A-2889 Mark Lee Miller, Case Summary, Patient 143

Mark Lee Miller, Alcor member A-2889, lived in Costa Mesa, California and suffered from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Mark, aged 61, served eight years in the Army and worked for the FBI in Orange County for 33 years. On December 31, 2015 at approximately 22:58 PST, Mr Miller suffered a sudden non-witnessed cardiac arrest. Although family members were near his bedside, they were unsure of the actual time when the member took his final breath. He was pronounced legally deceased in Costa Mesa, California at 23:55 PST (00:55 in Arizona) by the hospice nurse who had been called to the home by the family. Miller, a whole body member, became Alcor’s 143rd patient on December 31, 2015.

Mr Miller had planned to relocate close to Alcor to enter into hospice. Unfortunately, he declined more rapidly than expected, eliminating any opportunity to fly to Scottsdale. Alcor asked Suspended Animation to visit his home to evaluate his condition in an effort to determine deployment strategies. At this time he had good oxygenation by mask. Nevertheless, Mr Miller arrested a few hours following the visit, December 31, 2015. This unexpectedly rapid decline led to a delay before cooling and stabilization could commence by SA. A field washout was carried out in California.

On arrival at the location of field washout, the patient’s nasopharyngeal temperature was 15.0 degC. When the SA team arrived at Alcor at 11:45 PST/12:45 MST on January 1, nasopharyngeal temperature was 5.4 degC. Cryoprotection was concluded about five hours later and cool down to long-term storage begun. A CT scan was conducted at a later date. More information will be forthcoming in a case report, including the CT data.

–Max More

Alcor News, April 1, 2016

Yes, it is April 1. But, no, nothing in this issue of Alcor News is a hoax! It was supposed to go out at the end of March, but you know how these things go…

–Max More
Alcor President and CEO

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In this issue:

Aaron’s change of status.
Dewar delivery.
Why Cryonics Makes Sense
Correction to report on CT scan analysis of Kim SSuozzi
Recent media

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Aaron Drake: Now “Senior Medical Response Consultant”

After being on staff full-time with Alcor for over seven years (starting in late January 2009), Aaron Drake is undergoing a change of status. Imagine being on-call 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, for seven years and two months. That’s 62,736 hours of responsibility (not counting leap years). Aaron’s change of employment status will allow him to recharge while still remaining available to consult on urgent situations. His many years of experience will be invaluable in maintaining Alcor’s high standards of patient care.

As Alcor members should know, cases outside of Arizona but within the USA have primarily been handled by Suspended Animation (SA). During the transitional period, we are pleased to be able to tell you that SA has agreed to cover any Arizona-based cases. At the same time, we have working toward bringing in a highly-skilled individual in the Scottsdale/Phoenix area to take over Aaron’s core duties. In addition, we are building up our local capabilities by bringing in additional trained individuals (with credentials as paramedics or nurses) so that we have more personnel than ever available for Arizona-based (and international) standbys, stabilization, and transport.

We thank Aaron for his years of service. As of now, Aaron’s title is “Senior Medical Response Consultant”.

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Dewar delivery

Last time we ordered new Bigfoot dewars, they arrived with no warning. This was quite inconvenient since we have to go out and rent forklift trucks and plan the unloading of these large, heavy, valuable items. Last time, we had to send the truck away, to come back a few days later. Despite our repeated insistence on being given tracking information, our two newest Bigfoot dewars arrived unexpectedly on the evening of Easter Sunday (March 27).

Fortunately, the truck driver (an independent with no tracking capabilities who apparently stepped in for a mess-up by the major trucking company originally to be used) was content to sleep in his truck overnight. On Monday morning, Steve Graber and Hugh Hixon rented two forklifts, and I joined them in unloading and securing them inside the building.

Although the lack of notice (the fabricator later said the truck was supposed to show up on Tuesday) was inconvenient, I’m not complaining. Anything that gets me away from my desk and atop a tall ladder or driving a forklift is a welcome change.

