The Immortalist

Royse Brown continues as Secretary. Joe Kowalsky is now Assistant Secretary, and Pat Heller remains Treasurer. There were four Directors up for re-election, Bob and Connie Ettinger, Pat Heller, and Jack Nixon. All were reelected except Jack Nixon. Jack graciously relinquished his directorship so that Alan Sinclair could be elected to the Board.

This was a measure of gratitude for the effort Alan has put into making the UK group a success. In Immortalist Society business, York Porter was elected President, Robert Ettinger, Vice President, John Besancon and Royse Brown retain their respective positions-Treasurer-Secretary.

In a closed door session, David Ettinger reported to the Board on the status of negotiations with the State of Michigan which claims CI is operating as an unregulated funeral home and cemetery.

"The State of Michigan Department of Consumer and Industry Services has issued orders limiting CI's activities pending its licensure as a cemetery, which the Department claims is required. CI has filed papers indicating that it disagrees, and stating that the orders (which were not issued by a court) have no effect, because the Department has no jurisdiction over CI. Moreover, the orders have no impact on CI's patient care.

"However, CI is hopeful that matters will soon be resolved favorably. The State of Michigan has made clear in its press release that it is not anti-cryonics and believes that CI could continue to operate successfully if licensed as a cemetery."

A while ago some cryonicists wanted to build a cryonics storage building called the "Time Ship." I had suggested it be built in Arizona near where VentureVille is going to be built. The reasons for that are that this is the safest place in the USA for the long term storage of frozen people. Less earthquakes, tornadoes, unrest, blizzards, etc.

When I discussed Arizona with Mr. Valentine, the proposed TimeShip architect, at the conference at Asilomar, he seemed to want to build it in an area where a lot of people would come and see the beautiful building and not in rural Arizona. Someone said he would prefer a place near Disney World in Florida. Of course Florida would be a very dangerous place to store frozen people.

But now something has happened to make central Arizona possibly the best place overall. There are rumours that Six Flags is going to build a giant Disneyland type place six miles from here on the I-17. If this is true, this will make that location, perhaps, the most visited place in the United States.

First of all, its already one of the most travelled because the I-17 connects the I-40 to the I-10. Then its half way between Phoenix and Sedona, Flagstaff, Prescott and Payson. So most of Phoenix travels past the spot once or more each summer. Then Arizona has a lot of tourists from all over the world each year.

It is predicted that if Six Flags goes in, this will be the most visited place in the nation. And yet, one can buy a 40 or 80 (or larger) acre of land a few miles from this for peanuts (that won't last much longer when the word gets out). But right now you can buy 80 acres for a whole lot less than one acre near Disneyworld Florida.

Imagine having an 80 acre campus with storage for the TimeShip in an area where many millions of people from all over the world could drive by it each year and yet it could still be kept secure because of the large piece of land it sits on.

Suspended Animation, Inc. has announced that effective immediately it is available to provide advanced professional Standby Based Transport (SBT) to cryonicists signed up with ACS, Alcor or CI from anywhere in the United States.

Ischemic damage is a major threat to patient resuscitation since it may endanger the very fabric of memory in the brain. Irrespective of the amount of cryopreservation damage done to the patient, if ischemia has already destroyed memory before the patient is cryopreserved, there may be little nano-technology or other future medicine can do to recover it. The goal of SA's SBT is to deliver into the cryosuspension process a patient whose total unmitigated normothermic ischemia time has been held to only a few minutes, and whose overall unmitigated pre-suspension cold ischemia time has been kept to only a few hours.

SA uses a paid professional SBT team consisting of a Ph.D. Cellular Pharmacologist; a surgically skilled Paramedic; a team leader with experience on numerous standby, transport, and recovery activities; and other experienced personnel. All team members have actual recent transport experience and have trained together as a unit.

The team is dispatched from SA's headquarters in Boca Raton, FL by aircraft or local transportation as appropriate and remains with the patient until needed or the crisis is otherwise resolved.

With the team comes SA's air transportable patient support system, the most advanced and complete patient treatment system in the cryonics community. The system consists of SA's portable ice bath; with respiration integrated thumper for optimum cardio-pulmonary support; an advanced anti-ischemia and blood stabilizing pharmacological package; SA's bypass washout, cool down and perfusion system with its integrated temperature, pressure, and flow monitoring equipment and a heat exchanger/ ECMO for cooling and oxygenating blood and washout fluid; a large volume of MHP washout fluid and where appropriate glycerol based cryoprotectant; plus surgical and support kits for all contingencies.

