NEWS & VIEWS
Cryonics Institute Presidents Report
This being the first copy of
THE IMMORTALIST for 2005 I think it is fitting to remind Members to read or re-read the page that we print in every issue of this magazine: "Points and Policies CI Members Should Remember" -- located in the center of the magazine. Every CI Member would be well advised to read that page at least once per year for the sake of his or her own survival.At the beginning of November CI received the mother of French cryonicist Yvan Bozzonetti as our 68th patient. Yvan was featured in the May-June 2003 issue of
THE IMMORTALIST. Yvan had been informed by his funeral director that cryonics is illegal in France and that ice is "strictly forbidden". So the ice that Yvan had packed around his mother's head was removed and she was stored at refrigerator temperature by the funeral director.After a 3-day struggle with French authorities his mother was released to the British funeral director Barry Albin, who transported her to the UK where she was perfused before shipment to Michigan. Yvan feels that the 3-day ischemia at refrigerator temperature suffered by his mother only gives her a "very slim chance", but feels that it is still a chance that should be taken.
We are prepared to begin using Dr. Pichugin's vitrification procedure on the next appropriate cryonics case involving a CI Member living in the United States. We were prepared to use it for a recent case in Michigan, but family and financial circumstances resulted in no cryopreservation being performed.
Dr. Pichugin is currently evaluating organ preservation solutions to see which provides the best preservation of brain tissue. A local funeral director would use this solution for blood replacement so
Michigan for perfusion with vitrification solution. The procedure is more complicated than we would attempt elsewhere. Unfortunately, it appears to have been more complicated than we can even implement in Michigan in the ideal manner. Dr. Pichugin had developed a detergent to facilitate perfusion across the blood- brain barrier, but use of the detergent requires clamping of the external carotid to prevent edema of the head and face. The external carotid may be too high above the jawbone to readily access and clamp. The brain should still perfuse, but not as rapidly and efficiently as we would have liked.
On Saturday, December 4, 2004 -- the 86th birthday of Robert Ettinger-- the HSSV-2 cryostat was taken out of service when we moved Mr. Ettinger's mother and first wife to one of our newer HSSV-6 cryostats. The HSSV-2 has been in service since April 24, 1988, and was the oldest cryostat in use until December 4th.
The efficiency of the unit was far less than that of the newest ones in terms of liquid nitrogen boil-off per patient. And it required frequent pumping to get enough of a vacuum to keep liquid nitrogen use to a low multiple of that seen in the newer units. The filter would have required replacement so we decided it was time to retire the old workhorse.
Mr. Ettinger attended to watch the operation. We have two new HSSV-6 cryostats, and the two women were placed in one of them. This issue should contain a membership report based on the chronology of joining. It also contains a patient chronology and bequest chronology. The latter raises the issue of the extent to which growth of the Cryonics Institute causes our Members to feel less like Members and more like consumers.
I have been hoping to encourage more involvement by Members, in part through the CI e-mail forum. I hope that Members who do not join will send an email message to CIHQ@aol.com requesting to be added. We have been able to keep our costs low in part because of the work of volunteers.
To repeat my refrain, we are building our own lifeboats to survive. Cryonics can only work if we *make* it work. The quality of your own cryopreservation will crucially depend upon help or hindrance by your own family or others, upon the circumstances of your deanimation (some of which you can influence) and upon the strength of your cryonics organization.
Ben Best