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Why Cryonics Makes Sense

Some of you may be already be familiar with Tim Urban’s remarkable blog, Wait But Why. You might be among the 336,693 subscribers to Tim’s blog, or you might just have come across one of his stunning detailed and clever posts, such as on procrastination, the genius of Elon Musk, The AI Revolution, or Putting Time in Perspective.

A few days ago, Tim posted what is possibly the single best piece ever written on cryonics. Warning: It is long and, once you start reading it, you will find it hard to stop. Please use it to persuade your non-cryonicist friends and relatives! The blog post has already generated a surge in visits to Alcor.org and in people engaging Marji in online chat, and in serious requests for membership information packets. You can find it Wait But Why, Why Cryonics Makes Sense:

2016-03-25 web spike_2

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Correction to Suozzi report – CT Scan Reveals Perfusion Much Better Than Initially Thought

Alcor has been doing CT scans of some patients for the last few years. When we started the project, we did not know how to properly calibrate the output of the scans. This, along with a mistaken assumption, led to a most unfortunately pessimistic assessment of the degree of cryoprotection of Kim Suozzi, the 23-year victim of brain cancer. Now that Alcor has more experience with CT scan data and has created correct calibration standards, we have re-analyzed that report. It turns out that cryoprotection was vastly better than originally reported.

Details here:
http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/CorrigendumA2643.html

Another, much briefer, correction: In the last issue, I said that all three of this year’s patients had been cryoprotected. That was incorrect. Two of the three were cryoprotected.

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Debuting this Sunday, April 3rd, 8PM EST National Geographic Channel

“Explorer: Faces of Death”

A few glimpses of the show are already available here:

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/explorer/episodes/faces-of-death/

NatGeo

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Coming Up

You can expect another issue of Alcor News to follow this one quite soon. Among the contents:
** Yet another innovation by Steve Graber.
** Pointers to several new published case reports.
** New LED lighting in the Patient Care Bay.
** The Alcor Testimonial Contest.
** Alcor-2015 Conference DVD and downloadable videos.

Corrected analysis of CT scan data show vastly better cryoprotection of Kim Suozzi’s brain

Alcor has been doing CT scans of some patients for the last few years. When we started the project, we did not know how to properly calibrate the output of the scans. This, along with a mistaken assumption, led to a most unfortunately pessimistic assessment of the degree of cryoprotection of Kim Suozzi, the 23-year victim of brain cancer. Now that Alcor has more experience with CT scan data and has created correct calibration standards, we have re-analyzed that report. It turns out that cryoprotection was vastly better than originally reported.

For details see Correction to A-2643 report:

http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/CorrigendumA2643.html

Why you want to read Alcor’s new book

So perhaps you’re fairly new to Alcor and cryonics. You’re pretty sure this technology might be worth investigating; maybe you’ve even gotten signed up. But there’s a lot you don’t know. When your friends and relatives ask you those awkward questions about WHY you’re doing this and what makes you think it will work, you haven’t figured out solid answers yet. Especially if you live in an area without many other people involved in cryonics, you may really need solid ideas. You may even wish you have a book you could hand some of them, something that might make all of these ideas clear.

We have that book – Preserving Minds, Saving Lives: The Best Cryonics Writings from the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. We have been working on those answers for more than 35 years, often in the pages of our magazine, Cryonics. This book takes many of those great answers and puts them together in one volume for you.

Why do we preserve patients in liquid nitrogen? How might that change in the future?

What is the difference between freezing and vitrification? Why is vitrification better?

How does cryonics connect with religious beliefs?

What kind of research has been done in the past and what is needed for the future?

Why do some people choose whole body preservation and some choose to only preserve their brains?

When will the cryopreserved patients be brought back to life? Wait – should we even call them “dead” or are they already “alive” in some way? And who will pay for it?

How did this odd idea get started in the first place? What has Alcor gone through to get to this point? What mistakes were made along the way and how do we know cryonicists have learned from those mistakes? Why the heck isn’t cryonics wildly popular?

