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Like Steve Harris MD, (Chief Medical Advisor to Alcor, and someone who responded to my criticisms of SA with secondhand blatant lies that were later retracted on the advice of an attorney), Dr. Wowk's activities are largely funded by Life Extension Foundation, the very same company that funds Suspended Animation.
Dr. Wowk informs the readers of lesswrong that SA contracts with professional perfusionists, but what does that really mean, to SA's clients? It's my understanding that contract does not require the perfusionists to actually show up for cases, and that SA does not guarantee medical professionals, of any kind, will perform their procedures. I believe they can send anyone they want, no matter how unqualified, to perform their cases, without repercussion. The same goes for Alcor.
Dr. Wowk also maintains that SA contracts with surgeons. If that is true, perhaps Dr. Wowk would like to enlighten us as to why historical cryonics figure, Curtis Henderson, was butchered last year, by SA manager, Catherine Baldwin, who is NOT a physician, much less a surgeon, (though she referred to herself as a "surgeon," in SA's case report, which was published on the SA website). Then, maybe Dr. Wowk could explain why another SA "surgeon," (again, someone who is not a physician, at all), butchered an Alcor member, during a case that also occurred, just last year. It seems neither Ms. Baldwin, nor the other SA pseudo-surgeon, could FIND the femoral artery and vein, (two of the largest blood vessels in the human body), much less competently cannulate those vessels. If SA has surgeons, they are a recent addition, (no doubt a response to harsh criticism), and it is extremely unlikely SA is willing to guarantee that a surgeon, qualified to perform vascular cannulations, will actually perform any of their surgical procedures. (Note that SA neglects to name their staff members, or to reveal their qualifications, (or the lack thereof), on the SA website.)
SA charges $60,000 for their services, and Alcor charges up to $200,000 for theirs, (not to mention membership dues, and additional fees, on top of that), all without any guarantee of competently-performed vascular cannulations and/or perfusion, (the procedures necessary to deliver cryonics washout and/or vitrification solutions). Take 40 years of making an almost-total mockery of existing conventional hypothermic medical procedures, and add the fact that cryonicists are encouraged to leave trusts and bequests to cryonics organizations, and the situation looks "shady," at best.
Please see my further comments, here: http://cryomedical.blogspot.com/2010/11/cryonics-well-oiled-propaganda-machine.html
I don't have enough information to comment on the cases in question, except that I believe SA, like everyone else in cryonics right now, makes a good faith effort to do work that nobody else wants to do, and that most cryonics cases don't fully pay for. SA was founded and is heavily subsidized by people who want the cryonics stabilization service it provides. SA has motive to do a good job, and use the best people that resources and case logistics permit. Prior to SA, the best CI members could expect was to be collected by a local mortician. Prior to CI, the best CI members could expect from clinical medicine was to be put in the ground.
I can attest from experience on the board that Alcor also makes a good faith effort to do a good job consistent with resources available. In fact, it often makes extraordinary efforts. Nobody has any personal financial incentive to skimp. In fact there is incentive to develop and implement high standards of care because we are all signed up for that care. I've explained the qualifications of the contract surgeons (including a neurosurgeon) whom Alcor uses in its operating room, and I'm generally satisfied with the quality of cryoprotective perfusion.
The financial challenges of employing more full-time medical professionals than Alcor already does at its present size is apparent from this analysis
http://www.alcor.org/Library/pdfs/EconometricModelOfAlcorFinances.pdf
For example, although the new whole body cryopreservation minimum at Alcor is $200K, $110K of that is required for the Patient Care Trust to fund long-term storage. Of the remaining amount, $20K is earmarked for the CMS fund, and the balance pays for consumables, contract labor, overhead, and sometimes legal expenses to gain access to remains. Worst of all, the $200K is inflation-discounted future dollars at the time of cryopreservation, which may be decades in the future. Signing up today requires a six-figure life insurance policy, but some of the people actually being cryopreserved today are funded with only $35K policies arranged when they signed up in the 1980s.
Cryonics is a constant struggle to meet expectations that exceed available resources, while subject to withering public criticism and even personal attack. I believe that's why cryonics leaders don't engage in public dialog anymore.
A couple of factual corrections:
Alcor did sue Larry Johnson in 2003 for selling photographs of human remains on the Internet that year. Johnson had no misgivings about it because he did the same thing in bookstores in 2009.
I never called Johnson's book “400 pages of lies.” Without referring back to the original transcript, my recollection was that I said it was full of "disparagement, defamation, and privacy violation" or words to that effect. If I am to be quoted from a legal proceeding, I respectfully request that the quote be accurate and in context.
Peace.
Dr. Wowk steps in to defend SA, with comments such as "SA contracts with professional perfusionists and surgeons," but then admits he "(doesn't) have enough information to comment on the cases in question," (two of their most recent perfusion cases). He also does not deny there is no guarantee Alcor, or SA's, clients/members will be cared for, by such professionals. (The situation brings to mind "bait and switch" sales tactics.)
My argument is that Dr. Wowk has little knowledge of SA's procedures, or capabilities, something he seems to be confirming. Now that he can't argue their actual capabilities, in regard to providing the very expensive medical procedures they are selling, Dr. Wowk seems to want to argue "good intentions." I think Dr. Wowk, (who has not worked at SA), should probably consider it possible he may also be lacking enough information, to come to that conclusion. Judging by the events I witnessed as an SA employee, my reviews of their recent case reports, SA's secrecy, and my knowledge of the medical procedures they are attempting to perform, I would say "good intentions" are not the prevailing winds, at SA.
