Last month I met with about ten members of the German cryonics group. Photos of most of those at the meeting have been posted on the Immortality Institute cryonics forum

L. to R. Ben Best, Dr. Gunter Boden, Matthais, Kernal ,and companion, Klaus, Eugen Leitl, Torsten and Gerahard

Unfortunately, Dr. Klaus Sames, a CI Member and one of the members of the CI Scientific Advisory Board was not in any of the photos. It was Klaus who hosted the meeting and provided a venue at his institute for the meeting.

There are some very technically sophisticated members of the German group. I fear that they may create impossible standards for themselves which will result in failure to accomplish anything -- a common phenomenon in the world of cryonics.

Some members of the German group challenged my policy of shipping CI patients in water ice without blood washout. I have based this policy on several considerations:

(1) CI patients invariably have at least a half-hour of ischemic damage, which guarantees that washout will lead to reperfusion injury

(2) Funeral directors use embalming pumps, which operate at high pressure thereby augmenting perfusion damage

(3) Dr. Pichugin does not see much benefit in perfusion organ preservation solutions for cryonics patients.

(4) Open circuit perfusion would require a large volume of cooled perfusate to achieve significant cooling.

(5) Time spent attempting to do washout can result in significant shipping delays.

For the Germans ischemic injury is guaranteed because German law does not allow for pronouncement of death after stoppage of the heart. Pronouncement can only be made after appearance of petechiae (small hemorrhagic spots) on the skin, which occur about a half hour after the heart stops. I have urged the Germans to concentrate their efforts on speedy pronouncement (under the circumstances), speedy cooling and speedy shipment -- something I advocate for all CI Members. Speedy communication and mobilization is also important for an effective mutual aid group if they are to be of benefit to each other, in cases where death occurs on short notice. More frequently, however, there is notice of death, but the exact timing is difficult to manage. Volunteer standby is harder to manage than professional standby.