In his guest editorial, former Alcor President Steve Bridge talks about
why there aren’t more medical professionals involved in cryonics.
Isn’t it because they are taught in all their education that people who
are clinically dead are just that, dead? And that there is no sense
doing anything else for them? If that is what their mindset is,
isn’t asking them to participate in cryonics like asking them to
participate in the activities of morticians preparing bodies for
funerals? At least that’s how they would see it, right?
Steve Bridge Replies:
Yes, that is certainly part of the problem; but that is the part of the problem that we already understand. “Dead is Dead” has been the rigid misunderstanding of most people in all fields for centuries at least, in spite of frequent cases in contemporary medicine where the label of “dead” was misapplied. However, most of the medical professionals who DO understand this point still do not get involved in helping with cryopreservation procedures or research. We need to understand how to break through that next level of resistance.
Jennifer Chapman also comments:
Thank you for your comments. Cryonics does require a shift in the
perception of death. A person who has a heart attack and is “dead” in the
clinical sense but is revived using CPR or a defibrillator was not dead at
all. If medical professionals are willing to reconsider the standard
definition of death used today, they may also see cryonics patients as
potentially viable, only farther in the future.
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For some time now, we have been looking for ways to bring more timely information about Alcor to our members and the public. The lead time for Cryonics magazine is several months, and even the email Alcor News only went out once per month. Furthermore, the email format was limited to short news items, which was often confusing. So, we decided to bite the bullet and join the blog bandwagon. As you can see from the dates on some of the posts, it took a while to work things out, but by doing this we hope to bring up items as they happen, with the space to do them more justice.
Now, this is a news blog, and not a conversation group. There are many discussion groups on the web, including Alcor United and Cryonet. We don’t have the time to deal with either moderating or comment spam, and as an official Alcor publication we would need to, so commenting is not enabled. That said, feel free to send email to , with any questions or comments you have. From time to time, we will publish “letters to the editor” right here.
And if you subscribe to the email Alcor News, don’t worry. We will still send it out, with links to the blog articles and stories that have appeared over the previous month.
To start things off, we are presenting a Guest Editorial from former Alcor President Steve Bridge. Steve brings up some excellent points about the relationship between cryonics and conventional medicine, and some theories about why cryonics has not “caught on”. Most everything I agree with, and much of what he suggests we are in the process of actually doing. For various reasons, we are limited in what we can say just now, but I hope to be able to fill things in much more at the upcoming Sixth Alcor Conference. Don’t miss out on it! As of two weeks ago we already had 132 paying attendees, so it promises to be the best attended conference ever.
Stephen Van Sickle
Executive Director
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Alcor training sessions are given throughout the year in a variety of
locations for the purpose of training individuals to perform
cryopreservation stabilization and transport procedures. Those who do not
wish to participate are welcome to observe or simply stop by to meet Alcor
representatives.
Training sessions are attended by one or more Alcor personnel and offer an
introduction to biohazard and safety protocols, advanced airway management,
cardiopulmonary support and blood washout procedures, often using mannequins
for hands-on experience. Training also provides introductory training in
negotiating with medical personnel, families and medical examiners or
coroners. Local medical professionals and members of Alcor or other
cryonics organizations are eligible to attend. There is no charge for
attendance, but each person is responsible for their own travel and hotel
expenses.
Participation in the training is required to become a member of the Regional
Transport Team in your area. Members of the Regional Teams may be contacted
if an Alcor member needs help and will be compensated for participation in a
cryopreservation case. Team members who become Alcor members also receive a
75% discount on membership dues (excludes Life Membership).
Unless indicated otherwise, each Saturday training session will be followed
by a dinner which is open to anyone interested in meeting Alcor members,
even those who are unable to attend the training session. RSVP is required.
Location: Southern California (Redondo Beach) at the Crown Plaza
Resort, 300 North Harbor Drive, Redondo Beach, CA Date(s): August 19-20, 2006 Time(s): Training will be held from 9am-4pm both days. There will
also be a Saturday evening dinner open to anyone interested in meeting Alcor members.
Location: Austin, Texas at the office of Steve Jackson at 3735
Promontory Point Drive, Austin, TX 78744 Date(s): September 23-24, 2006 Time(s): Training will be held from 9am-4pm both days. There will
also be a Saturday evening dinner open to anyone interested in meeting Alcor
members.
Location: Northern California (Berkeley) at Café de la Paz, 1600
Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94709 (510-843-0662) Date(s): November 11-12, 2006 Time(s): Training will be held from 9am-4pm both days. There will
also be a Saturday evening dinner open to anyone interested in meeting Alcor
members.