I don't know why Dr. Wowk even mentions "skimp(ing)," as though I'm accusing SA of not providing quality services, due to financial reasons, when that has never been the case. In my opinion, SA spends significantly more than they need to, while providing seriously-deficient services. Qualified professionals, using state-of-the-art medical equipment, would cost a lot less than their ridiculous amateur engineering projects; their absurd laymen-training endeavors; their contracted professionals, who are not guaranteed to show up for cases; and their grossly-overpaid, underqualified staff. SA is anything but "financially-challenged," they are more likely "leadership challenged." The problem is, no one there really knows how to properly perform the surgical procedures they are selling. When they DID have someone who knew how to perform the procedures, they didn't want to accept the suggested changes, because it would have meant the end of quite a few very misguided equipment "R&D" projects, which were quite lucrative, for a handful of individuals.
Dr. Wowk disparages "local morticians," but the truth is, licensed embalmers are sure to be more adept at performing vascular cannulations, than SA's laymen! CI's funeral director/licensed embalmer is said to be very skilled in performing vascular cannulations, and he is almost-certainly more skilled in these procedures, than anyone on SA, or Alcor's, staff.
I was unaware Alcor sued Johnson, back in 2003. Is that what resulted in the settlement agreement, in which Alcor tried to pay Johnson to keep his mouth shut? Isn't that a little unusual? I would think it typical, in a civil suit, for the defendent to be the one who offers to pay, in a settlement, yet Alcor (the plaintiff) was the party willing to pay? Personally, I tend to think Alcor was much more interested in keeping Johnson from discussing their questionable activities, than anything else.
I distinctly recall reading Dr. Wowk's sworn testimony, in which he referred to Larry Johnson's book as something like "400 pages of lies intended to disparage Alcor." That may not be verbatim, but I'm quite sure it is a fairly-accurate representation of his testimony. It seems those documents, (I believe they were made publicly-available in February 2010), have been removed from the court's website, (for what reason, I do not know). I will request copies of that testimony, from Johnson's attorneys, and if I am wrong I will certainly apologize to Dr. Wowk. (I'm quite sure that, given Alcor did not hesitate to publish text from Johnson's deposition, Johnson's attorneys won't mind disclosing the details of Dr. Wowk's testimony.)
As for Dr. Wowk's belief that cryonics leaders no longer engage in public dialog, due to "withering public criticism and even personal attack" from people whose "expectations exceed available resources," I say, "Nonsense." Vascular cannulations and perfusion were handed to the cryonics community, on a silver platter, courtesy of conventional medicine, decades ago, and both Alcor and SA have adequate funding to provide these procedures, with some degree of competence. If it were not for a handful of six-figure salary-and-benefits packages, being paid to unqualified persons, who have wasted decades trying to reinvent these procedures, cryonics might be a lot further along. It's my opinion cryonics "leaders" don't partake of public dialog, because they cannot defend their mostly-ludicrous activities. (If Dr. Wowk wants to discuss personal attacks, perhaps he might recall the response of his peers, Harris and Platt, to my discussions of SA's activities.)
Except for the very small number of people who choose to sign up for it, practically no one values or cares about cryonics. No one takes the time to learn its premises, its history, the technologies it's predicated upon, or what technical elements will ultimately determine its success or failure. There are no schools or generally-recognized standards. No one cares. This includes mainstream medicine and mortuary science. My understanding is that you yourself have no personal interest in cryonics.
Against this backdrop, it's not credible that there is a conspiracy among cryonics companies-- companies run by people who want cryonics for themselves --to suppress a tide of experts who could easily step in and do cryonics better. There is no corps of knowledgeable physicians or morticians ready and able to deliver cryonics services that is being displaced by incompetent lay people.
So what do cryonics organizations do? They train lay people and Emergency Medical Technicians to do tasks suited to those levels of expertise. They use morticians to help with some aspects of cases, including vascular cannulation. They contract with sympathetic medical professionals who help with expertise-intensive aspects of cryonics cases when they can, ideally multiple professionals for redundancy. They hire full-time medical professionals for certain roles when they can afford to do so, and when candidates can be found. Or they allow their members to contract with companies, like SA, who do the above.
This mixture of people is then cast into world where they must perform these unscheduled procedures at short notice anywhere within the country, and sometimes beyond. Where they must lug hundreds of pounds of equipment and perfusate to do it. Where sometimes they have to wait weeks at bedside, only for the patient to recover. And where there is no mainstream infrastructure, support, or understanding of what they do. And, recently, where they are bitterly criticized when cryonics cases fail to meet the same standards as scheduled mainstream medical procedures with entire hospitals, universities, and industries that support them.
There have been claims that cryonics has not progressed in 40 years. Leaving aside the enormous improvements in the cryopreservation process itself, it would be instructive to critique reports of past cryonics cases performed only by morticians without today's bedside teams. What was the E-HIT (equivalent homeothermic ischemic time) when the mortician was called after someone legally died, then packed them in unstirred ice with no cardiopulmonary support? What anticoagulants or ischemia-protective medications were administered? What perfusate did the mortician have, and what happened when it was perfused by an unsterile high pressure embalming pump?
With great irony, it is actually a sign of progress in cryonics that cryonics procedures are now being held to the standards of mainstream medicine. Twenty five years ago, there were raging debates about whether the kind of mortician response I describe above was completely sufficient for cryonics. Really.
I'm sorry that you had a bad experience working at SA under different management four years ago. I'm sorry that you worked with some difficult people. I've read your accounts of not purchasing commercial level detectors, and of building ramps instead of purchasing lift gates for cryonics transport vehicles, etc. I sympathize because I too have had the experience of people in cryonics sometimes underestimating the difficulty of building things rather than buying them. In my experience, these miscalculations occurred not because of personal profit motive, but because of the universal tendency of cryonicists to underestimate the difficulty of tasks, myself no exception. A belief that cryonics could work may be the ultimate example of that.
