Cryonics Institute President’s Report

Michael Backs and Robert Ettinger during a break at the 2004 annual meeting.
Rear: Royse Brown and Pat Heller.
Photo by Jack Nixon.

This issue of THE IMMORTALIST is to be mailed to every Member of the Cryonics Institute (one per household). From May of this year THE IMMORTALIST has been being sent (only) to every CI Member living in the USA (one per household) because it costs more than ten times as much to send by bulk mail than to mail overseas. The policy of sending THE IMMORTALIST to all Members everywhere (one per household) will continue until the end of 2005, at which time the policy will be reviewed.

Members who have paid for a subscription are asked to unconditionally donate the money to save us all headaches, but refunds will be given to those who insist. Non-Member subscribers, however, must continue to pay for subscriptions to receive the magazine.

Forty people attended the CI Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Sunday, September 19th. As has become an informal tradition, those who arrived on Saturday were welcome to attend a dinner at a restaurant. The meeting proceeded rather quickly and efficiently through a series of reports. Although some contentious issues arose, arguing was brief and without acrimony. The only item of new business was Connie Ettinger's suggestion of the Vial of Life, which will be described in THE IMMORTALIST soon.

The CI AGM finished early enough that we were able to have The Immortalist Society AGM before the buffet dinner and social. Tours were given of the

facility and many enjoyed the opportunity to meet with Directors, Officers and other Members -- asking questions, making suggestions and chatting about subjects of mutual interest.

Formerly Voting Members of CI were those who had paid voting membership dues. Few Members paid these dues and the ones who did were typically those who could attend meetings in person. Under the new policy, however, voting dues are abolished and a Voting Member is one who is over 18, is fully funded and has executed the Cryonic Suspension Agreement. There are about 150 Voting Members of which one-third are required to provide a quorum. For this reason our AGM was mainly a Directors' meeting and we mailed-out proxies to affirm the election of the new Directors. About seventy proxies have been received,

affirming the Directors' election. The proxies also changed the Bylaws so CI could act as a trustee for the insurance trusts of our UK Members.

We are hoping to be able to implement a vitrification procedure soon, at no additional cost to our Members. Because the surgery and perfusion will be more difficult and because of cooling requirements, we expect to only be implementing vitrification at our funeral director's facility here in Michigan.

Every effort will be made to wash-out patients and perfuse them with organ preservation solution before shipping them to Michigan for final vitrification perfusion. Patients for whom this procedure is not feasible (including those living outside the United State) will continue to be perfused with glycerol.

The American Cryonics Society has cryopreserved a Florida man who died of cancer using the services of the Florida cryopreservation research firm S-A. The man has become the 67th patient at the Cryonics Institute through a storage agreement with ACS. Although the man was under the care of nurses in his home, no one was expecting the deanimation to come so quickly -- not S-A, the doctors and certainly not the man himself, who was quite lucid before his sudden deterioration. Nurses gave CPR, applied ice and called S-A, which was soon on the scene.

S-A was expecting this man to deanimate about a year ago, but he recovered. Again, just before hurricane Ivan they prepared for his deanimation, but he recovered again. They had begun to prepare two weeks ago, but it had appeared that history was repeating itself yet again. It didn't. When the man had a sudden cardiac arrest on Saturday, October 23rd S-A was immediately notified and immediately responded.

Ben Best

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As of 18-September-2004 the Cryonics Institute has 464 Members. One is "lost", but she is recently lost and we are making attempts to find her (so she is included in the count).

The 464 Members may be classified as follows:

Option One ...350
Option Two ..114

Male......339
Female..125

Cryopreservation..........181
non-Cryopreservation..283

The definition of "Member" for CI means having paid the Option One dues of $1,250 (less if joining as a family) or being paid-up for Option Two at the rate of $120 per year. Cryopreservation Members are those who have executed the Cryonic Suspension Agreement
and are fully funded.

Voting.........146
non-Voting..318

To qualify to be a Voting Member of CI a person must be over 18 years of age, have executed the Cryonic Suspension Agreement and be fully funded. Additionally, the Member must either be an Option One Member or have been an Option Two Member for at least 3 years. Only Voting Members can be Directors
or Officers.

USA….....346
non-USA..118
Of the 118 non-USA Members, 81 are from Europe, 21 from Asia/Pacific and 16 from the Americas. An exact breakdown is:

United Kingdom…...45
Australia...................19
Canada.....................14
Germany...................9
Netherlands…….......9
Spain.........................4
Sweden......................3
Belgium.....................2
Austria.......................1
Chile..........................1
Denmark....................1
France........................1
Greece.......................1
Italy...........................1
Japan.........................1
Malta.........................1
Mexico......................1
New Zealand…….....1
Russia........................1
Switzerland…….......1
Ukraine.....................1

The 346 CI Members living in the USA are in the following States (or military):

California.............44
Florida..................36
Michigan..............31
New York….........31
Texas....................27
Colorado...............15
Kentucky..............14
Arizona.................12
Illinois...................11
Washington...........10

Pennsylvania……..9
Georgia..................8
North Carolina…...7
Massachusetts…....7
Indiana...................6
Maine.....................6
New Jersey............6
Alaska....................5
Maryland...............5
New Hampshire....4
Ohio......................4
Virginia.................4
Wisconsin.............4
Iowa......................3
Missouri................3
Montana................3
Nevada..................3
Connecticut...........2
Hawaii..................2
Kansas..................2
Louisiana..............2
Minnesota.............2
New Mexico.........2
Oregon..................2
Alabama...............1
Idaho......................1
Oklahoma..............1
South Carolina…...1
Tennessee..............1
Utah.......................1
West Virginia…....1
Wyoming...............1

We also have 4 CI Members in the US military who are not classified as being in any particular states. We have no CI Members in 7 States: Arkansas, Delaware, Mississippi, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota or Vermont -- nor is there a CI Member living in the District of Columbia (DC).