It’s all here, along with many other discussions, by the best writers Alcor has had to offer for more than three decades. There are a handful of technical articles, because we want to make sure that the bases for this technology are readily available for future researchers. But most of the articles are accessible to anyone.

This is the book you need. We have both hardcover and paperback copies, and we’re working on an e-book version. The book is printed on very high-quality paper and will last a long time. It ought to say something worth lasting as long as the paper.

You can order from Alcor right now:

http://www.alcor.org/book/index.html

Really, we want you to have this information, because we want you to last even longer than this book. That’s what cryonics is all about. Get smart, live long – buy a book.

Stephen Bridge, co-editor

A-2878, Cormac Seachoy, Case Summary Patient 142

Cormac Seachoy (member A-2878), age 27, lived in Bristol, UK (England’s sixth largest city) and was a graduate of the University of Bristol where he was the vice president of their Social Enterprise Project. He also worked as the website coordinator at Bristol Cable. He volunteered for many organizations including Transparency International, an anti-corruption charity in Sierra Leone. Cormac suffered from metastatic neuroendocrine cancer of the colon. He was pronounced on December 16th, 2015. Stabilization, cool down, and transport was performed by Cryonics UK and the perfusion was performed by Aaron Drake, with the assistance of Rowland Brothers Mortuary. Cormac, a whole body member, became Alcor’s 142nd patient on December 16.

Cormac had intended to relocate to Scottsdale via air ambulance and enter an assisted-living facility but wanted to put off leaving his family until it became necessary. We realized that this made it likely that we would have to conduct a field cryoprotection in England. We first heard from and started discussing this case with Tim Gibson of Cryonics UK in late November. With support from his family, he was able to complete the paperwork and get finances in place on December 9.

In a deployment discussion on December 14, we were going on the basis of a current estimate of two more weeks to live. At that time, we were still planning options involving an air ambulance and either hospitalization or hospice. At the same time, his doctors warned that, despite their prediction of two weeks remaining, his bowel could perforate at any time and he could die suddenly and without warning.

We didn’t know at the time that he had only two days left. However, we had also planned for the possibility of doing a field cryoprotection, probably with the assistance of Cryonics UK. Alcor’s Medical Response Director, Aaron Drake, prepared to fly to Cormac’s location and perform standby, stabilization, and field cryoprotection with the assistance of Tim (who was the only member of C-UK available). Cormac, however, was declining rapidly on the 16th and arrested before Aaron could arrive. While Aaron was in the air, Max More discussed options with Tim.

Tim made the 180-mile trip from Sheffield to Bristol, arriving at 6:49 pm MST – a little over two hours after pronouncement. Instead of Aaron going to Bristol, the plan was now for him to meet Tim and the patient in London. Tim carried out the stabilization and transport to London essentially solo (with some help from long-term Alcor member Garret Smyth, who drove from London to Bristol). Max was able to get our international mortuary company in London where we store supplies to open early to accommodate Tim’s expected arrival time. Aaron arrived in London in time to improve the cannulation, complete cryoprotection, and see the patient begin cooling to dry ice temperature.

In order to avoid complications over the holidays, we held Cormac on dry ice for a little longer. He arrived at Alcor early in the evening on December 30. Cormac, our 142nd patient, is now at liquid nitrogen temperature at Alcor.

Alcor Position Statement on Brain Preservation Foundation Prize

From Alcor President, Max More
February 12, 2016

In December 2015, 21st Century Medicine, Inc. published peer-reviewed results of a new cryobiological and neurobiological technique, aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation (ASC) that provides strong proof that brains can be preserved well enough at cryogenic temperatures for neural connectivity (the connectome) to be completely visualized. And this week the Brain Preservation Foundation (BPF), after independent evaluation by neuroscientists Dr. Sebastian Seung, Professor at Princeton, and Dr. Ken Hayworth, President of the BPF, awarded The Small Mammal Brain Preservation Prize to 21st Century Medicine based on these results.