Re:
"If it were not for a handful of six-figure salary-and-benefits packages, being paid to unqualified persons, who have wasted decades trying to reinvent these procedures, cryonics might be a lot further along."
I can tell you that there is absolutely no one at Alcor who fits that description. Alcor employs approximately 10 people on a salary budget of $500K. There is very little room for waste.
I respect your knowledge of clinical perfusion as it pertains to certain specific aspects of cryonics, and I hope you respect my knowledge of the cryobiological aspects and other technical issues after 24 years of scientific and personal interest. As an Alcor board member, I have nothing to gain by promoting or tolerating any culture of waste or procedural negligence. I'm sorry that has become your perception of the entire field of cryonics because of your negative experiences for a short time with certain people years ago.
It is ridiculously absurd for Dr. Wowk to write that it is his "understanding" that I, (a person who has probably written millions of words about cryonics), "have no personal interest in cryonics." Dr. Wowk doesn't know me, and his sources of information, about me, are most likely lacking in credibility. (I'm sure Dr. Wowk is smart enough to have been able to recognize the MANY lies that have been told about me, by some of the people he frequently works with, in cryonics.)
Historically, cryonics organizations have focused on attempting to train laymen to perform procedures normally performed by vascular surgeons and perfusionists. If there have been recent efforts to retain qualified professionals, (as an added expense, rather than as replacements for unqualified persons), I think it most likely due to persistent, harsh criticism.
On the rare occasion a medical professional, (someone who has had the potential to bring other professionals into the field), has expressed an interest in cryonics, what was the result? What happened when Larry Johnson brought up the issue of OSHA violations, at Alcor? Did his superiors ask him to remedy the situation, or did they ask him to shred documents and delete computer files, related to his complaints? Does Dr. Wowk really know the truth, regarding the nature of the responses to my complaints, at SA? If I thought he did, I would be forced to think very poorly, of Dr. Wowk. Personally, I don't think Dr. Wowk really knows what goes on, on a daily basis, at some of the organizations he defends.
Whether intentional, or unintentional, Dr. Wowk's expressions of sympathy toward me, for trivial matters such as those related to the equipment at SA, appear to be an attempt to paint me, (once again), as nothing more than a disgruntled former employee. I assure Dr. Wowk I am not capable of carrying a personal grudge, to this extreme. (Dr. Wowk might also consider that the person who offended me most, left SA quite some time ago, and that I don't have any reason to have a personal grudge against anyone at Alcor; I don't even know any of their staff members.)
Dr. Wowk maintains there is no one at Alcor, with a six-figure salary-and-benefits package. I doubt that's true. According to Alcor's 2008 Form 990, Tanya Jones, (who was listed as the Executive Director/CEO/President/COO), was paid a total of $89,424, that year. Does Dr. Wowk think that doesn't come in, at six-figures, when the benefits are added? Does Ms. Chapman not earn a similar salary? (Keep in mind the actual cost of an employee also includes things such as office space and equipment, so any unqualified person, sitting at a desk, forty hours a week, accomplishing basically nothing, is a tremendous burden on their organization. Also consider that at least two of Alcor's allegedly underpaid staff members live at the facility, and there must be some value placed on their living quarters and utilities.)
Dr. Wowk does not deny that there are a number of six-figure salary-and-benefits packages, within the three LEF-funded organizations, (Suspended Animation, Critical Care Research and Dr. Wowk's organization, 21st Century Medicine). When I left SA, I was being paid $75K a year, plus benefits. I left behind three co-workers, known to have base salaries of $79K, $77K, $60K, along with three other employees who most likely had very similar salaries, and a consultant who was allowed to bill for 160 $50 hours, per month, plus expenses, which included a subsidized apartment. Catherine Baldwin was added to the SA staff, not too long after my departure, and I'm quite sure her salary and benefits add up to six figures.
The Curtis Henderson case report was a perfect example of one of LEF's highly-paid employees attempting to deceive the public, in regard to SA's capabilities. Catherine Baldwin's report was filled with medical terms, (some used improperly), and she referred to herself as a "surgeon," when she is not even a physician. I don't know how ANYONE, (Dr. Wowk included), could interpret such a report as anything other than intentional deceit. A layperson, not pretending to be a medical professional and misrepresenting the capabilities of her team, would have produced a very different report.
Quite some time ago, someone at CI asked Catherine Baldwin to admit SA's website was not a true representation of their capabilities. Allegedly, Ms. Baldwin DID admit that was true, saying the website was a representation of what she hoped SA would be, in the future. She is said to have added that she was not responsible for the content of SA's website. I found that pretty interesting, because I have an email, from Catherine Baldwin, (carefully preserved in my webmail), in which she clearly states that, while she was paying someone to design SA's site, she would be solely responsible for the content.
Several highly-paid people, connected to LEF, have engaged in many lies, in attempts to misrepresent their true capabilities and to discredit their critics.I disagree that Dr. Wowk has "nothing to gain by promoting or tolerating any culture of waste or procedural negligence." I think Dr. Wowk probably has HUGE professional and financial incentives, to defend the LEF-funded organizations and Alcor.
Until SA and Alcor either make the capabilities of their personnel, and the quality of their services, extremely clear to the public, I will not stop writing about what I believe to be gross misrepresentations of their services. Hypothermic medical procedures have played a huge role, in my life, and I'm not willing to sit by and watch a bunch of quacks make a mockery of something quite meaningful to me, especially in light of the fact that these companies charge exorbitant prices for their foolishness, and encourage people to leave trusts and bequests, to cryonics organizations.
