Alcor News Bulletin
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Number 4: January 9th, 2003
Normally we would not distribute a new edition of Alcor News
so soon after a previous edition, but there has been an
unprecedented amount of news at Alcor.
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Alcor Ends 2002 with More than 600 Members
Jennifer Chapman, Alcor's membership administrator, reports
that Alcor achieved 10 percent membership growth during
2002. This number represents net growth, after allowing for
some members who left Alcor and eight who entered
cryopreservation during the year. The last time that Alcor
enjoyed double-digit growth was back in 1992. A total of 79
newcomers joined during 2002--an average of 1.5 per week.
Consequently, as of December 31st, Alcor had 611 members on
its emergency response list.
Alcor also has more than 90 people who are "in the process"
of becoming members. In other words they have received Alcor
signup documents but have not completed these documents or
have not finalized their payment arrangements. In many cases
this indicates a very familiar human trait: Procrastination!
If you are "in the process," we urge you to complete your
signup. Remember, Alcor cannot respond to a health emergency
for anyone who has incomplete membership arrangements.
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Alcor Board Meeting
On Sunday January 5th Alcor hosted one of its regular board
meetings. The next three meetings will be on March 2nd,
April 6th, and May 10th, and will be open to the public at
the Alcor facility in Scottsdale, Arizona. Please call 408
905 1906 if you want information about the starting time of
a meeting or if you need travel directions to Alcor.
Below is an informal summary of the recent meeting. The
official record will be the minutes which were taken by
Alcor's secretary, Jessica Sikes.
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SIGNUP FEE: Currently Alcor charges all prospective members
a $150 signup fee to defray the costs associated with taking
each person through the sign-up process. Our membership
administrator often devotes considerable time to a signup,
because prospective members may be incompletely informed
about cryonics and are confused by the various options on
the Alcor legal documents.
Opponents of the $150-per-person signup fee have argued that
it discourages new members and becomes an unfair burden when
several people in a single family decide to sign up
simultaneously.
Alcor director Michael Riskin mentioned various
alternatives, including reducing the fee, making it
refundable, or eliminating it entirely. Alcor director
Steven van Sickle made a motion to empower Alcor management
to experiment with the application fee policy in an effort
to discover which variation would produce the best results.
This motion passed unanimously.
Alcor News will report any future changes in the fee
structure.
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EXPANSION OF THE ALCOR FACILITY: The board discussed
possible future expansion plans for Alcor. The facility is
located in a building divided into units numbered 101
through 111. Currently Alcor uses units 107 through 111,
representing less than half of the total floor area of
almost 20,000 square feet. Units not currently occupied by
Alcor are rented out to other tenants.
During 2002, units 101 and 106 became available and have
been held empty pending a decision on their use. A committee
consisting of Steve Bridge (former Alcor president), Charles
Platt (director of suspension services), and Steve van
Sickle (member of the Alcor board of directors) was
established to discuss how much space Alcor can use in the
immediate future. The committee recommended expanding into
unit 106 but saw no use for unit 101 for the next year or
two and recommended that it should be rented to new tenants.
Carlos Mondragon made a motion to accept the recommendation.
The motion passed with 7 votes in favor, no votes opposed,
and Hugh Hixon abstaining.
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INTERMEDIATE TEMPERATURE STORAGE: For technical reasons, an
"ideal" temperature for Alcor patients may be around -145
degrees Celsius rather than -196 degrees, which is the
temperature of patients in liquid nitrogen. Alcor currently
has access to a Cryostar freezer which works on the same
principle as a refrigerator but is capable of going down to
-140 degrees. At this temperature there is some hope that we
may avoid the fracturing that can occur as a result of
thermal stresses in patients that have wholly or partly
vitrified. (Vitrification is a state in which all water in
the tissues becomes a uniform glasslike substance instead of
forming ice crystals).
Some Alcor directors are opposed to using the Cryostar.
Because it is a refrigerator, it requires uninterrupted
electrical power and incurs substantial running costs. Like
any electromechanical device, eventually it will wear out
and fail. The Cryostar does have an emergency backup system
using liquid nitrogen, but when this is activated it incurs
additional substantial cost. The Cryostar which Alcor has
used has experienced unexplained temperature swings, which
may not affect the patients (since the fluctuations are
brief) but are a cause for concern. Lastly, Alcor Fellow
Hugh Hixon has been concerned that storage of patients at
Cryostar temperature may allow undesirable biological
consequences. A noted cryobiologist, who advises Alcor from
time to time, has disagreed with Hugh, but has not provided
the Alcor board with a detailed refutation of the objections
that Hugh has raised. Consequently the use of the Cryostar
has been a controversial issue for the past six months.