The team acts immediately upon patient pronouncement to administer anti-ischemia medications, apply cardio-pulmonary support (CPS) and initiate external cooling. Normally, medication and CPS are initiated within seconds of pronouncement with cooling beginning within a couple of minutes.

The patient is then quickly transferred to the closest local site suitable for surgery to initiate blood washout with oxygenated and chilled MHP washout fluid, followed by further closed cycle oxygenated cooldown.

Once the patient is washed out and cooled to just above freezing, they are either transported by air ambulance for vitrification or freezing or are immediately perfused with glycerol for dry ice freezing on the way to a custodial facility. In any case, beginning seconds after death the patient is medicated, kept oxygenated, is cooled to just above freezing, may or may not be cryoprotected, and is transported by air ambulance. (Note that this is a nominal description of the process and each case may vary to some degree from the norm.) that SA does not store cryonics patients and persons contemplating using SA for SBT must contract with Alcor or CI (or via ACS with one of the above companies) for long term custodial care.

SA believes ischemic time is the greatest single enemy of successful cryopreservation and professional SBT is the best current means of mitigating it.

CI AND THE BLACKOUT

Mark Plus asks whether the power outage that included much of Michigan could affect Cryonics Institute's operations, and in particular our liquid nitrogen supply.

Obviously a protracted and broad-based power failure could affect just about everything, anywhere. A brief or local power failure, however, is only a minor nuisance.

As to liquid nitrogen, CI has a 3,000 gallon bulk storage tank. If caught half full at time of loss of capability of new deliveries (and we don't let it get lower than this), then the supply would last about three weeks. Meanwhile, of course, we would be looking for outside sources of emergency supply if necessary.

As for the electricity for general purposes at the facility, we have a gasoline generator for emergencies. The alarm system has battery backup, as well as wireless. We have land line phones and cell phones.

Closing of airports can obviously be a problem, and this can happen just from a snow fall. Again, there is usually something that can be done at some price, but there is an unavoidable degree of risk. Risks can always be reduced if you are willing to pay in money or/and inconvenience; it's always a trade-off, and never perfect.

After, Christine Gaspar (President of the Cryonics Society of Canada) led a discussion on cryonics in Canada. Then Ben Best gave an excellent and very relevant talk on ageing and dementia. Ben has researched this area extensively, and written on it - see, for example,
http://www.benbest.com/lifeext/Alzheimer.html .

I led a discussion on the use of a Power of Attorney for Personal Care. I circulated a draft, based on a typical Power used in Toronto, but substantially modified to make clear that its purpose was to maximize a successful cryopreservation. For example, it provided that the person's intent is to be kept alive, including by artificial life support, until otherwise directed by a cryonics team- unless significant brain damage would result.

There are difficulties in clearly defining this, and a number of excellent suggestions were made. In addition, Christine advised that the Power should make it's "do keep alive" very clear, such as by using large, bold font, because the norm is that Powers state the opposite. Christine and I will prepare a new draft and circulate to the group. The group had a good discussion about equipment needs. Christine will chair future meetings of the group, and Brent Erskine will act as secretary. On a personal note, my wife and I will be moving to Sarasota, Florida at the beginning of October- but will return to Toronto on a fairly frequent basis.

Bruce Waugh
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The article that Bruce cited about Alzheimer's Disease is a new one on my website. However the bulk of my talk was concerned with Mechanisms of Ageing. For those who have read my webpage on this subject before, I would recommend a second look because I greatly revised and re-wrote much of it in preparation for the presentation I gave at Bruce's Summer Party:

Bruce has given Summer Parties every year in Toronto for well over a decade. Toronto has an exceptional number of cryonics activists and an exceptional level of organization of those activists.

I believe that Bruce's parties have had a great deal to do with our success. Although he is now becoming a "snow bird" in his move to Florida, he has told us that he intends to continue holding Toronto Summer Parties. Thank you Bruce !!