Did the person who left the $7M bequest Alcor recently announced know the truth, regarding Alcor's personnel and capabilities? Or, did he/she read Alcor case reports filled with medical terminology and references to laypersons as "surgeons" and "perfusionists" and grossly overestimate Alcor's capabilities? One has to wonder. (By the way, someone tells me that bequest was originally $15M, is that true?)
You've said elsewhere that you have no personal interest in cryonics for yourself, and that you don't believe cryonics will work. You imply that you don't believe it will work because it's not being done competently. However if the Mayo Clinic started offering human cryopreservation tomorrow, you would still believe that cryonics couldn't work. The reason is that if you believe that 10 minutes of surgical time vs. 90 minutes of surgical time is the difference between success or failure of cryonics, then you must surely believe that poisoning a brain with cryoprotectants and fracturing it during cooling utterly dooms it. However that is what happens with the best cryopreservation technology that exists today, no matter who does it. The success or failure of cryonics ultimately depends upon a type of information preservation that is outside the ken or even conception of mainstream medicine, and one that you yourself don't subscribe to because your criticisms are never with reference to it.
Johnson's claims are presently subject to an active defamation lawsuit. Numerous medical professionals have done work with Alcor at various times, including nurses, clinical perfusionists, a neurosurgeon, two doctors who served as CEOs, and two full-time paramedics hired after Johnson. None of them behaved as Johnson did.
Your consistent defense of Larry Johnson is incomprehensible to me. This is a man who absconded with photographs of human remains, and sold them on the Internet and bookstores. He violated personal privacies in the most horrible ways that had nothing to do with any wrongdoing. He told vicious lies about matters of which I have personal knowledge. He was shown to have falsified death threats, violated court orders domesticated in three states, found in contempt of court, and is now subject to an arrest warrant in Arizona.
I didn't say that. I said there was no one at Alcor who fit the description of having such compensation and wasting time reinventing wheels. It should be clear from the salary budget at Alcor that not many people make large salaries. There is certainly not the salary budget for the full-time cardiovascular surgeon and clinical perfusionist whom you seem to be saying Alcor should hire.
Forget defending, what about tolerating? Cryonics is something you criticize as a hobby. For me, cryonics is a matter of survival. It's my body those things will be done to, any my belief (correct or not) that how things are done matters to my survival. You've said that you don't believe anybody's survival actually depends on cryonics because it won't work.
Regarding my financial incentives, a few facts: I have 23 years of education, three college degrees, including a PhD, and 20 years of experience doing and publishing scientific research. My salary before benefits is five figure, and way below what it would have been had I stayed in the medical field in which I did graduate studies, and not foolishly and idealistically changed fields to do research related to cryonics. I received $700 from Alcor in 2010 for work I did on a cryonics case, and that's it. My employer receives a negligible portion of its funding from sales to cryonics organizations, and no grants from them. My employer prefers that I not make public posts about cryonics, and so do the people who fund them, believing its not a good use of my time. They are probably right. Not following those preferences is actually contrary to my career interests.
As to my motives for defending cryonics and those who do it, you overlook the most obvious ones that have nothing to do with money. First and foremost, after 24 years of advocacy and other work to advance the idea, I care about it being presently fairly and accurately. In that respect, I am as passionate as you are about areas of cryonics that you don't believe are being represented accurately. For both of us, that has nothing to do with money. Second, there is pride involved. When I am a director of Alcor, and among those ultimately responsible for it, it's hard not to take unfair criticism personally. Finally, once again, it is a matter of survival, not just of myself, but many other people who for better or worse I've convinced to sign up for cryonics over the years. If exaggerated, misrepresented, or out-of-context criticisms of cryonics lead to outlawing of it, or severe restrictions on its procedures imposed by people with no understanding or personal value of it, that would be a disaster.
Dr. Wowk is being dishonest, in his representation of my opinions of cryonics. I have never said I "don't believe anybody's survival actually depends on cryonics because it won't work." In fact, on numerous occasions, I've clearly stated cryonics has a basis in reality, based on existing conventional medical procedures, in which people are cooled to a state of death and then revived. Many times...many, MANY times...I have CLEARLY stated I believe someone preserved in a fairly pristine state might be revived.
However, I have also stated, on an equal number of occasions, that I don't believe the scientists of the future will be able to repair the damage being inflicted on cryonicists, by a bunch of unqualified, overgrown adolescents, who want to play doctor with dead people, while pretending to be surgeons and perfusionists. I'm sure Dr. Wowk's lack of understanding, as to why I defend Larry Johnson, can't be any more perplexing to him, than his defenses of Alcor and SA, or people like Harris and Platt, are, to me.
How many cryobiologists does Dr. Wowk think he can get, to support his opinions of the activities of Alcor and/or SA? The response to cryobiologist, Dr. Arthur Rowe's, remarks, regarding cryonics organizations not being able to "turn hamburger back into a cow," was clever, but ridiculous, at the same time. Yes, some of the molecules of the hamburger would be incorporated into the body tissues of the cow that ate it, but the original cow would still be quite dead. Being clever, in defending the cryonics organizations, isn't enough. The organizations are not going to be able to carry on the way they have been, much longer.
Dr. Wowk tries, yet again, to dismiss me as someone not serious about this matter, calling it my "hobby." I assure Dr. Wowk I am quite serious about not allowing people to bastardize procedures, near and dear to my heart, while pretending they are delivering some sort of futuristic medical care, with price tags up to $200,000, coupled with requests for trust funds and bequests, without objection. It seems more of a con game, to me, than a serious effort to make medical history.
Dr. Wowk fails to notice the situation IS ALREADY "a disaster," and always has been. If it were not for all the foolishness that has gone on, there would be no threat of regulation. Instead of debating with me, perhaps Dr. Wowk should start writing letters, directed at Alcor and SA, encouraging them to clean up their acts, before someone does it for them.
