> CryoSummit

by David Pascal

Two events of landmark importance in the history of cryonics took place recently.

The first, the reported suspension of Ted Williams, was covered by every major news organization and broadcast round the world.

The second, and perhaps more far-reaching and significant, took place as delegates from each major cryonics organization met together officially in a quiet Michigan suburb, to discuss the future of the cryonics industry and the cryonics movement. The meeting was called the CryoSummit.

Present were John Besancon (Cryonics Institute, Director), Ben Best (CI, also representing the Cryonics Society of Canada), Robert Ettinger (CI, President), David Ettinger (CI, in attendence via teleconferencing), Hugh Hart (CI), Bill Haworth (attending with Alcor), David Hayes (Suspended Animation Inc., COO and CFO), Pat Heller (CI Director), Hugh Hixon (Alcor, Senior Board Member and Facilities Engineer), Joseph Kowalsky (CI Vice President and Director), Dr. Jerry Lemler (Alcor, President and CEO), Judy Muhlestein (Alcor, Advisory Board Member), Dr. Robert Newport (Alcor, Medical Advisory Board Member), David Pascal (CI), Dr. Yuri Pichugin (CI, Director of Research), York Porter (CI, also representing the Immortalist Society ), Michael Riskin (Alcor, Director and Chairman), Nolan Shaw (CI), David Shumaker (SA, President and CEO), Edgar Swank (ACS, President), Jim Yount (ACS, COO), and Andy Zawacki (CI, Facilities Manager).

The meeting began Friday evening on August the twenty-third, shortly after the seating of the delegates. Relations between organizations have in the past been somewhat strained, and concerns had been expressed that the conference might not prove substantive. Those concerns evaporated nearly at once, as Suspended Animation President David Shumaker began with an update on developments at SA, the newest, Florida-based, cryonics suspension services provider.

SA aims to provide the most advanced and least damaging suspensions possible, and it is unique in that it intends to offer only that service. Subsequent storage of the patient has to be separately provided by firms other than SA.

SA's ability to provide the high level of care had come under question in the wake of Mike Darwin's departure from SA, but they were put to rest by David Shumaker and David Hayes, both of whom spoke forcefully of SA's solid funding, its remaining surgically trained personnel, and its increasing actual-case experience, as Schumaker and Hayes confirmed that SA personnel had worked with Alcor on recent suspensions.

Does SA still plan to provide suspension services to all cryonics providers? Yes, replied Shumaker. At what point? It should be possible to perform suspensions at SA facilities in approximately six months, was the answer, and traveling team capability should be available in nine. Darwin's departure was not expected to impact negatively on the quality of SA's service, nor to hold up that service's availability.

Mr. Shumaker and Mr. Hayes then set the tone for the rest of the evening by going on to speak of the problems still facing SA -- problems shared in many respects by all cryonics providers.

Raising the quality level of suspensions involving vitrification was producing an expanding ripple of expense and complexity, Shumaker observed. He spoke of the cost impact of perfusate alone, estimating it in the $20,000 range for single whole-body patients, and of the difficult-to-contain costs of standby team arrangements.

Whole-body vitrification, earlier estimated at a cost of $40,000 might perhaps ultimately lie in the $100,000 range, and the applicability of quality vitrification to postmortem or 'bad' cases was a difficult issue. Can one meaningfully vitrify a patient who has been autopsied, or whose blood has already long coagulated?

Shumaker's and Hayes' comments, in their directness and honesty, set a model for the rest of the talks as ACS, Alcor, and CI delegates revealed both the advances and problems facing each of their respective organizations.

And what emerged? A common awareness of similar challenges, and of the possibility that mutually supportive efforts could help solve them.

CI President Robert Ettinger began the second phase of the evening's talks by initiating what he said he hoped would become a new practice among cryonics organizations of sharing more information.

CI, the only cryonics organization with its own laboratory and with a Ph.D.-level cryobiologist serving as Director of Research, already has a policy of making its research results public. But Ettinger went beyond that, revealing indications of a possible abandonment of the long-held anti-cryonics stance by the Society of Cryobiology, under pressure both of European cryobiologists unhappy with the Society's restriction on free speech, and of the number of highly-regarded cryobiologists already supporting and working in cryonics-related research.

Ettinger also mentioned a possible breakthrough in cooling technology by a private company known as Supachill, Inc. (www.supachillusa.com).

The fact that social and technological change was rapidly increasing was conceded by all delegates, and Alcor's Dr. Robert Newport pointed out that a way was needed to assure high standards and quality patient care.

