X-Message-Number: 7730
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: Visser's freezing results
Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 11:03:43 -0800 (PST)

Hi again!

To Bob Ettinger: Sorry, Bob, but I got to see them too, at the Festival,
and I'd side with Bryan Wowk and Mike Darwin. I wish she had succeeded, but
she didn't. (Though I was not as upset as some, mainly because I'd seen
this kind of thing happen before).

The missing thing is objective verification of temperature for a sufficient
time: basically thermocouple measurements in which the thermocouple is 
placed as close to the heart as possible. With all the vapor, it's just
not easy to see what is happening by eyeballing it.

I will add, though, that this outcome should NOT cause anger. Many of us
have gotten a lesson in how to fool yourself.. a valuable lesson. Moreover,
Visser's claims SHOULD have been investigated. (Sure, we've now done that,
and found them very shaky ... but unless we looked into them, they would
hang over us as a possibility -- a road untaken -- ever after).

To Mike Darwin: As for the AIDS kerfluffle about Visser, I don't think 
past experience in other cases is good enough. If I were to judge the
merits of her "cure", independently of whether she followed any standard
procedures, I would first of all look at what happened with her cryobiology
experiments. And of course I'd also say to myself: now is it really plausible
that a chemical can be BOTH a very good cryoprotectant AND a cure for AIDS?
Naturally I HOPE that she did not mistreat any blacks, especially now that
in South Africa they control the government and she might find herself
fleeing SA for Argentina (or somewhere). Whether that HOPE is true or false
is just what I want to know.

Finally, I will point out that contrary to what most people seemed to think
at the start, Olga Visser was a STUDENT, and from her "experiments" clearly
lacked any sense of what must be done in an experiment. She's probably
gone home still without that sense, but as time passes she may well acquire
it -- if only by failing to satisfy such tests with her cryoprotectant. The
indiscretions of inexperience, while they do not excuse mistakes, should
lead to a slightly gentler treatment of those who make them.

			Long long life,


				Thomas Donaldson


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