If Alcor and SA want to provide the public with FULL DISCLOSURE, regarding their capabilities and personnel, I'll limit my criticisms. But, for so long as cryonics organizations spew out reports I feel are clearly intended to deceive an unsuspecting public, I will feel obligated to inform people of the true nature of the situation.
You've been saying it by implication. See below.
There is no present technology for preserving people in a "fairly pristine state" at cryogenic temperatures. Present cryopreservation technology even under perfect conditions causes biological effects such as toxicity and fracturing that are far more damaging than the types of problems you've expressed concern about. Even if the hypothermic phase of cryonics were done perfectly, with completely reversibility, what happens during the cryothermic phase is so extreme as to make the damage from poorly-executed blood washout insignificant by comparison.
If you believe that for cryonics to work, preservation must be so pristine that the number of minutes taken for a femoral cannulation can determine whether cryonics succeeds or fails, then you necessarily believe that cryonics today cannot work no matter who does it. That's because enormously worse damage is unavoidably done during cooling to liquid nitrogen temperature.
Cryobiologists wouldn't be impressed if the Mayo Clinic did cryopreservations. Who does cryopreservations is just window dressing as far as cryobologists are concerned. They know that technology for preserving people or human organs in a reversible state (as reversibility is currently understood in medicine), doesn't exist. Most cryobiologists would regard the idea of repairing organs that had cracked along fracture planes as preposterous, as I'm sure you do if you believe that 300 mmHg arterial pressure or one hour of ischemia is fatal to a cryonics patient.
In summary, the force with which you believe that departures from clinical ideals in the hypothermic phase of cryonics are fatal necessarily means that you believe the cryothermic phase of cryonics today is fatal no matter who does it. As a cryobiologist, I'm telling you that the damage of cryothermic preservation is that bad independent of who does it. The technology for "fairly pristine" just isn't there.
Maybe you are projecting here about why you took your job at SA four years ago (the medical history part, I mean). I don't care about making history, I care about surviving history. As far as cons go, there has never been a bigger money losing pit for individuals than cryonics. Anyone who bothers to look will see that money Alcor receives is either spent on legitimate activities or set aside to ensure continuity of patient care, and long-term survival of the organization. I don't have to tell you how modest compensation is at CI. Saul Kent often observes wryly that cryonics is the most famous least successful idea in history. I'll add to that, least personally rewarding. In what other fields do sincere people have the opportunity to be mercilessly pummeled as dishonest, incompetent, ignorant, unethical, con men while making below-market pay in most cases, and not seeing any results of their work for centuries, if ever? Although it's not my thing, cryonics would be great for S&M types.
I just want to make sure I have this straight…
Is it Dr. Wowk’s position, the vitrification solutions are so very toxic, it’s acceptable to subject Alcor and Suspended Animation’s clients to additional injury, via grossly incompetent personnel, when delivering those solutions? Wouldn’t it make more sense for organizations advertising the possibility of future resurrection, (and charging up to $200,000 for their services), to provide the best possible care? Shouldn’t they be doing as little harm, as possible?
Dr. Wowk’s attitude seems to be, “Oh shucks, we’re filling them so full of highly-toxic solutions, it doesn’t matter what else we do to them. We might as well throw in some warm ischemia, some inappropriate perfusion pressures, or maybe even massive boluses of air.” Is that the mentality??? Personally, I don't think there's much chance of success, with that attitude. If the damage is as extreme, and as unavoidable, as Dr. Wowk writes, maybe they should just straight-freeze their clients, until they can offer something better.
Dr. Wowk attempts to trivialize the mistakes I've been criticizing, by making reference to “one hour of ischemia.” The truth is, most, (if not all), cryonics suspendees have likely been subjected to much more serious abuse. The last SA case report was that of historical cryonics figure, Curtis Henderson. Mr. Henderson’s groin was prepped, for cannulation, at 6:50am, but the washout was not started, until 12:11pm. That means it took SA about FIVE HOURS longer than it should have, to perform the cannulation. Even then, it was not the SA team that accomplished the cannulation, but a local funeral director. If this is the treatment an historical cryonics figure gets, what does the Average Joe get?
What was most offensive about the Henderson case, was Suspended Animation’s published case report, in which Catherine Baldwin referred to herself as a “surgeon,” and spewed forth more than enough medical jargon, (some of which she used, improperly), to make the average layman think her team was comprised of knowledgeable and competent medical professionals. I think Ms. Baldwin’s report was, quite clearly, a blatant attempt to deceive the public and to defraud SA’s potential clients. I think this is a very well-established pattern, at organizations, such as Suspended Animation and Alcor, and I think anyone who spews forth that amount of deception, when trying to sell some very expensive services, should be arrested.
Once more… If Alcor and SA want to provide the public with FULL DISCLOSURE, regarding their capabilities, (or lack thereof), and the qualifications of their personnel, I'll limit my criticisms. But, for so long as cryonics organizations publish garbage I feel is clearly intended to deceive an unsuspecting public, I will be inclined to expose them.
Dr. Wowk writes: “As far as cons go, there has never been a bigger money losing pit for individuals than cryonics. In what other fields do sincere people have the opportunity to be mercilessly pummeled as dishonest, incompetent, ignorant, unethical, con men while making below-market pay in most cases, and not seeing any results of their work for centuries, if ever?”
While cryonics endeavors may not have been lucrative, for Saul Kent and Bill Faloon, I think the business of cryonics has been quite lucrative, for many, especially the LEF-funded employees. I’ve never seen so many overpaid, underqualified people, accomplishing so little of significance.
