X-Message-Number: 972
Date: 09 Jul 92 00:49:18 EDT
From: Steve Bridge <>
CRYONICS AND THE ALCOR LIFE EXTENSION FOUNDATION
Cryonic Suspension is an experimental procedure whereby patients who
can no longer be kept alive by today's medical capabilities are preserved
at low temperatures for treatment in the future. Although this procedure
is not yet reversible, it is based on the expectation that the medical
technology of the future will be able to cure today's diseases, reverse
the effects of aging, and repair any additional injury caused by the
freezing process. That superior technology could then resuscitate
suspended patients to enjoy health and youth indefinitely. The field
which deals with this procedure is called CRYONICS. (This should not be
confused with cryogenics, which is the branch of engineering which is
concerned with the production and study of low temperatures.)
The people involved in cryonics hold widely varying views on
religion, politics, and social issues. Their occupations include
scientists, physicians, computer programmers, business owners, teachers,
librarians, and secretaries. However, they all agree that being alive is
a wonderful thing and that this technology may help them stay that way.
Cryonics might best be described as experimental medical technology.
This label may seem strange at first, since many people have gotten the
mistaken impression that the individuals in cryonic suspension are dead.
Cryonics is not a new way of storing dead bodies. It is a new way of
saving lives. Cryonicists continue to refer to frozen people as
"patients," because we firmly believe that they are, in a very real sense,
still alive.
People really are being frozen; it is no longer science fiction.
Approximately 60 persons have been frozen since the first cryonic
suspension in 1967. About 500 other people have made the financial and
legal arrangements to be suspended in case they should become terminally
ill or injured. However, any stories you may read about frozen people
being revived are definitely imaginary. No human has ever been thawed out
and revived (with the exception of human embryos), and it will be a long
time before this happens. Medical technology has not yet advanced to the
point where cryonic suspension is reversible; today's deadly illnesses and
injuries are not yet curable; and even if these things had been
accomplished, there is no point in reviving anyone until the aging process
is fully under control. No one wants to be reawakened as an aged, infirm
person.
Cryonics is not yet accepted as a legitimate life-saving procedure by
today's medical authorities. With our current technology we cannot prove
that a frozen person can be repaired and revived (although a great deal of
research suggests that this will be possible in the future).
Unfortunately, this situation creates numerous medical, legal, and even
political difficulties. For instance, if a patient were to be suspended
while he was legally alive, someone might claim that the suspension
process itself had killed the patient, creating the possibility of
criminal and civil charges against the suspension team. Therefore,
current cryonics practice is to suspend dying patients as soon as possible
after cardiac arrest (stopping of the heart) and declaration of "legal
death."
This course of action can be seen as reasonable once one realizes
that "legal death" is not the same as "biological death." A physician
declares legal death when a patient's condition cannot be reversed with
CURRENT medical knowledge and techniques. However, the process of
deterioration which we call "dying" is not a sudden happening. It is much
more like slipping into an ever deepening coma. Even several hours after
declaration of death, most of the cells in the body (including those in
the brain) are still individually alive and capable of resuming function.
As late as the 1940's, people who stopped breathing because of heart
attacks or drowning were routinely declared dead. Today thousands of
people have survived heart attacks and other conditions which would have
been fatal 50 years ago. Children have survived over an hour of
"drowning" in cold water. Were those heart attack and drowning victims
really dead fifty years ago? By today's standards we would say those
people were still alive -- doctors just did not know what to do about it.
In the same way, we expect that most people who are declared dead today
would be called "alive" by doctors of the future. With that observation
in mind, we think these patients should be considered potentially "alive"
NOW, and we should do something to keep them that way so they can become
the patients of the future.
Even within the next 10-15 years, you are likely to be amazed by the
amount of progress in recovering patients from strokes, heart attacks, and
lack of blood circulation to the brain. Ultimately, it should be possible
to recover patients as long as the basic structure --especially brain
structure-- remains intact (several hours past the point at which today's
doctors give up). In the next century, the medical knowledge of the
1990's will seem as primitive as the medical understandings of one hundred
years ago seem to us. Cryonic suspension itself will cure nothing; but it
buys time for the patient, keeping his body virtually unchanged until a
future when his suspended state may be considered only an extremely deep
coma. Even now there is solid evidence that cooling the human body to
liquid nitrogen temperature (-320 degrees F), with the use of
techniques to reduce freezing injury, can preserve fine structure
indefinitely.
There is no guarantee that cryonic suspension will ever allow for
future revival. We do not know enough to state with certainty that this
procedure is workable. However, the case for the possible future repair
and revival of suspended patients grows stronger all the time. One
important argument in favor of this possibility has been provided by K.
Eric Drexler in his fascinating books, ENGINES OF CREATION
(Anchor/Doubleday, 1986) and UNBOUNDING THE FUTURE (Morrow, 1991). These
books detail the beginnings of the new field of "molecular nanotechnology"
(also called "molecular engineering"). Nanotechnology is the next step
smaller than micro-technology, and it will create industries which will
operate by working with atoms and molecules one at a time. Among other
astounding developments, this will lead to computers and cell repair
machines one thousand times smaller than a human cell. Such devices could
repair almost any disease or injury (including that from freezing) by
working directly on the cells themselves.
It must be pointed out that cryonicists are not people with some
fixation on cold temperatures. None of us want to be frozen. We are
simply people who like being alive, and who want to see the future and all
of its wonders. As far as we know, the only means of preserving
biological structures today is by means of low temperatures. For us,
cryonics provides a safety net, a last-ditch attempt at life-saving which
may give us the chance to see that future.
Our cryonics organization, the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, is a
non-profit corporation, recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a
tax-exempt scientific and educational organization. Alcor has a fully
equipped and operational research laboratory, operating room, and patient
storage facility in Riverside, California. Alcor was formed as a mutual
aid society, where the members are committed to helping each other. All
Alcor board members, officials, and suspension team personnel are required
to be full suspension members. Alcor IS its members. All decisions on
the safety of the patients and stability of the organization are made with
the knowledge that they will affect everyone in the organization.
If you would like further information, please call or write for a
FREE copy of Alcor's 106 page introductory book, CRYONICS -- REACHING FOR
TOMORROW, which explains the scientific and philosophical basis for
cryonics. Additional copies of this book are available for $5.00 each.
Alcor also publishes a monthly magazine, CRYONICS, with fascinating
articles and discussion on the current state of cryonics, plus reports on
scientific progress relevant to cryonics and life extension. A one-year
trial subscription is $11.00 (12 issues); after the first year, the
subscription rate is $35.00 per year.
To order, please send a check or money order; no cash, please. Or
telephone to use Visa or MasterCard. Make all checks payable to Alcor
Life Extension Foundation and mail to:
Alcor Life Extension Foundation
12327 Doherty Street,
Riverside, California 92503
Telephone 1-800-367-2228
or 714-736-1703
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