X-Message-Number: 6960
Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 12:07:22 -0400 (EDT)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: Alcor/CC combination, and other topics

Peter Merel asks for an "Alcor/CryoCare combination." I'm not sure 
exactly what he means, but CryoCare has certainly asked Alcor if Alcor 
would be willing to accept CryoCare patients for storage. The answer at 
that time was "no," and I believe the answer would still be "no" now 
(which I regret, because I would like CryoCare members to have as many 
options as possible). 

One problem from our point of view is that CryoCare believes a member
should be able to appoint a patient care advocate who would have some
authority to move a patient if the patient seemed to be receiving
substandard care. Alcor's point of view has always been that it must
maintain complete and exclusive control of its patients. 

Even if CryoCare was willing to surrender on this issue in specific cases 
(which might require changing our bylaws, I'm not sure) I believe that 
Alcor has its own reasons for refusing to store patients perfused by any 
team other than their own. As I recall, they cited legal liability issues.

-----

Re Ms. Visser's complaint that I am not willing to trust my cryonics
organization to put money into its research "on faith": first of all,
Alcor is not my organization. Secondly, Ms. Visser made her contractual
arrangements with Alcor/CI without even ASKING CryoCare for money. If she
had approached us as openly as she approached them, maybe CryoCare would
have been willing to contribute. As it is, however, she has confided the
details of her work to them but not to CryoCare, which makes me wonder why
she now feels angry that CryoCare and its members are not immediately
willing to subsidize the work. Surely trust should be a two-way street? 

-----

Re sheep hearts: yes, it would be an impressive demonstration. But I doubt
it would be publishable as research without proper experimental controls,
and I don't see that it is a necessary prerequisite to research on the
brain, which is obviously the #1 priority. I may have spoken too harshly
about the idea of applying the Visser protocol to sheep hearts, in which
case I apologize. But I do find it maddening that many of us are still
thinking in terms of an impressive demo instead of the detail work that
real research entails. 

--CP


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