Contact Michelle Fry, Alcor Readiness Coordinator, to RSVP to either the
training or the Saturday evening dinner:
(480) 905-1906, ext. 104
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Have you ever thought about joining the Alcor team? We have opportunities for Physicians, licensed Paramedics, Emergency Medical Technicians, Registered Nurses, Lab Technicians and more to join our nationwide Transport Team. Participation is on a contractual basis. You’ll be given cryonics training enabling you to participate in our patient rescue and transport cases. Licensed professionals do not have to be Alcor members to join our team. We welcome your expertise and interest. Send your resume to:
The next Board meeting is scheduled for Saturday, September 9, 2006, at 11:00 AM (MST). Board meetings are typically held on the first Saturday of the month at the Alcor facility (7895 East Acoma Drive in Scottsdale, AZ). Members and the public are encouraged to attend.
On July 31, 2006, Alcor had 805 members and 48 applicants. Thirty-three
applicants were cancelled in July due to no progress towards completing
membership. In a majority of cases they were unresponsive for over a year
and had not completed the required extended application charge form.
Magazine: The 3rd quarter issue of Cryonics magazine is in production. We are in the planning stages for the 4th quarter issue which will have the theme of Ethics.
Information packages: Information package requests were around 20 percent below normal this month (83 distributed). 30 information package requests were received from UK in August following airing of the Zig Zag documentary.
Further media details: Daily Mail: Cheryl Walsh handled this interview (Tanya Jones was out of the office) for a newspaper in the UK, resulting from the Zig Zag press release.
Ottawa Citizen: Cheryl Walsh handled this interview for a newspaper in Canada, resulting from the Zig Zag press release.
Adler Online: Tanya Jones did a live radio interview with Charles Adler for listeners in Canada, resulting from the Zig Zag press release.
Institution of Chemical Engineers: This is a trade journal for chemical engineers and the article is expected to focus on what is happening in the field of cryonics and the interplay of science/engineering.
American Antigravity: http://www.americanantigravity.com/articles/568/1/
Ralph Merkle was interviewed for this article for an aerospace publication about the potential of nanotechnology and cryonics, particularly as it may pertain to space travel.
Alcor answered a small number of questions for Ben Bradlee, Jr. through WalshCOMM and declined to participate in a pilot show for a UK production company for the Discovery channel.
Our training session in Florida was well-attended, with the entire staff of Suspended Animation and other local cryonicists bringing the number of students to fifteen. Course curriculum included our biohazard and communicable disease lecture, airway management (including Combi-tube), medications, intraosseous IV placement training, and manual cardiopulmonary support practice.
Our next stabilization training session will be held in the Los Angeles area later this month (August 19-20). We’ll be training both old and new members of Alcor’s transport team, and hope to see an expansion of individuals available for standbys and stabilizations.
Anyone interested in attending should contact our Readiness Coordinator, Michelle Fry ().
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During this month Focus Telecommunications, our emergency answering service, relocated their offices. No interruption of service was experienced for the emergency line, just the answering service. Our call forwarding to Focus was offline for less than a day during which we answered directly, and the new service was initiated from the new location with no complications or other outages.
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Alcor News, July 2006
Your source for insider’s info July 2006, #53
Alcor Welcomes Intern Chana Williford
Chana Williford will be working as an intern at Alcor for a few months to build a whole body vitrification laboratory. Chana attends school in Texas and has a B.S. in Psychology, a M.S. in Cognition and Neuroscience and is working towards her Ph.D. in Neurophysiology at the University of Texas at Dallas. She has taught there as an assistant instructor in neuroscience lab methods and has worked as a research assistant in a variety of laboratory environments. She will utilize her experience conducting experiments and writing supporting documentation to establish Alcor’s lab.
REGISTER TODAY for the 6th Alcor Conference
An Inside Look at the Science and Medicine of Tomorrow. Registration is now open for the 6th Alcor Conference being held at the Scottsdale Marriott in Arizona from October 6-8. The early rate of $295 is only in effect for a few more weeks! Register by August 1. Visit www.alcor.org to register. Check the website regularly for full conference details and updates. [JC] REGISTER NOW
Robert A. Freitas Jr. Research Grant
In Cryonics Magazine Spring 2006, there was an article about the theoretical engineering work on nanomedicine being conducted by Robert A. Freitas Jr., which was supported in part by a grant from Alcor in 2004. The Alcor Board of Directors is pleased to announce that it has voted to make another $20,000 grant to Dr. Freitas. Dr. Freitas is doing work that is directly related to the problem of repairing and reviving Alcor’s most damaged patients. While this is still in the very early stages, Alcor feels a small investment now can make a big difference later. You can learn more and read a free copy of the first two volumes of Dr. Freitas’ multipart book “Nanomedicine” by visiting www.nanomedicine.com. [SVS]
Vitrification Rediscovered?
Alcor has received many questions about a press release issued by the American Chemical Society (ACS) entitled, “Slow-frozen people, latest research supports possibility of cryopreservation.” The press release, which received significant media attention when United Press International (UPI) picked up the story, was based on a scientific paper by Anatoli Bogdan of the University of Helsinki that appeared in the July 6th issue of the ACS Journal of Physical Chemistry B. The paper described vitrification of microscopic droplets of water using sulfuric acid(!) as a cryoprotectant. While the paper contains some interesting technical observations, the “breakthrough” announced in the press release was merely a restatement of the physical principles of ice avoidance by vitrification as already known and used in cryobiology for decades. Alcor itself has been using “glassy water” or “low-density amorphous ice” (aka vitrification) to avoid physical damage from ice during brain cryopreservation since the turn of the century.