The Alcor board voted to reduce the temperature inside the
Cryostar from -122 to -140 by one degree per day, during
which time Hugh Hixon will monitor the patients for
fracturing, using Alcor's "crackphone." Hugh expects
fracturing to occur; our cryobiology advisors believe that
since the patients have been held at -122 for enough time to
equalize thermal stresses, this annealing process should
inhibit fracturing. Either way, the board decided by 5 votes
to 3 that the patients should be moved out of the Cryostar
into liquid nitrogen after they have reached -140 degrees.
This issue is still not entirely resolved since some board
members were unhappy with the decision and are hoping for
clarification of the technical issues before the patient
transfer occurs. Dr. Jerry Lemler has requested that the
removal of patients to liquid nitrogen should not occur
before a presentation of cryobiology arguments at the next
board meeting.
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A NEW STANDBY TEAM LEADER: Charles Platt announced that he
has found a paramedic whom he would like Alcor to hire as
its future standby team leader. Platt currently has the
responsibility for running standbys but would like to
surrender it eventually to someone with medical
qualifications.
Platt informed the Alcor directors that Larry Johnson is a
paramedic who works in Las Vegas but is willing to relocate
in the Phoenix area. Larry has served in positions including
Director of Clinical Services, overseeing all clinical and
educational aspects of a large 911 service in Fort Worth,
Texas; has performed a similar role in Oklahoma City; was
manager of critical care services and a program director for
a helicopter emergency-response service in Dallas, Texas;
and has been a flight paramedic, an EMS instructor, and a
paramedic supervisor. He is nationally qualified as a
paramedic (able to work in every state), was President and
Founder of the National Association of Critical Care
Paramedics, and is under contract to coauthor a critical
care paramedic textbook for Brady Publishing.
This resume was sufficiently impressive to prompt Alcor
director Carlos Mondragon to ask, "Why does he want to work
for us?" Dr. Jerry Lemler, Michael Riskin, and Charles Platt
had asked Larry the same question when they spent several
hours with him the previous day. Larry told them that he has
been aware of cryonics and interested in it for many years;
he has always enjoyed innovative ideas; he likes to learn
something new; and he likes the idea of a case load of
"only" 10 patients per year instead of the multiple cases he
deals with every day in his current high-stress occupation.
In addition he sees cryonics as a possible extension of
orthodox emergency medicine, and Alcor provides an
opportunity to become involved in a new field with unknown
future potential.
The board voted to approve employment of Larry Johnson
subject to verification of his references and a routine drug
test. As of January 9th, all of Larry's references have
checked out. We expect that he will start at Alcor near the
end of this month.
This is an unprecedented development for Alcor. For the
first time in our history, we are hiring a medical
professional, with exceptional qualifications, in the hope
that he will serve as our standby team leader. In the past
we have received highly skilled assistance from Todd Soard,
a paramedic in Florida, but Larry Johnson will be our first
fulltime paramedic.
For additional good news about our affiliations with medical
professionals, read on.
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Alcor Signs Agreement with Paramedics Unlimited
On Monday, January 6th, nine paramedics visited Alcor for a
get-acquainted session in which they received preliminary
information about cryonics procedures. Later the same day,
Alcor CEO Dr. Jerry Lemler signed a contract specifying an
hourly rate at which any of these nine paramedics will
assist Alcor as independent contractors in future cases.
Earlier in its history, when Alcor had to deal with no more
than one human case per year, standby/transport services
were delivered almost entirely by unpaid volunteers. Today,
assuming that our members have a mortality rate that is
comparable to the American population, we can expect eight
or nine patients per year. (The implications of these
numbers are explored in a feature in the next issue of
Cryonics magazine.)
Obviously we cannot expect our volunteers to deal with such
an overwhelming case load. Most have careers and other
obligations which conflict with cryonics. We have begun
paying a small fee to our volunteers, but this provides no
guarantee that they may be available in an emergency.