The BPF press release says: “it is the first demonstration that near-perfect, long-term structural preservation of an intact mammalian brain is achievable, thus directly answering what has been a main scientific criticism against cryonics.”

Many people are wondering whether Alcor plans to adopt the “Aldehyde-Stabilized Cryopreservation” (ASC) protocol used to win the prize and what the win means for cryonics in practice. Alcor’s position is as follows:

We are pleased that vitrification, the same basic approach that Alcor Life Extension Foundation has utilized since 2001, is finally being recognized by the scientific mainstream as able to eliminate ice damage in the brain. Alcor first published results showing this in 2004. The technology and solutions that Alcor uses for vitrification (a technology from mainstream organ banking research) were actually developed by the same company that developed ASC and has now won the Brain Preservation Prize.

ASC under the name “fixation and vitrification” was first proposed for cryonics use in 1986. ASC enables excellent visualization of cellular structure – which was the objective that had to be met to win the prize – and shows that brains can be preserved well enough at low temperature for neural connectivity to be shown to be preserved. Current brain vitrification methods without fixation lead to dehydration. Dehydration has effects on tissue contrast that make it difficult to see whether the connectome is preserved or not with electron microscopy. That does not mean that dehydration is especially damaging, nor that fixation with toxic aldehyde does less damage. In fact, the M22 vitrification solution used in current brain vitrification technology is believed to be relatively gentle to molecules because it preserves cell viability in other contexts, while still giving structural preservation that is impressive when it is possible to see it. For example, note the synapses visible in the images at the bottom of this page.

While ASC produces clearer images than current methods of vitrification without fixation, it does so at the expense of being toxic to the biological machinery of life by wreaking havoc on a molecular scale. Chemical fixation results in chemical changes (the same as embalming) that are extreme and difficult to evaluate in the absence of at least residual viability. Certainly, fixation is likely to be much harder to reverse so as to restore biological viability as compared to vitrification without fixation. Fixation is also known to increase freezing damage if cryoprotectant penetration is inadequate, further adding to the risk of using fixation under non-ideal conditions that are common in cryonics. Another reason for lack of interest in pursuing this approach is that it is a research dead end on the road to developing reversible tissue preservation in the nearer future.

Alcor looks forward to continued research in ASC and continued improvement in conventional vitrification technology to reduce cryoprotectant toxicity and tissue dehydration. We are especially interested in utilizing blood-brain barrier opening technology such as was used to win the prize (but which pre-dated work on ASC).

It may remain unclear to many whether this research result shows whether ASC or current vitrification without pre-fixation is more likely to preserve cell structures and molecular structures necessary for memory and personal identity. What we can note is that Robert McIntyre, the lead researcher on ASC at 21st Century Medicine, made a point during his presentation at the Alcor 2015 Conference of recommending against adoption of ASC in cryonics at this time.

For cryonics under ideal conditions, the damage that still requires future repair is now more subtle than freezing damage. That damage is believed to be chiefly cryoprotectant toxicity and associated tissue dehydration. It’s time for cryonics debate to move past ill-informed beliefs of “cells bursting.”

This is a groundbreaking result that further strengthens the already strong case that medical biostasis now clearly warrants mainstream scientific discussion, evaluation, and focus.

For a more detailed statement, and one that Alcor endorses, see:
http://www.evidencebasedcryonics.org/media/MBPP.pdf

Official Alcor Statement Concerning Marvin Minsky

The legal death of Marvin Minsky was publicly reported on Monday, January 25, 2016. There has been speculation on the part of numerous individuals and publications that he may have been cryopreserved by Alcor. This notice is Alcor’s formal response to inquiries on this issue.

In a public ceremony at the Extro-3 conference in 1997, nanotechnology pioneer Eric Drexler presented Prof. Minsky with a bracelet given to all new Alcor members. This bracelet provides emergency contact information and basic instructions. Minsky has spoken publicy many times about his advocacy of overcoming aging and the inevitability of death and about cryonics (human cryopreservation) as a last resort. He was also among the 67 signatories of the Scientists Open Letter on Cryonics and a member of Alcor’s Scientific Advisory Board. This much is public knowledge. None of this necessarily means that Prof. Minsky had cryopreservation arrangements at the time of legal death. Alcor neither confirms nor denies whether Prof. Minsky had such arrangements.