My position is to do the best you can within available resources, and that criticisms should be in-context and constructive. As far as available resources go, of the $200K of Alcor's new 2011 whole body minimum, $110K is set aside to fund long-term storage, leaving only $90K, the majority of which is consumed by costs that already exist without employing a full-time cardiovascular surgeon (leaving aside the issue of how such a person would maintain his/her skills). This itemized analysis
http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/CostOfCryonics.html
http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/CostOfCryonicsTables.txt
shows those costs as $37,000 in 1990, or $60,000 2009 dollars, neglecting overhead and advances in technology since then. However people cryopreserved in 2011 will mostly not be people who signed in 2011, but people who signed up in 2000 or even 1990, sometimes with much lower funding than current minimums.
If that was the mentality, then there would be no efforts at field stabilization. Patients would just be packed in ice without any cardiopulmonary support or field perfusion, and sent off to their cryonics organization as is now done for CI members without SA contracts. Obviously I think field procedures are important, and that good-faith efforts must be made to do them well with resources available. However, with the possible exception of air embolism (which can interfere with later cryoprotective perfusion), problems in field care of cryonics patients don't have the same prognosis significance in cryonics that they would have in hypothermic medicine.
That field case report is here.
http://www.cryonics.org/immortalist/july10/henderson.pdf
Let's look at it. A contract surgeon was on standby with the rest of the team from June 21 to 24 before having to leave because of work obligations. A second contract surgeon was to arrive on the afternoon of June 25. As luck would have it, the patient suffered cardiac arrest the morning of June 25, showing that cryonics field work is more like battlefield medicine than an elective procedure. The people on scene, with the assistance of the mortician, did the best they could. Note that cardiopulmonary support and rapid cooling was performed, bringing the patient's temperature down to approximately +20 degC, descending to +12 degC during the surgery, which greatly mitigated the biological effects of the surgical delays. Note also the surgical error that the mortician himself made.
I did a text search of the above document, and I can't find where Ms. Baldwin represents herself as a credentialed surgeon. I don't think it's fair to represent a sincere attempt to report what was done in the interests of transparency as a "fraud." Wouldn't someone whose intent was fraud write a wonderful case report, superficial case report, or none at all? Saul Kent is ironically an extremely strong supporter of writing and publishing case reports in cryonics, including disclosure of problems.
I think allegations of "fraud" and "abuse" are inappropriate in the context of the good-faith efforts being made, in the context of the biological significance of most field problems in cryonics relative to hypothermic medicine, and especially in the context of the alternative of just packing warm patients in ice and shipping without cardiopulmonary support or medications. There's also the context of nobody else caring to help or pay for what the infrastructure to support full-time cardiovascular surgeons at this stage of development of cryonics would really cost.
I'm doing a text search, and I can't find where I used the word "catastrophic." In any case, the damage done by present cryopreservation techniques is extreme by conventional medical standards (e.g. decapitation). The real question is the significance of the damage in the context of preservation of brain information encoding memory and personal identity, which is what cryonics seeks to preserve.
For decades Alcor has sought to be conservative and perform the first hypothermic stages of cryonics to a standard closer to that of medicine rather than mortuary science to make the early stages of cryonics closer to reversible. This has drawn criticism from two opposite directions. Bob Ettinger has criticized this approach because it is expensive, and nanotechnology is likely "necessary and sufficient" for revival of cryonics patients even without aggressive care immediately following cardiac arrest. More recently, Melody Maxim has criticized Alcor and SA because they fail to consistently deliver care following cardiac arrest to medical standards (even though there are no recognized medical standards for cardiopulmonary support, medication, cannulation and perfusion of legally dead bodies in an ice bath destined for cryopreservation other than the standards established by the cryonicists she derides.) It appears that the only alternatives that will please all critics are to either not do standby/stabilization at all, or to do it to a much higher and even more expensive standard than now being achieved.
With respect to fracturing, fracturing in cryopreservation is explained here
http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/CryopreservationAndFracturing.html
The problem is that there is still no known protocol for reliably cooling a large vitrified organ to temperatures ten or twenty degrees below the glass transition temperature without fracturing. More research needs to be done. Notwithstanding, there has been great progress in the past decade in developing engineering solutions to safe intermediate temperature storage. I gave a talk on this progress here
http://www.suspendedinc.com/conference/SA_conference.pdf
Alcor has experimentally used three different systems for intermediate temperature storage in the past decade. Some of these systems were grossly misrepresented by Larry Johnson as causing fracturing, rather than mitigating it (showing once again how difficult it is to make any progress in cryonics without the effort being misrepresented and used against you). In December 2008, the system described in the talk above was installed at Alcor. I'll be writing an article about it next year.
These systems reduce fractures compared to liquid nitrogen storage, but don't seem to eliminate them. Eliminating fracturing will require tedious research on cooling protocols. The research is tedious because it will likely require months, if not years, of holding at temperatures warmer than the final storage temperature to relieve thermal stress.
Finally, it is not "a little more expensive" to do storage at temperatures above liquid nitrogen temperature. It is about three times more expensive. It also took many years and six figures of research dollars to figure out it how to do it with a reliability more similar to that of liquid nitrogen rather than a mechanical freezer.
Can you please clarify whether you mean a state obtainable by present technology or some hypothetical future achievable state? The way you phrase it this could be taken either way.
It sounds like you think cryonics could work in the present day, but only if performed by trained, licensed medical professionals. If that is the case, would you sign up for cryonics if they started offering it in your local hospital tomorrow?
Could you provide a link? I don't recall reading this response. Dr. Rowe's assertion always seemed to me to be rather ridiculous to start with because it does not address the structural preservation levels possible with vitrification (as opposed to freezing).
Most other medical professionals (aside from yourself and Larry Johnson) seem to completely ignore cryonics. Which is part of the problem. If you want to stir up interest in the scientific and medical communities in making sure this is done right, more power to you. But it has to be done one way or another.