As Alcor's membership grows and the age of the cryonics
population increases, we must shift gradually to a new
service model in which we employ personnel to handle the
arduous and demanding process of standby work. Can we afford
to do this? In the future, as our standby service becomes
more sophisticated, we may need to reassess the minimum
cryopreservation fees that new members must guarantee. This
topic is still under discussion. In the meantime, Alcor
directors have allocated existing funds to cover the
expected costs of training and deploying part-time
paramedics during at least the next year.
As a result of our agreement with Paramedics Unlimited, the
number of helpers whom we can count on, in an emergency, has
doubled overnight. We now have a safety net for all of our
members that never existed before. We will proceed with
training these new team members as quickly as possible.
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Ambulance Issues
On Monday, January 6th, Hugh Hixon, Charles Platt, and James
Sikes accompanied our "ambulance conversion consultant" Tim
Carney on a fact-finding mission around truck dealerships in
the greater Phoenix area. We were interested in buying a
"step van" similar to the vehicles used by United Parcel
Service. We planned to convert this vehicle into a cryonics
ambulance that would contain enough space not only to
transport patients, but to perform procedures such as
femoral cutdown and blood washout. This would require a load
area of at least 7 feet by 13 feet and interior head room of
7 feet. Conventional ambulances simply are not big enough.
Unfortunately we discovered that all step vans tend to
contain "wheel wells": Box-shaped intrusions into the load
area, around the rear wheels. These wheel wells are a
problem because they are located precisely where our
cryonics team members would be standing either side of a
patient on a central operating table or ice bath.
We turned our attention to "box vans" which are typically
used as domestic moving vehicles and are rented out by
companies such as Ryder and U-Haul. These vehicles have an
entirely flat floor. However, all the dealers we visited
informed us that rental companies never get rid of a box van
until it has accumulated 100,000 miles. Since reliability is
our primary concern, we prefer to buy a vehicle that has not
incurred so much mileage.
When we looked at new box vans, we found that the starting
price is around $25,000, which happens to be the limit
previously agreed by the Alcor directors. After sales tax, a
lift gate, heat insulation for the load area, and air
conditioning are factored in, buying a new vehicle would
take us well over-budget.
Several Alcor directors expressed willingness to spend more
than the $25,000 if necessary, but we are continuing to look
for a reasonably low-mileage second-hand vehicle, and we are
also looking for other new vehicles that may be cheaper.
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Upcoming Events
A RETRAINING SESSION for Alcor cryotransport technicians is
way overdue. Our current best guess is that the training
will begin on the weekend of March 1st and March 2nd. The
next Alcor News will contain specific details of training
topics and scheduling. Until then, if you are interested in
receiving training, please try to avoid making other
arrangements for the seven days commencing March 1st.
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THE NEXT ALCOR CONFERENCE has been postponed from June 2004
to June 2005. It will take place in the Phoenix area.
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ALCOR UK will receive a visitor on January 24th and 25th:
Charles Platt will be flying in to meet all local cryonics
members and discuss arrangements for cryonics emergencies.
If you live in the UK and want to participate, please
contact Andrew Clifford. Charles will also visit Cryonics
Europe, a group that hopes to provide service for members of
any cryonics organization.
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BILL HAWORTH has decided to end his association with Alcor
as an independent contractor. Bill was retained to assist
with publicity following the death of baseball star Ted
Williams. Among his achievements was a front-page feature on
cryonics in The New York Times. Subsequently Bill played an
important role in running the Alcor conference in November
2002. Since then he has been less actively involved with
Alcor and will cease doing PR for us on January 31st.
However he has circulated a preliminary proposal for a fund-
raising plan which he hopes will be of interest to Alcor.
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A MEDICAL ADVICE BOOKLET is in the final stages of
preparation. Many Alcor members have asked for advice on
issues such as avoiding autopsy, appointing someone with
durable power of attorney for health care, and deciding
whether a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) order is in their best
interests. Alcor has produced booklets of this kind in the
past, but they have not been entirely comprehensive. If you
would like to reserve a copy of the new edition, which will
be distributed free of charge as a Word document, please
contact Jennifer Chapman ().
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CORRECTION: In the previous Alcor News we reported that a
California laboratory had abandoned its plan to study the
effect of vitrification solution on whole-body patients. A
scientist from the laboratory contacted us to say that the
plans have been postponed, not abandoned. The work may still
occur at a future date.
Alcor News is written primarily by Charles Platt.
Contents are copyright 2003 by Alcor
Foundation but permission is granted to reprint any whole
news item, so long as Alcor is credited as the source and
the reprint includes our URL at http://www.alcornews.org.
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