NEWS & VIEWS

President's Report

As readers can see, this issue of the Immortalist honors the late (and also, we hope, early) Hugh Hart who left most of his estate to the Cryonics Institute. Although Hugh was cryopreserved over a year ago, his estate was mostly in speculative stock, and its value has varied spectacularly during the period during which it was clearing probate. Hugh was devoted not only to his own cryopreservation, but to the "cryonics movement" and the potential opportunity of a greatly extended lifespan for all who seek it through cryonics. We honor Hugh for his idealism (our idealism) as he has honored us.

We have received most of the CI Member information update sheets that we mailed out to all CI Members. Unfortunately, too many of our Members have not chosen to join our Cryonics_Institute email list. This list provides a great opportunity for rapid feedback between CI Members and CI Management. Please send an email message to CIHQ@aol.com and ask for an invitation to join the list if you are a CI Member and are not yet on the list. CI management mostly operates by email supplemented by phone calls and the occasional conference call. On February 22nd ten CI Directors and Advisors met in person at the CI facility to discuss and decideupon investment strategies. All strategies were conservative, but have good prospects for high yield. I hope to have such midyear (approximately six months from the Annual General Meetings in September) annually in the future and with a more general focus than just investment issues.

I am pleased to announce that The Immortalist Society (IS) is now able to accept credit card payment Visa, MasterCard and American Express. Payments to IS are mostly for subscriptions to THE IMMORTALIST or for research donations. If you would like to make a donation to cryonics research or have a regular deduction from your credit card for such donations please phone (586) 7915961 and give your credit card number. I am hopeful that CI will be able to offer CI Members the option of using Dr. Pichugin's vitrification solution rather than glycerol for cryoprotectant (antifreeze) perfusion within the next several months. Very favorable results have been seen in rats and in sheep heads. I hope to provide more details in the next issue of THE IMMORTALIST.

In this issue of THE IMMORTALIST a contract is announced between the American Cryonics Society (ACS) and Suspended Animation, Inc (SAI) which provides SAI standby services for ACS Members who want it. Vitrification service from SAI is expected in the near future. CI Members who want standby services from SAI can arrange for those services in addition to (and outside of) their arrangements with CI for cryopreservation.

I have asked that a special page be added to every issue of THE IMMORTALIST to emphasize CI policies of importance. Notably, I am especially concerned about the number of CI Members who fund at the minimums ($28,000 Option One, $35,000 Option Two). The minimums do not cover Funeral Director or shipping services, which can amount to several thousand dollars depending upon how far from Detroit the Member lives. Moreover, minimum funding provides no safety against future eventualities, uncertainties and opportunities.

The February 17, 2004 issue of USA TODAY contains a statement from Michigan Bureau of Commercial Services Director Andrew Metcalf verifying that the SPORTS ILLUSTRATED story about the cryopreservation of baseball star Ted Williams by Alcor was the impetus behind the Cease & Desist Order imposed on the Cryonics Institute which led to our licensure and regulation as a cemetery.

With the lifting of the Cease & Desist Order, cemetery licensure has not compromised CI service to Members and may well provide a sense of security for some.

FLORIDA RESEARCH LAB MOVING ALONG

Governor Jeb Bush, educators and politicians recently broke ground on a temporary facility to house the Scripps Research Institute in South Florida. As we mentioned in the last Immortalist, and reported recently in FLORIDA TODAY, Bush hopes the center will ignite biomedical development in Palm Beach County, and grow to duplicate the huge facility in San Diego, California.

A $12 million, 40,000 square foot lab is being constructed on Florida Atlantic University's Jupiter campus. The building will be used until it's permanent home is built in 2006 on the Institute's 1900 acres. The Institute has hired Charles Weissmann, an internationally known Swiss scientist, and mad cow disease expert to lead it's Florida biotechnology center. The first research teams are expected to arrive this summer.

ARIZONA MOVES TO REGULATE CRYONICS

On March 8th 2004, the Rules committee of the Arizona House of Representatives approved a bill that would regulate the cryonics industry (effectively Alcor) in Arizona. In a message sent to all Alcor members, Joe Waynick, Alcor's CEO/President, explained that the bill is still a work in progress. He also emphasized that when members contact legislators to express their views, they must treat the lawmakers with respect, something that a few members failed to do.