Alcor’s official response may puzzle some readers, so we would like to point out the privacy options that have been and currently are available to our members. When a member signs up for cryopreservation by Alcor, they have four options:

1. They can give Alcor permission to freely release their information at its discretion.
2. They can give Alcor permission to release their name and number only to other Alcor Members.
3. They can instruct Alcor to maintain reasonable confidentiality pursuant to the provisions of Attachment I. After their cryopreservation, Alcor is authorized to freely release their information at its discretion, including information Alcor deems appropriate about the individual’s cryopreservation.
4. They can instruct Alcor to maintain reasonable confidentiality pursuant to the provisions of Attachment I.

These options can be found in Attachment 1 here:
http://alcor.org/Library/html/attachment1.html

Therefore, if Alcor says that we can neither confirm nor deny that a specific person has cryonics arrangements with our organization, that could mean that (a) they do not have such arrangements (even if they had them in the past), or (b) that the individual has chosen the second or fourth options.

A-1497, Ronald Selkovitch, Patient 141

CASE SUMMARY

Ronald Selkovitch, A-1497, became an Alcor member back in 1995. During that time, he saw not only his mother be cryopreserved, but also his wife just three months prior. Now aged 81, Mr Selkovitch was suffering from an infection that occurred following an abdominal surgery and eventually became critically ill at a hospital in Escondido, CA. Since Alcor was returning from Philadelphia with their preceding patient, Suspended Animation (SA) was requested to start a standby. Less than 48 hours following deployment, Mr Selkovitch was pronounced at 05:02 on August 28, 2015, allowing the team to protect the patient’s cells during ischemia and cooling. Following this stabilization, a field washout was undertaken, and Mr Selkovitch was cooled while driven from California to Scottsdale by the SA team, where they handed over responsibility to Alcor.

He was stabilized and transported to Alcor Life Extension Foundation (Alcor) by ground transport, arriving at 15:25. Surgery, cephalon isolation, cooling and vitrification were performed by Alcor’s team, with cryoprotective perfusion completed at 21:21, followed immediately by cool down to liquid nitrogen temperature: -196˚C/-320 ˚F.

Neuro cryoprotective surgery continued at Alcor before profound cooling commenced. Mr Selkovitch (A-1497) became Alcor’s 141st patient on August 28th, 2015. On September 7, 2015 a CT scan was performed of Mr Selkovitch’s cephalon to assess his post-vitrification status and condition. The results will be linked to the report on the Alcor website when that is published in the near future.

Mr Selkovitch is a counter-example to the common fear that (assuming the process works for you), that you will be alone in the future. We can hold out reasonable hope that he will eventually be restored to active life at the same time as his wife and mother.

A-1624, James Baglivo, Patient 140

James Baglivo, winner of the Omni cryonics essay contest, becomes Alcor’s 140th patient.

James Baglivo, A-1624, was pronounced legally dead by today’s standards on August 25, 2015 at the age of 44, in New Jersey, USA. Baglivo, a neurocryopreservation member, became Alcor’s 140th patient.

Back in the early 1990s, Charles Platt birthed an idea and saw it through to completion: An “Immortality Prize” hosted by Omni Magazine, the winner of which would receive a cryopreservation free of charge. Some of us quite fondly remember Omni as a science and science fiction magazine published in print form from 1978 to 1995, founded by Kathy Keeton and her collaborator and future husband Bob Guccione, the publisher of Penthouse magazine. Even when it was shut down by Guccione in early 1996 following the death of Keeton, the magazine’s reported print run was still over 700,000 copies per month. Offering a free cryopreservation as the prize for winning an essay contest apparently generated an unprecedented degree of exposure for cryonics and for Alcor.