Even if the idea of vitrification isn’t new, it is still gratifying to see it thrust into public awareness, and its relevance to cryonics recognized. In the press release, Dr. Bodgan said, “It may seem fantastic, but the fact that in aqueous solution, [the] water component can be slowly supercooled to the glassy state and warmed back without the crystallization implies that, in principle, if the suitable cryoprotectant is created, cells in plants and living matter could withstand a large supercooling and survive.” We couldn’t agree more. With continuing progress in reducing toxicity of cryoprotectants used for vitrification, we expect that it will be possible to reversibly vitrify larger and larger organs in years to come, and perhaps eventually the whole human body. [BW]
Research Update
Repairs are completed on Alcor’s differential scanning calorimeter (DSC-7), and the software necessary to operate the device has been purchased. This unit will be used in nucleation mapping of the M22 cryoprotectant to determine the temperatures and cooling/warming rates that cause ice to form. The Planer, a controlled-rate freezer, has also been repaired. This is used for carefully controlling the temperature of biological samples and is important to upcoming research.
Setup of Alcor’s research library has begun. With the recent acquisition of new journal subscriptions and a general lack of accessibility when it comes to books and magazines, the useful materials needed to be consolidated in one place.
This month has been a busy one for improvements in both research and clinical response. The remote stabilization kits which Alcor takes into the field when responding to emergencies have been reorganized to streamline them considerably. These kits are also used during training sessions and will be easier to use ease in training demonstrations.
Dr. Sergey Sheleg, Senior Research Scientist, is discussing experimental details with scientists at 21st Century Medicine in Rancho Cucamonga, CA. He obtained the M22 fixative to repeat his M22 brain vitrification experiments and obtain electron microscopy images of the vitrified brain. Dr. Sheleg also worked with Dr. Stephen Coons (Barrow Neurological Institute, Phoenix, AZ) on a manuscript dealing with morphological changes in neurons during prolonged brain normothermic anoxia. [TJ, SSH]
Training Dates: Florida & Texas
Florida: July 22 & 23 at Suspended Animation Inc in Boynton Beach
Texas: September 23 & 24 at the home of an Alcor member in Austin
The Saturday training session will be from 8am-5pm on the above weekends. The Sunday training will be a half-day session followed by a Sunday evening party for local members and supporters who have sent an RSVP. Announcements with exact times and locations will be sent separately.
Alcor training sessions are given throughout the year in a variety of locations for the purpose of training individuals to perform cryopreservation stabilization and transport procedures. Following training, you will become a member of the Regional Transport Team in your area and may be contacted if an Alcor member needs help.
Training sessions are attended by one or more Alcor personnel and offer an introduction to biohazard and safety protocols, advanced airway management, cardiopulmonary support and blood washout procedures. Training also includes introductions to negotiating with medical personnel, families and medical examiners or coroners.
Local medical professionals and members of Alcor or other cryonics organizations are eligible to attend. There is no charge for attendance but each person is responsible for their own travel and hotel expenses.
Please email Michelle Fry () if you would like to attend either to become certified or just to observe. [JC]
Liquid Nitrogen Sensors
General maintenance has been performed on the liquid nitrogen level sensors on all patient care dewars. [SVS]
Marketing & Media
Tanya Jones and David Pizer were interviewed for an article published on the front page of the Tuesday, July 4th issue of the Scottsdale Tribune. The article offered general information about cryonics and Alcor. [JC]
See July 3 entry for recent news coverage about Alcor.
800 Members Strong
On June 30, 2006, Alcor had 800 members on its Emergency Responsibility List. Six memberships were approved during this month, no memberships were reinstated, one membership was cancelled and no members were cryopreserved. Overall, there was a net gain of five members this month. Join Alcor in celebrating this milestone. [DC]
Cryonics Magazine
Do you have an idea for Cryonics magazine? Are you interested in publishing an advertisement? Contact the editor:
Next Board Meeting
The next Board meeting is scheduled for Saturday, August 5, 2006, at 11:00 AM (MST). Board meetings are typically held on the first Saturday of the month at the Alcor facility (7895 East Acoma Drive in Scottsdale, AZ). Members and the public are encouraged to attend.
Employment Opportunities
Have you ever thought about joining the Alcor team? We have opportunities for licensed Paramedics, Emergency Medical Technicians, Registered Nurses, Lab Technicians and more to join our nationwide Transport Team. Participation is on a contractual basis. You’ll be given cryonics training enabling you to participate in our patient rescue and transport cases. Licensed professionals do not have to be Alcor members to join our team. We welcome your expertise and interest. Send your resume to:
Alcor United
Alcor members have a new forum where they can meet and chat with other members. Get to know other cryonics supporters in your area and around the world by visiting Alcor United (www.alcorunited.org).