"If you don't feel you can calmly and respectfully state your case, then you should not contact the members of the legislature at all. Alcor once again owes Representative Stump, the bill's sponsor, an apology for the unwarranted actions of a few."

LONG TERM REFRIGERATED STORAGE

Those who are intereested in longterm storage of memorabilia possibly to assist reconstruction of identity in the far future in a secure location might be interested in doing so in a limestone mine under a mountain near Kansas City. I understand the charge is $6 per banker box and that storage for 100 years or more can be arranged at refrigeration temperatures.

Ben Best

Its web site is: http://www.uvsinc.com/index.html

CRYONICS IN THE NEW YORKER?

Yes, it's true! In the January 19th issue, one of the premier magazines in the country carried a fivepage article written by Alec WilkinsonTHE CRYONIC CASTLE. While the piece focuses mainly on Stephen Valentine and the TIMESHIP PROJECT, Bill Faloon and Saul Kent's proposed cryonic storage facility, what's striking is that nowhere is there any mention of "weird or crackpot science" or brains turned into hamburger. Wilkinson describes the proposed building B"and nearly fifty thousand people who have been frozen in the hope that they can be brought back to life in the future."

Just another example that cryonics is slowly creeping into the public consciousness.

Our thanks to Curtis Henderson for giving us a "heads up" on this one.

ACS & SAI SIGN LANDMARK CONTRACT

ACS and SA recently signed a contract that enables ACS members to gain access to the Standby Based Transport and cryosuspension services of SA, using a master ACS contract. SA is a cryosuspension research and services company located in Boca Raton. Florida. The contract gives ACS members the option of having SA perform standby, transport, and suspension services on a subscription basis. The contract also makes provisions for last minute signup with SA. ACS members who do not elect to designate SA to perform these services in advance may still benefit from SA services through an emergency subscription provision initiated through ACS. However, in cases where the member has not opted for SA service prior to a critical situation, SA charges a last minute signup fee and may give normal subscribers first priority.

SA is setting up a fully equipped research and suspension laboratory in South Florida. They provide a "traveling team" with mobile equipment that can be flown to a location anywhere in the US (and in some cases other countries). SA does not use a volunteer system but employs its research personnel to provide both transport and suspension activities. ACS also has mobile equipment, but we prefer to use our equipment and personnel in a backup capacity and intend on calling on SA to provide our primary suspension services. SA will probably charge a yearly fee of about $150 for its ACS subscribing members; this is in addition to the $300 per year ACS dues. This combined dues and fee schedule compares favorably with other fullservice plans. SA already has a 24hour emergency number that ACS members can contact and will establish a regular program of member contract and tracking to ensure they are prepared to quickly react to patient needs. Already one ACS patient is in their monitoring program. Research efforts at SA are focused on preventing, minimizing, and mitigating presuspension ischemic damage and on using vitrification techniques to obtain the best possible cryosuspension on the whole body level. Their longterm goal is reversible whole body vitrification. They are employing the vitrification techniques and biomedical discoveries of the Southern California biotech company 21st Century Medicine (and its associated research companies). One of the founders of SA, Bill Faloon, is also a founder of 21st Century Medicine. Dave Shumaker, President of SA, is an ACS member of long standing

Suspended Animation, Inc. is a wellfinanced company with access to cuttingedge research through its unique relationship with its affiliates. We are pleased to be the first cryonics organization to have a service contract with SA.

Jim Yount

ROBERT ETTINGER'S NEWEST BOOK

Before the end of 2004, I hope to contract for my new book, YOUNIVERSE, with a publisher or agent. All previous philosophers have been failures at best, and sad clowns at worst. Many of them were smarter than I, and some did useful work, but none came within shouting distance of the primary goal of philosophy, which is to provide guidelines for real life, especially life in the face of death.

Times have changed since I sold my previous books, and in order to interest a major publisher, it will help if I can guarantee a significant number of sales, so I make the following request and offer:

Readers are asked to remit $30 to the Cryonics Institute by Visa, Master Card, American Express, PayPal, or check. This will reserve a copy, to be autographed and delivered to you upon publication. Mailing address for the Cryonics Institute is 24355 Sorrentino Court, Clinton Township, MI. 48035.