James Baglivo was the winner of the Omni Magazine Immortality Prize. It took Mr Baglivo some time to complete his arrangements, his membership being finalized on January 18, 1996. His winning of the Prize turned out to be very fortunate for him. Mr Baglivo was involved in a major auto accident leading to hospitalization in 1991 and he carried the burden of a family history of diabetes and heart disease. At the time of the contest, he was only 22 years old. His essay won him a $120,00 life insurance policy that Alcor purchased on his behalf to pay the costs of cryopreservation when the time came. He also remained a member even though he had never responded to any notices or requests or communications of any kind in ten years. That lack of communication made responding effectively and speedily considerably more difficult.

On August 25, 2015, Alcor received an emergency notification from a nurse with an organ procurement company in New Jersey when she noticed that her deceased patient was wearing an Alcor medical alert bracelet. She told us he had died from sudden cardiac arrest about three hours prior earlier. We later learned that he had suffered three cardiac arrests: The first around 5:00 pm (Arizona time), the second around 10:00 pm in a New Jersey hospital where he was placed on a ventilator, and the third at 2:55 am immediately after removal from ventilator, at which point he was pronounced. Alcor was notified at 5:03 am through our emergency alert service.

Mr Baglivo’s mother also called and said that, because of her son’s young age of 44, the Medical Examiner was planning on performing an autopsy the next morning. Alcor immediately reached out to the ME’s office and strongly urged them to not abrogate this individual’s civil rights and instead consider waiving their authority to perform a destructive autopsy, in light of his written health directives with respect to disposition of his own remains.

After reviewing the documents and medical history that Alcor sent, coupled with the diagnostic imaging and blood draws that were obtained at the hospital, the ME’s office decided to forego the procedure and release the patient to Alcor. A local mortuary was found that would remove the patient from the morgue’s cooler, pack it in ice and allow us to use their prep room when we arrived later that same night.

Although initial success had been achieved in stopping the invasive autopsy, time was the driving factor in the decision-making process. There was insufficient time to retrieve the physical entirety of Baglivo and bring him to Alcor for a whole body cryoprotection. As it was, our options were limited to a straight freeze (with attendant massive damage from ice crystals) or a field neuro cryoprotection and transport on dry ice. I (Max More) decided to authorize a field cryoprotection. This enables us to cryoprotect the brain with minimal delay even when an operating room is not available.

The move from whole-body with no cryoprotection (and a long delay) to neurocryopreservation with field cryoprotection (and a much faster timeline) also enabled us to pay for an air ambulance. This was arranged by Aaron Drake, Alcor’s Medical Response Director, who was accompanied by Steve Graber, Alcor’s Technical and Readiness Coordinator, on the trip to Philadelphia with the surgical and perfusion supplies. Through the night, Drake performed the surgery and cannulation while Graber ran the portable pump-powered perfusion equipment and reached target concentration through a 15 step cryoprotection ramp. The team then used dry ice to provide rapid cooling in Alcor’s specially designed Neuro Shipper container.

The cooling continued during transportation the team returned with the same flight crew who were returning to Phoenix. More aggressive cooling commenced upon arrival at Alcor. A-1624 became Alcor’s 140th patient on August 25th, 2015.

A full case report will follow.

Northern California Alcor Meeting

WHAT: Northern California Alcor Meeting

WHERE: The Clubhouse at 505 Cypress Point Dr., Mountain View

WHEN: January 17th at 4:00 p.m.

I should also point out to people who have not been here, that “505 Cypress Point Dr” refers to the main clubhouse of the condominium complex located at the last address. Meaning, if you see something like “505 Cypress Point Dr, 123-456” that is not it. You should look for the sign that says “505 Cypress Point Dr” ONLY , and that sign is at Cypress Point Dr, but not exactly at the location that the navigation systems point to (they tend to point to the central point of the complex). At that sign, is the clubhouse.

We have potluck food, so bring some. We also have a sauna, whirlpool, billiards and ping-pong if you feel so inclined.