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David Flude reports that to the best of his knowledge, Scotland now has it's first CI Member. In September Bill Reeves drove 600 miles down from Glasgow to Eastbourne on the South Coast of England.

David & May Flude had met Bill about 5 years ago & now they were helping him complete his CI Suspension Contract in front of their friendly local Public Notary. There was a last minute panic when the Notary demanded to see PassportDriving License plus a Utility Bill.

This is a new Anti Money Laundering requirement so new UK members should make sure they have all the necessary new documents. Fortunately all was OK. This particular Notary has now Notarized CI documents on about 10 occasions. Finally Bill took out a separate Contract with CI's London Funeral Director & Representative Albin & Sons. Bill Reeves has led a very interesting life. He was a Flight Engineer on board the Royal Navy's flagship Aircraft Carrier H.M.S. Victorious in the 1960's. During his 9 years in the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm he visited the Far East including Tokyo, Hong Kong & Singapore (where he remembers the local "Tiger Beer" fondly!) Now retired, Bill is an accomplished artist & he has a personal letter of thanks from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for an oil painting he did of her. Bill lives in Glasgow just a stone's throw away from Sauchiehall Street, the birthplace of comedian Billy Connolly and he enjoys Connolly's humour. Bill also likes getting out of the city and visiting the Scottish countryside.

While visiting David & May Flude the photos were taken at the Sovereign Yachting Harbour, Eastbourne-an appropriate photo shoot for a Navy man.

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The Life Extension Foundation, (LEF) has contributed $5000 to The Immortality Institute. (No connection to The Immortalist Society) The money will go towards covering some of the expenses in making a film about life extension. A ten minute clip of the film can be viewed at: www.Imminst.org/film/exploring.wmv LEF is also giving $25K to Rob Freitas towards his continued work on a multi-volume book on Nanomedicine.  Alcor has also authorized a $25K donation to Freitas for this purpose.

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Stanley Keoskie, age 69 passed away on October 23, 2004 after a lengthy battle with metastatic lung cancer. Stan’s great loves were his business, sports, and playing poker. His true passion was the New York Yankees. He was a devoted Yankees fan for over fifty years. He is survived by his son, Jeffrey Keoskie, daughter, Jodi Pardue (Kirk), daughter K.C. Keoskie, wife Glenna Keoskie, grandsons, Bryan and Austin Keoskie, granddaughters, Leah and Brooke Par due, stepfather, Irving Tuman (Marion), stepdaughter, Gwyn McCluske (Michael) and stepson, Justin McCluske.

Dad, Always remember how special you are to us. You touched so many people’s lives with your gentleness, kindness and sense of humor. We were always so proud to call you "Dad."

Love, Jeff and Jodi

On Saturday, October 23, 2004, a member of the American Cryonics Society

("ACS"), who lived in south Florida, was pronounced legally dead and was suspended by S-A of Boca Raton Florida.  We don’t have full details of the suspension at this time but our preliminary report indicates that the suspension went well.  The member, a man of late middle age, was a cancer victim. He been ailing for some time, but for the last several months his condition seemed to be stable until he took a sudden turn for the worse and was admitted to a nearby hospital, for observation, though medical personnel did not then consider his condition as life threatening. This diagnosis obviously proved wrong. Apparently, a nurse at the hospital initiated CPR, which was maintained until the team from S-A. arrived and took over the CPR and cryonic preparations. The patient is now at the CI facility in Michigan, being cooled by liquid nitrogen vapors in preparation to his being placed into a cryostat. He was flown from Florida packed in dry ice. 

The patient, who had been a member of ACS for over ten years, is a participant in the ACS/CI suspension program and as such is a full member of both ACS and CI and entitled to all membership benefits of both organizations. His suspension planning, included making his suspension arrangements an integral part of overall estate plans, and employing the services of an attorney who specializes in estate planning and probate. He is fortunate in having good family support for his decision to be suspended.

This is the first ACS member to benefit from our contract with S-A.. Under this agreement the patient benefits from on-site Standby, thumper support (if circumstances warrant), washout, profusion with cryoprotective solution, and rapid cool-down. Long term cryogenic storage is then the responsibility of CI. ACS exercises over-all authority over the patient during all phases and "controls the purse strings".

Our thanks to all the folks at S-A for their good work, and for their "people skills" in meeting with family and medical personnel, and for their continued monitoring of the condition of our member. Thanks to Andy Zawacki of CI for his diligence and attention to detail to coordinate the receipt of our frozen member, and for his care in perfecting cool-down from dry ice to liquid nitrogen. We are also grateful to Dave Shumaker, former President of S-A for his work to make the company a reality, and for working with Edgar Swank and me to put our contract in place.

We look forward to working with S-A especially for servicing members in Florida. ACS members outside the South Florida area can benefit as well. S-A has a traveling team and mobile suspension equipment that can be flown anywhere in the US and set up at an ailing patient’s bedside for swift response. ACS has a second set of emergency response equipment packed in travel containers and stationed in California in the event that it is necessary to respond to two emergency situations simultaneously.

Jim Yount