If I contract with a publisher this year, the Cryonics Institute will turn over the prepayments to the publisher, and author's royalties for all prepaid copies will be donated to the Cryonics Institute.

If I don't find a suitable conventional publisher before the end of the year, we will go to an electronic print on demand system, and publish that way. In any case, your copy is guaranteed.

It will also help if I can get reviews from appropriate people with professional qualifications or name recognition. If any such request it, I will email a copy of the current draft, on his promise to provide a review suitable for publication, reasonably promptly, with permission to use it as I see fit.

There is, of course, no requirement that the review be favorable.

Finally, if you have any interest in this project, you could forward this or mention it to such people or locations as you think useful.

R.C.W. Ettinger

Ettinger@aol.com

THE FIRST 50 PATIENTS

We are currently "processing" our 51st cryonics patient at CI. I am a statistics buff, so recently I created a database of patient information from our patient files and did some "datamining" to see what I could learn.

One observation that standsout is the fact that exactly half (25) of the patients are female and half are male. This contrasts sharply to the fact that only just over one fifth of CI members are female. When a child chooses to cryopreserve a parent, it is usually the mother. When a spouse chooses to cryopreserve a partner, it is usually a husband cryopreserving a wife. The age distribution (at timeof deanimation) of the patients is:

The 28 year old was the victim of an accident of suicidal recklessness and was cryopreserved by a parent. There were two murder victims. The rest died of the usual nonviolent causes heart disease, cancer, infection, etc. The major occupations were:

homemaker	6
teacher	5
professor	3
engineer	3
physician	2

And there was one each of lawyer, dentist, flight attendant, bill collector, garage mechanic, jewellery saleswoman, general laborer, park keeper, etc. Six of the patients are being stored for the American Cryonics Society. Country of deanimation can be classified as:

USA	42
Australia	3
Canada	1
France	1
Germany	1
Norway	1
Undisclosed	1

The number of Australians is striking insofar as they constitute 4% of our members, in contrast to the fact that no patient is from England where we have 10% of our (overseas) members.

FROZEN DEAD GUY DAYS FESTIVAL

This will be the 3rd year for the festival, held in Nederland, Colorado on March 13 and 14. Attendance seems to be growing every year, last year 5000 people attended, twice the attendance the first year. The centrepiece of the celebration is Bredo Morstel who died in 1989, and has been stored in a TUFF shed in Nederland since 1993 under a mountain of dry ice.

The driving force behind the festival is Morstel's grandson Trygve Bauge, a Norwegian who was deported from this country a few years ago after living here for fourteen years without a passport, visa, or green card.

Bauge has been urging CI and Alcor to set up booths at the site. Neither organization appears interested, perhaps because Bauge himself refers to the event as the "Mardi Gras of Cryonics," Or perhaps it's the "Frozen T shirt contest," the "Granpa look alike contest, or the coffin races?"

SUSPENDED ANIMATION REJECTED

Suspended Animation's (SA) building permit is rejected by Boca Raton City Council.

January 13, 2004, brought what seems like another blow to the Cryonics industry. But receiving a negative response from the Boca Raton City Council on their request for a building permit does very little in hampering the Cryonics movement or the company itself. The company continues to be ready with its Remote Transport Service to support members of cryonics organizations anywhere in the world. "We are a global support organization and this is only a small hiccup in the long road to making cryonic suspension services available worldwide." says the company's CEO, David Shumaker. "We've already finished what we needed to do in this facility through the completion of our remote kits. We are currently supporting cryonics members outside of Boca Raton and will continue to do so." He added.

TED WILLIAMS' SON DIES

In the last issue of The Immortalist, Jan.Feb 2004, we reported that the son of baseball great Ted Williams was diagnosed with leukemia, and that the prognosis was "not good." On March 6th FLORIDA TODAY reported that Williams' son died at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. In December he underwent a bone marrow transplant, using a donation from his younger sister, Claudia.

