply to Dr. Swank



   I'd like to thank Ed Swank for his response to my message.  If
I understand what he's saying, it is that ACS will not attempt to
stand by the bedside of a dying member unless they have paid the
"Emergency Standby" fee, which he believes that nobody has yet
done.  I understand.  Alcor, I believe, even has a similar
written policy (again, for economic reasons), but has yet to
follow it.  We can't stand to see that happen to our members if
we can help it, so we almost always have a roomful of people
there at the critical moment.  If that's the difference between
cryonics organizations, then, perhaps it lies less in the realm
of economics and more in the realm of intangibles.  So I won't
push the point.

   I would like to comment on one technical matter, however. 
Despite what was intimated in the ACS Minutes, dehydration has
(or should have) absolutely nothing to do with poor cryonics
perfusions.  Of the two terminal cancer patients Alcor last did
in the Bay area (both of which had perfect brain perfusions to
maximum 40% glycerol concentrations without any edema whatso-
ever), one essentially died of dehydration, while the other was
grossly fluid overloaded.  It didn't make any difference in
either case, because both got anticoagulants, antioxidants, CPR,
and an ice bath within seconds after being pronounced.  An hour
of untreated clinical death at room temperature is what causes
poor perfusions and brain edema; as the unfortunate problems of
Jerry Leaf demonstrated, it doesn't matter WHAT fluid status or
general health or age is if a patient has been warm and ischemic
for that long.  Warm ischemic time is to cryonics what dwarfism
is to basketball; there's only so much you can do to compensate
for it.  Or make excuses for it.

   Finally, I should note that I do not speak for Alcor either,
or for anyone else.  I'm not a member of the Alcor board of
directors, and have discussed none of the opinions I've posted
here with anyone before posting them.  That does not mean, of
course, that I do not know what I'm talking about.


                                     Steve Harris

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