A consensus soon emerged that the way to ensure competence and quality care in cryonics providers was to create a formal association that could define such criteria and accredit the organizations providing them.

Dr. Newport expressed a willingness to develop an outline for such an initiative. The delegates then asked Dr. Newport to serve as Chair of a committee to form such an organization. He agreed.

David Ettinger, the attorney and son of CI President Robert Ettinger, and CI's legal advisor, was named CI delegate to the committee.

The second day's discussion began with the introduction of Alcor's Judy Muhlestein, who provided a much-needed feminine perspective to the previously all-male event, and soon settled to the job of further fleshing out the still-rough concept of a monitoring and accrediting organization, tentatively called IACO (International Association of Cryonics Organizations).

The formal talks led to a fruitful series of informal agreements and understandings, spearheaded by Alcor's charismatic new President, Dr. Jerry Lemler, and Alcor Director Michael Riskin.

While it was conceded that a certain mild competitiveness was natural and unavoidable between organizations, the common commitment of each cryonics organization to all cryonics patients was reaffirmed.

Though there does not seem even a remote possibility of any of the cryonics organization facing collapse, the memory of Chatsworth remains vivid, and Robert Ettinger and Jerry Lemler stated flatly that each organization would do whatever was legally possible to prevent the other's patients from being thawed in the event of a catastrophic event or business.

The notion of organizational insurance, possibly via the IACO, was floated, but though precise details remain to be worked out, Ettinger and Lemler affirmed that each organization regarded itself as ethically bound to shelter each other's patients in a crisis

The trend of informal, but substantive, cooperation persisted. In response to questions about Alcor procedures, Alcor President Jerry Lemler invited CI personnel to visit Alcor and observe coming Alcor suspensions directly.

CI President Robert Ettinger responded in kind, inviting Alcor to observe CI suspensions as well.

Certain conditions were of course stipulated -- at any such attendance, the complete confidentiality of the patient would be maintained, and those observing would not interfere with the procedure in any way.

Also, attendance would not be mandatory, since circumstances would obviously be a factor in any such case. For instance, if a patient died in a remote location halfway around the globe, or required attending to immediately, care would obviously not be held up.

But, given sufficient time and workable circumstances, it was agreed that each organization would notify the other of suspensions and that observers would be welcome.

In response to a question from CSC President Ben Best about local groups and the difficulty of their achieving a high level of preparedness, Dr. Lemler also said he had no problem with Alcor allowing members of any cryonics group to undergo Alcor CryoTransport Technician Training.

Dr. Lemler went on to say that -- personally -- he saw no objection to 'unbundling' Alcor's suspension services as such, which would allow a patient to arrange to undergo physical preparation for suspension at an Alcor facility, and be stored at another provider, or vice versa. He cautioned that any such agreement would have to be agreed to by the Alcor Board of Directors.

The middle of the second day's proceedings was marked by a visit to the Cryonics Institute Research Lab facilities.

Though no cruel or painful measures are used on animals in the course of CI research there, to avoid even the possibility of opposition by animal rights groups and in the interests of furthering patient protection, the CI Lab is in a separate facility over a mile away from the main patient-holding facility. So, after a brief ride, the delegates arrived, and Dr. Yuri Pichugin gave a brief tour and description of his laboratory and his work.

Dr. Pichugin's talk and demonstration were later followed by a report from the Doctor about his recent trip to Russia.

CI had hoped to be able to find qualified individuals and institutions in the former Soviet Union to conduct research more affordably, possibly in conjunction with Alcor or other interested American organizations.

With regret, Dr. Pichugin reported that his investigations had not been fruitful. The cryobiological institutes of the former Soviet Union had been all but deserted, he said, as qualified scientists left the shattered economy for better-paying positions in Europe and America.

He conceded that there might yet be a few qualified people in private organizations; but the former governmental institutions, once the largest in the world, were now, in his judgment, simply unable to do competent and reliable work.

The cloud was not without a silver lining. Dr. Pichugin reported that he had been in communication with the head of a well-funded 300-man legal firm in Moscow. The organization's leader, a Mr. Mikhail Batin, expressed to Dr. Pichugin his decision to form a Russian cryonics organization providing cryonics services -- the first such on European soil.

Batin provided Dr. Pichugin with a rough proposal according to which CI would supply instructions, supplies, and assistance, and eventually storage for future Russian cryonics patients. The suitably instructed Russian provider, tentatively called the Institute for Biomedical Technologies, would perform suspensions on Russian soil and then transfer the patient to CI in the United States for long-term care.