Williams, 35 was at the center of a controversy last year because of his decision to have his father frozen. Ted Williams is believed to have undergone a neuro suspension at Alcor's Arizona facility. Funeral services for John Henry were reported to be "private." At the same time FLORIDA TODAY claimed to have a copy of John Henry's Will, in which he states his desire to have his remains sent to Alcor. This will tend to mute some of the criticism of John Henry from those who claimed he was capitalizing on his father's death for financial gain.

PHILADELPHIA SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION

I had previously mentioned that I would be at the Philadelphia Science Fiction I had no inclination to say more, but a couple of people have asked about the outcome, so I will give a "report". It was not a surprise to me, but my cryonics presentation was sparsely attended 8 people out of just under the thousand or so attending PhilCon. Many of those were already very familiar with cryonics. Perhaps because my expectations were low I was not too disappointed. I do think most people learned a few things.

The Nanotechnology panel was dominated by a fellow who has been a Foresight Institute employee for ten years. In my introduction I mentioned being President of the Cryonics Institute and described relevant sections of ENGINES OF CREATION, while waving a copy. I was able to make a few comments about the Drexler/Smalley debate, but was otherwise not unhappy to be eclipsed by a person who clearly had much more knowledge.

His interests were extremely technical and unrelated to cryonics or nanomedicine.

But being a Foresight employee he was clearly aware that the powersthatbe take an interest in these subjects and he made a single comment which was the verbal equivalent of a polite bow.

I was able to have myself added to the "Suspended Animation, Then What?" panel. Just before the session Lee Gilliland (wife of Alexis Gilliland) "drafted" Keith Lynch to join the panel. One of the other panelists was an Alcor member which left the six panelists apparently evenly divided between pro and anticryonics sentiment although the Alcor member had his share of fears about the future.

The audience (about 20 people) was also divided. It was actually quite a confrontational & lively session pleasantly challenging. One of the other panelists was a professional politician from Washington, DC who seemed to think that cryonics would only populate the future with rich people (ie, social undesirables). He was not moved by my arguments about life insurance, but he was favorably impressed when I mentioned that James Swayze is a paraplegic living on welfare who has been funded through donations. At least one cryonicist in the future will be up to his standards.

Benjamin Franklin is a cultural icon in Philadelphia so I didn't miss the opportunity to describe Franklin's desire to see the future. Frankly, I think that within a month after being reanimated Old Ben would be on the internet writing critical essays about MicroSoft products.

The moderator of the panel, Ian Randal Stock, is the Publisher/Editor of ARTEMIS MAGAZINE.  He presented a steady stream of dystopian visions of the future which I countered with a steady stream of positive visions. At the end of the panel he expressed his displeasure at the lack of imagination about the future. At that point I figuredout what he was up to positive visions of the future amount to a "happily ever after" story which would be fictionally uninteresting. He assured me that he is not anticryonics and in support of this claim he showed me a favorable article Solid State Biology in the Winter 2003 issue of ARTEMIS.

Keith Lynch mentioned that Larry Niven had been in the audience (I hadn't noticed). Over 25 years ago Niven wrote a novel A WORLD OUT OF TIME about cryonicists reanimated in a dystopian future who ultimately triumphed.

This is actually the theme of the only novel I have ever been motivated to write, although my novel would be more of a cryonics propaganda piece. The cryonicists would be treated with contempt by their mortalist masters and there would be lots dialogue involving deathist & antideathist ideology. Naturally, the cryonicists would ultimately triumph through their love of life, passion for survival, longevity and technical ingenuity while winning a few notable hearts, minds & genitals in some torrid romantic & sexual passion. I have abandoned hope of ever writing such a novel I have too many projects with much greater priority but others are welcome to take the idea and run with it

Ben Best

SUSPENDED ANIMATION ANNOUNCEMENT

Through an exclusive agreement with Michigan Instruments, Inc. of Grand Rapids, Michigan Suspended Animation is proud to accept delivery of their first updated Dual Action Thumper. "This Thumper is far superior to the others on the market because it is easier to use, lighter, more transportable, and much more quiet and efficient.

"We've been collaborating with Michigan Instruments for months on this new design and we're happy to be not only the first company to have one but the sole distributor to the cryonics industry for this device. Our engineers have been in discussions and many meetings with Michigan Instruments and we've created the best there is." say's David Shumaker the companies CEO.