I would like to ask Dr. Wowk to show me where Larry Johnson "was shown to have falsified death threats," and where he "violated court orders in three states."
During this discussion, Dr. Wowk has identified himself as being on the Board of Directors of Alcor, so I assume he can be considered to be representing them, here. Alcor has accused Mr. Johnson of many wrong-doings, but I do not believe he has been "shown to have falsified death threats."
In addition, it's my understanding the agreement, in which Mr. Johnson was not supposed to publicly comment about Alcor, was supposed to work both ways. Is that correct, Dr. Wowk?
As for violating court orders, I believe the State of Arizona has ruled that Mr. Johnson violated a court order, but are the States of Nevada and New York like-minded?
And this can't just be because current organizations are not competent. If she were committed to being signed up for a hypothetical future ultra-competent organization the moment someone puts one together, it would do wonders for her credibility as far as I a concerned. At present she gives me the impression of a nosy outsider who feels the need to offer condescending advice and harsh socially stigmatizing criticisms to a marginalized group she neither likes nor identifies with.
Before you extrapolate from yourself - are you sure that you're even a sufficiently typical cryonics advocate, let alone a typical enough example of a disinterested third party?
I thought he meant credibility with cryonics advocates.
Yes, and I'm pretty sure I'm a typical enough example of a cryonics advocate for this to be a generalizable issue. If she isn't planning to sign up it really does at least communicate that she thinks it can't work -- that it's just an expensive funeral no matter who does it -- under present technological constraints.
Now, it's possible to think it can work and not plan to sign up. If you think it is too expensive of a trade-off on the risk-reward scale, or if you have an irrational fear of it. But Melody hasn't attempted to communicate either of these things. Her sole motive is supposedly her moral outrage at the horrible people in existing organizations perverting the sacred practices of medicine. Well if that's true, it should predict that once those moral outrages are resolved she plans to sign up -- that she believes in cryonics as an idea.
The explanation that makes the most sense is Melody is interested in something that is not fundamentally cryonics at all -- hypothermic hibernation for living patients, for example. She may call it cryonics, but it doesn't involve future-technological repair, clinically dead patients, long periods of time, etc. -- it is a fundamentally different concept with superficial similarities and much common ground basic science.
I second your suggestion, though not necessarily your impression. If she would not sign up with such an organization it doesn't mean she can't be an objective observer, but it does make it less likely.
Honestly, the fact that she's not signed up makes her far more credible in my eyes. Has no one here heard of consistency bias? Dr. Wowk has stated that he needs cryonics to work, and so it provides me no information that he thinks cryonics works. For someone without a horse in the race to look at cryonics and have a low opinion of it does provide me information.
I don't think cryonics "works." I think it's worth doing. That's not the same thing. I've explained that cryopreservation causes damage that is severe by contemporary standards. It cannot be reversed by any near-term technology. Nobody should confuse cryonics with suspended animation or established hypothermic medicine.
The purpose of cryonics is to prevent "information theoretic death," or erasure of the neurological information that encodes personal identity. Any evaluation of the effects of procedural details on cryonics patient prognosis must be with reference to that.
Unfortunately none of the recent criticisms of cryonics procedures address the issue of information preservation, which is what cryonics is all about. The criticisms that I've seen have all been with reference to what effect various procedural problems would have had on living patients expected to spontaneously recover at the end of hypothermic medicine procedures. The information preservation significance of a delay in cannulation for someone who already suffered a "fatal" period of cardiac arrest before cryonics procedures begin, who may be transported across the country on ice, who will be exposed to hours of cryoprotectant perfusion, their brain dehydrated, possibly decapitated, and then major organs fractured by thermal stress during cooling, has not been discussed. Yet that is the real context of cryonics. Cryonics is not someone having aneurysm surgery.
To be clear, this bad stuff is going to happen no matter who does the procedures. It's intrinsic to present cryopreservation technology. The scientific reality is that for a cryonics patient, as distinct from a hypothermic medicine patient, the composition and concentration of what cryoprotectant ultimately gets into tissue is enormously more important than how long cannulation for field blood washout takes, or who does it, within reason.
Getting back to the question of whether cryonics "works," it was actually Ms. Maxim who took exception to me saying that she didn't believe cryonics could work. She said:
There are two possible interpretations of this. Either she believes that cryonics done by the right people today could result in a "fairly pristine state," and cryonics could work. Or she believes that the unavoidable cryoprotectant toxicity, long cold ischemic times, and thermal stress fractures in multiple organs, likely including the brain, that is intrinsic to today's cryopreservation technology is not a sufficiently pristine state to permit later revival. In that case, the entire debate over procedural details and who does them is academic. The technology isn't good enough to work for anyone.
I don't recall making any context-less statements that cryonics works. Obviously I think that cryonics is worth doing, but that's not same as thinking it "works."
I explicitly stated that the damage done by the best cryopreservation technology is severe by contemporary standards. It's not compatible with revival by any near-term technology, no matter who does it. Nobody should be under any illusions that human cryopreservation by available technology is easily reversible.
The goal of cryonics is to prevent "information theoretic death," or erasure of the neurological basis of human identity. Any criticism of cryonics procedures, and the extent to which procedures impact the prognosis of cryonics patients, must be with reference to that. That has been absent in any of the recent criticisms of cryonics related to qualifications of personnel. Recent criticisms of cryonics cases have been with reference to what would have happened to living medical patients had the same case problems occurred (i.e. they might have died). The criticisms have not been with reference to the biological impact on someone who's already suffered a "fatal" period of cardiac arrest before the hospital even let cryonics procedures begin, and who is going to be perfused with cryoprotectants for hours, dehydrated, and then cooled to a temperature that results in thermal stress fractures through all major organs of the body, likely including the brain. In such circumstances, ultimately getting cryoprotectants into tissue is enormously more important than how long cannulation for field blood washout takes, within reason.