Dr. Pichugin also gave a brief but tantalizing outline of his coming research plans. His initial focus on joining CI had been to properly set up the CI research laboratory and then to do a comprehensive review and upgrade of CI suspension procedures. But beginning in September, Doctor Pichugin hopes to explore what he called a 'new paradigm' in vitrification technology. Expanding on his work at the Institute for Neural Cryobiology, Pichugin spoke of the tremendous problem of instability in vitrification as currently performed, and outlined a new method of producing vitrification utilizing slower cooling that would avoid the problem, leading to both better results and greater ease and effectiveness of application.

The discussion next moved from technical questions to social ones as Washington lobbyist Bill Haworth of Integrated Strategies made an extended and compelling case for greater cryonics advocacy on Capitol Hill.

It was revealed that highly placed sources in the Capitol had confirmed that government intervention into the cryonics industry had been a serious possibility in the wake of the Ted Williams incident. Justice Department officials had been considering a proposal to investigate current cryonics services providers -- an investigation which, in potential legal costs to the organizations and in terms of federally mandated restrictions, could have devastating effects.

Some at the table felt that the best solution to the possibility of federal investigation might simply be to have cryonics providers operate with such openness and high standards that investigation would find nothing negative to reveal, and that any lobbying effort might itself draw unwelcome attention from the government.

Others responded that the days of cryonics being ignored had irrevocably passed, and that the continuing high media profile given to cryonics and cryonics providers by television, the press, and the web, could only continue and grow.

Such attention would inevitably invite eventual government scrutiny.

Interestingly, some members of the Congress and Senate -- Ted Kennedy was mentioned -- were said to seem entirely comfortable and even friendly to the idea of cryonics, and had no desire to see it disturbed or regulated, much less prohibited.

But a number of delegates felt that the specter of cryonics being bracketed -- and targeted -- alongside cloning and stem cell research by the religious right was a genuine, and dreadful, possibility.

CI President Robert Ettinger expressed a more moderate and hopeful view, mentioning the significant number of actively religious members in cryonics and in the Cryonics Institute.

Ettinger also pointed out the assistance given to CI in actual suspension cases by Catholic priests, as well as to formal Catholic opposition to the destruction of frozen embryos.

The idea was floated that perhaps the best way to deal with religious opposition to cryonics was to point out the congruence between cryonics and at least parts of the religious right and the general pro-life agenda.

Delegates learned, for example, that the Washington lobbyist for the Foresight Institute was none other than Newt Gingrich. Newt was not as yet explicitly placing the Foresight Institute's pro-cryonics position on his Washington agenda, so far as anyone at the CryoSummit knew, but clearly the relation between religion and cryonics and the right were more complex than the usual simple picture of opposition seemed to allow.

It was also pointed out that possibly the time was at hand both for uncontrolled anti-religious rhetoric to be played down, and for religious cryonicists to come out of the closet, as it were, and more actively argue and symbolize the compatibility between religion and cryonics.

SA's David Hayes concurred, pointing out the negative effects of presenting cryonics as 'immortalism', a phrase with an ideological flavor, and the advantages of presenting cryonics simply as a common sense, commonplace, life-saving medical intervention.

CI's legal advisor David Ettinger, present through the use of telephone conferencing equipment, brought the discussion around again to more concrete issues by discussing the actual costs and benefits of joint sponsorship of a lobbyist by all cryonics organizations, to serve as monitor and advocate for the cryonics movement on Capitol Hill.

To this end, Bill Haworth was asked to draft a detailed proposal and present it to the Directors of the respective organizations.

The danger of possible government investigation and regulation turned the discussion again to the need for an inter-organizational body to define and apply standards. All agreed that it was better for cryonics organizations to clean up their own act than that to leave it to the government to do it.

And all agreed as well that for better or for worse – perhaps for both -- the ever-increasing attention directed to cryonics providers by journalists, the public, and the government, will be a constant factor in cryonics from now on.

With that in mind, Robert Newport presented delegates with a three-page draft list of the possible duties and activities of the proposed new organization, and the day ended in a reaffirmation of the benefits and the necessity of cryonics organizations setting and keeping to agreed-upon high standards.

Day Three of the conference began with a technical discussion led by Robert Ettinger regarding 21CM solutions. It was learned that the next generation of 21CM solutions would be available sometime next year, along with a detailed protocol for its use. Also, it was revealed that a prominent cryobiologist's treatment of kidney cells has gotten remarkably similar results when applied to brain cells, a positive outcome that was not considered to be inevitable.