This device is designed to be a stand alone unit with a back plate but also adapts itself to attach directly to the Portable Ice Bath used on Transport Services. This means that our Standby Team has far less heavy and cumbersome equipment to manage at a patient's bedside enabling us to provide the best service in the industry.

The unit is approximately 40% lighter than previous models, and almost 80% less noise is created when in use. David Hayes, the companies COO states that "On a Standby there is always the concern of how much equipment we have and how noisy we are going to be once we begin working on the patient.

With this device we will be much less obtrusive to the hospital when we begin our Transport Services." He adds, "It is also one of the few in use that provide not only compression of the chest for blood flow and respiration but also decompression. Something that is vitally important to the proper oxygenation of a patient. It is also one of the few devices on the market with built in intubation respiration at the American Heart Association recommended 5 compression strokes to 1 respiration cycle. The compression piston is adjustable to fit body sizes from children to extra large adults."

This device is marketed through Suspended Animation, Inc. to the Cryonics industry and can be purchased directly from their website. The price is $7000, but Shumaker said if they can give Michigan Instruments an order for ten, they can sell them for $5000.

CSC CHRISTMAS PARTY

I wanted to let everyone know that the Cryonics Society of Canada Christmas party, held at my apartment, was a huge success.

It started at about 4 pm, and the last guests left at 1 am. We had about 23 people come, many of which were newcomers friends of CSC members, and one man who emigrated from India 2 weeks ago, who is a transhumanist, with a serious interest in cryonics. It was standing room only at times through the evening. I think we gained 5 new members to the CSC group last night, which is terrific.

My labours at preparing food weren't in vain, as there was very little left by the end of the evening which was great as I dreaded the prospect of having "leftovers" to contend with that would have likely lasted until the end of January. It took me about 16 hours to prepare everything, but I enjoyed getting the opportunity to throw such a party for this bunch of people. I haven't cooked for anyone in a long time., as I have been on my own since August. (referring to Andrew's departure)

Ben Best brought a treasure trove of books, that were put on display in an adjoining room. I was able to get a hold of about 7 or 8 of them, before the selections got too lean. I'll let Ben report on how many books he was able to sell, if he feels inclined to do so. The remainder will remain stored for him, in my apartment, with the rest of the CSC equipment which has found its new home here too.

Let me try and remember everyone that attended:

Ben Best, Brent Erskine and Irene

Martha Olijnik, Stan Witkowski

Gary Tripp, Rudy Matic, Bob Skakie

Doug Quinn, Adrianna Baranyai

Bruce Waugh, Tony Taylor, Ahsan Rashid, Keith Henson and Arel Allan Randall, and his parents who were visiting from Nova Scotia Dennis the transhumanist from India...sorry I don't know his last name My parents, Jack and Maria Gaspar

and me

If I have forgotten anyone...sorry about that.

I had another agenda too, in that I wanted my parents to meet all of the CSC people, and vice versa. When I started expressing an active interest to them about cryonics, they weren't exactly supportive of the idea. Well, I have been working on them for the past couple of years. I can be very stubborn when I want to be...and I think they are at the point now where they'd like to be suspended too. It was great fun to see my folks partying with the Canadian cryonicists and they really enjoyed it too.

I also got a chance to show everyone the finished copy of the interview I did, for TV, that will be aired on Global TV, on the 1/2 hr science and tech show "TKO" sometime in the new year. I think it was a very positive portrayal of cryonics on the part of the media, albeit a very brief spot on their show (2 minutes tops). It was also my first experience talking about cryonics on TV one which I learned quite a bit from.

I look forward to our next function, and hopefully all of these people will be able to attend, and more too. I did get regrets from several invitees, due to the time of the year when this was held, so potentially, there could have easily been another 5 people there at least...always working on next time though...

I want to thank everyone who came, for their interest, their energy, and for making the evening such a success. The CSC is an incredible organization of people, and this little group of ours is getting bigger and better all the time. I can definitely see that our group cohesion gets stronger all the time We have within us a huge potential to make cryonics great, which will impact everyone, everywhere, at some point in the (near) future.

Christine Gaspar