Theo Tatton CAA's Executive Officer advises us that the CAA has a bulletin board: caa-list@prix.pricom.com.au Other officers are: Terry Ward, Finance Officer and Assistant Executive Officer, Joseph Allen, Service Coordinator and Phillip Rhodes, Public Relations Officer It's mailing address and phone number is: P.O. Box 57, Hampton Vic. 3188 Australia. Phone 61-3-9589-6236

This was reported in Alcor's September e-newsletter: "On August 10th 2003 Jerry B. Lemler MD tendered to the Alcor Board of Directors his intention to resign as the foundation's CEO at the expiration of his current yearly agreement, on December 31st of this year. The Board has accepted Dr. Lemler's resignation."
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WORLDS FIRST CLONED CAT.
James Clement sent us this report adapted from MSNBC: Appropriately named cc (for carbon copy,) the feline was born December 22, 2001 at Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine. "Cc's a sweet pet," according to Duane Kramer, a professor at A&M, and a member of the cat cloning team. He continued, "At A&M we try to enrich the lives of all our research animals with attention, interactive toys and good adoptive homes.

In keeping with this commitment to normalcy, cc will be allowed to breed and have a litter. Researchers are eager to know what a cloned kittens will be like. So far no mate has been selected and no date has been selected. The staff want to be sure the moment is right because cc is a landmark achievement in veterinary science.

Her incredible journey began with a nuclear transfer - a cell nucleus from Rainbow's ovarian tissue was inserted into another cat's egg cell where the nucleus had been removed. The resulting embryo was implanted into Allie, the surrogate mother feline.

Most people felt a canine would be the first pet clone. A wealthy California businessman set aside millions to replicate his mixed breed dog, Missy. But researchers found out that canine cells were more difficult to deal with than feline cells.

There's no sign of accelerated ageing, which was a problem with Dolly the sheep. There's been no obesity, which has been a concern in some strains of mouse clones, and there are no disfigurations or abnormalities.
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RUSSIAN UPDATE

1) As you may already know, my translation of Ettinger's The Prospect of Immortality was recently published in Russia. If you have any questions regarding the publication, you can probably ask Igor Artyuhov (artyuhov@biomed.ru).

2) This one is semi-serious, but anyway:
Russian biologist Sergey Bodrov declared a small territory in Antarctica an independent state. The name of the new country is "Immortia" meaning "land of immortals". Bodrov found out that some
unclaimed territories near the South Pole and claimed them in accordance with international law.

Sergey Bodrov proclaimed himself a Prince of Immortia and has already developed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of Immortia. The main principle of the Constitution is life extension by any means possible, including cloning.

CORNWALL MEETING OF CRYONICS EUROPE HELD ON SEPTEMBER 6TH AND 7TH.
Around twenty people attended during the weekend. Among the more frequent members, we were very pleased to welcome several new faces. Some were hoping to become members and ultimately, suspension members, while others were here to find out more or to support partners with an interest. We were also pleased to welcome Richard, a funeral director from the West Country, who may be interested in becoming a part of Cryonics Europe in both a personal and professional capacity.

Though largely billed as a social event, when a group of committed cryonicists get together, discussion becomes centred on the possibilities, problems and solutions. It was a lively gathering and we hope informative for all concerned.

With potential new members, there was an opportunity to answer many questions and hopefully to encourage and inform. The weather was fantastic so the meeting took place outside and allowed plenty of chance for us all to mix and chat informally. Saturday concluded with a barbecue, much to the delight of our two dogs who made the most of any dropped tidbits!

Many thanks to everyone who made the long journey and we look forward to future gatherings and welcoming greater interest in joining the select band of cryonicists.

In early September, John and I hosted what has become an annual meeting in Cornwall and we had several people attending to inquire about cryonics as well as a funeral director from the South West, who seems willing to learn our requirements and become a participating member of the organisation.

This past week, Ben Best took the time to visit UK and discuss our views and see our equipment for himself. He will doubtless have his own comments to make but we found his enthusiasm encouraging and his willingness to listen to our views a good sign for the future, should he be elected President.

We all send our grateful thanks to Robert Ettinger for his tireless work and encouragement over the years and wish him a slightly less demanding future role with CI. I'm sure everyone will agree, without his foresight and inspiration, we wouldn't even know each other, let alone have a distant future to look anticipate. Thank you Bob, and everyone at CI.