Next, a discussion of revisions to the CI and Alcor web sites was led by Alcor's Michael Riskin.

Robert Ettinger then explored the idea of all the organizations having a 'Shared Board of Advisors'. This would allow members of all organizations to be kept up-to-date on developments at each, and allow each organization to benefit from advice available to all.

(Private or organization-only or Board-only discussions would not discouraged or abandoned, of course.)

Dr. Jerry Lemler urged that CI give greater consideration to moving from its traditionally largely volunteer base to a more professional-style, salaried basis, and CI noted that such process had in fact been taking place.

Dr. Lemler also asked Robert Ettinger about the direction of CI under Mr. Ettinger's as-yet-unnamed successor. Mr. Ettinger responded that, while he appreciated the praise regarding his leadership of CI to date, the organization is by no means lacking in general talent or ability. His projected departure from the Presidency next year would leave the remainder of the organization and its management in place, so radical changes in policy were not likely.

Ettinger added that he might well remain on as a Director, insuring continuity there as well.

Finally a review of the agenda items to date was made, and a brief summation given of the informal agreements reached and the steps to be taken next.

In brief:

1. The major current cryonics organizations agreed to establish an organization to set the criteria and standards for all cryonics organizations. Dr. Robert Newport of Alcor was appointed as Chair, and David Ettinger of CI was named the CI delegate.

2. In the interests of openness and mutual education, all organizations agreed to allow and encourage ongoing mutual visits and contacts between one another. Specifically, a second CryoSummit was proposed. June 6, 2003, was the date suggested by Dr. Jerry Lemler, in honor of the publication date of Robert Ettinger's seminal book, 'The Prospect Of Immortality'.

3. Where practically feasible, Alcor agreed to allow selected CI personnel to attend upcoming patient suspensions as observers, and CI agreed to allow Alcor personnel to do the same at CI patient suspensions.

4. SA affirmed that it would be ready to perform state-of-the-art vitrification suspensions at its Florida facilities within six months, and would have a traveling team ready and in place within nine months.

5. All organizations agreed to receive and review Bill Haworth’s draft regarding possibly hiring a Washington lobbyist to monitor political developments relating to cryonics, and to serve as a Capitol Hill advocate for the industry.

6. ACS, Alcor, and CI all agreed to further help assist local groups in terms of training, equipment, and preparedness. CI has already donated equipment and standby training manual materials, ACS announced a willingness to provide a suspension kit in appropriate cases, and Dr. Jerry Lemler agreed that Alcor would allow local group members to be trained in Alcor CryoTransport Technician procedures.

7. All organizations affirmed an increased willingness to share information, and CI and Alcor agreed to use feedback from one another in making changes in their respective web sites, to assure greater and/or more accurate online coverage.

8. CI reaffirmed its readiness to 'unbundle' its services -- that is, to provide patient preparation and patient storage as separate services as well as combined ones.

Alcor President Dr. Jerry Lemler affirmed his personal commitment to a similar policy for Alcor, although approval by the Alcor Board of Directors would be necessary for any definite policy change.

SA reaffirmed its willingness to provide state-of-the-art vitrification or glycerol suspensions for all interested members among the current providers.

9. All organizations agreed to look further into the possibility of utilizing a shared Board of Advisors, to facilitate better updates and communication between organizations, and to make better general use of the pool of intellectual resources currently available.

10. CI and Alcor reaffirmed their commitment to the safety of all existing cryonics patients, whatever their provider, and also reaffirmed their willingness to take over caring for one another's patients in the event of catastrophic business failure.

If separateness and tribalism are a hallmark of social infancy, then the meeting at Clinton Township of all the major cryonics organizations may have marked the passage of cryonics to a new level of maturity. Talks are one thing, implementation another, and the agreements made at Clinton Township still have a way to go. But one can justifiably feel that every cryonics organization is stronger, and every cryonics patient and member safer, as a result the first CryoSummit.

The delegates may have arrived as friendly competitors; they left as friends. Moreover, as friends who recognized the similarity of their goals and hopes, of their problems and aspirations. The implications of that recognition, in terms of an increased sharing of knowledge and ideas, a greater cooperation, and improved and ongoing teamwork, may prove to have as significant an impact on cryonics as the developments in scientific research and public awareness.

For in coming together, the delegates at the CryoSummit, and the entire cryonics movement, moved forward; and moved significantly closer to our goal.