Regarding what Ms. Maxim believes about cryonics working, it was Ms. Maxim who took exception to me saying that she believed cryonics won't work. She said:
There are two possible interpretations of this. Either she believes that cryonics today done by the right people could result in a sufficiently pristine state, in which case she believes that cryonics today could work. Or she believes that the cryoprotectant toxicity, long cold ischemic times, and thermal stress fractures that are unavoidable with today's technology are not sufficiently pristine to permit revival. In that case, the entire debate of qualifications of personnel and procedural details are academic to whether cryonics today does anybody any good because the technology is intrinsically not good enough to work.
My objection is not so much that she isn't signed up but that she has no plans to sign up, even when her moral outrage issues are resolved. So if it is to be considered as a criticism at all (and your comment seemingly supports the notion that it is), it's not simply a criticism of the cryonics industry, but of cryonics itself.
What makes it suspect to me is that she argues as though it is a criticism only of the current cryonics industry and yet makes no defense whatsoever of the general notion of cryonics (except a very vague version that sounds more like long-term hypothermic hibernation). Most critics seem to support some kind of future advancement suspended animation -- but that's a very different idea from cryonics from a service (and technological) perspective.
How precisely does it make it less likely?
Someone who wouldn't use a service but criticizes it is more likely to be criticizing it because they don't like the idea rather than because they have concluded it's done poorly based on evidence. Obviously it doesn't make it certain that that's the case.
This is a specious argument. Plausible motive for defending organization X does not imply plausible motive for promotion/tolerance of supposed practice/culture Y within organization X.
Brian has actually provided a very solid motive for himself and other Alcor board members to oppose waste and procedural negligence. They are signed up for cryonics themselves. If there is too much waste or procedural negligence, they and people they care about could be harmed or killed.
lsparrish writes: "Brian has actually provided a very solid motive for himself and other Alcor board members to oppose waste and procedural negligence. They are signed up for cryonics themselves."
Luke may not know I was encouraged to sign up, while I was working at SA, to appease Saul Kent, so that I could be eligible for the management position. The person encouraging me knew I was not interested in being cryopreserved, at the time. In other words, I was encouraged to trick Saul Kent, the man responsible for funding our very-generous paychecks. I was even told Mr. Kent could, most-likely, be convinced to fund my insurance policy, if I were willing to sign up. Contrary to what, the very naive, Luke Parrish believes, being signed up is NOT "solid motive" for insuring the quality of cryonics services. (I do not mean to cast doubt on Dr. Wowk's sincerity, but only to point out the obvious flaw in Luke's logic.)
For anyone who is interested, I was not interested in my own cryopreservation, due to the gross inadequacies of the protocols, the equipment and the personnel. I don't believe anyone who has been cryopreserved, thus far, will ever be revived. I am not inclined to pay $60,000 for a quack like Catherine Baldwin, to make sure I am REALLY dead, by keeping me at relatively warm temperatures, while she bumbles around, for many hours, trying to perform a vascular cannulation. Nor am I inclined to pay $200,000, to Alcor, for what I consider to be grossly-inadequate services. It seems the people in control of cryonics organizations greatly-underestimate the amount of education and training required, to be a REAL vascular surgeon, or perfusionist. It is absurd, for cryonics organizations to think they can train laymen to perform the tasks of these professionals, by practicing on pigs in the back of a van, or even through their very infrequent human cadaver experiences.
SA and Alcor, can each afford to fund the salary of at least one full-time staff member competent in performing vascular cannulations, and one full-time staff member skilled in perfusion. That they do not do so, is only reflective of their extremely poor leadership. Of course, if they were to hire such medical professionals, for their staff, there would probably be a repeat performance of what happened, when I was at SA. The professionals would want to change things, which would set in motion tremendously-subversive efforts, on the part of the unqualified status quo, to maintain their positions and salaries. Either that, or they will hire medical professionals, who don't believe, for one second, that cryonics will ever work, but who are happy to "go along, to get along," since they see no harm in botching surgeries on the already-dead. Again, it all boils down to a leadership issue.
Finally, don't expect me to respond to the posts of Luke Parrish, with any sort of regularity. I have no time for someone, whose greatest contributions to these discussions are fantasies of how scientists of the future are going to repair the damage being done, by the crackpots of the present, or who has a habit of spewing forth uninformed criticisms of the critics of cryonics organizations. Besides, there's little hope of having a rational discussion with a boy who thinks a hydrogen atom, drawn on a piece of paper, is a real hydrogen atom. http://cryomedical.blogspot.com/2010/10/too-much-fantasy-not-enough-reality-in.html
(Edited in response to downvotes.)
Consider this. You are attacking me based on a misunderstanding of something I said on another forum, on an unrelated topic. I think this is questionable debate ethics at best.
In a nutshell, my position in the argument you reference is that a description is a real entity, and in Robert's hypothetical example he described something exactly equivalent to an atom at a moment in time. At the level of abstraction he was talking about, the atom was a real atom to the exact same degree and for the exact same reasons that a physical atom (in a given instant of time) is a real atom. Your comment about atoms exploding and undergoing fission because of the paper being torn makes no sense in the context of the argument I was making. The paper is not a part of the framework in which it makes sense to think of the atom existing, nor is the atom undergoing time in the same framework as the paper.
You seem to be claiming that your disinterest in the service is solely motivated by it is not being good enough to justify the investment. But you also say you were offered the possibility of getting the service for free, with a promotion thrown in.
I'm having a hard time being convinced that your rejection of cryonics is motivated solely by a financial cost-benefit analysis.
Luke misses the obvious point, as usual. I am not inclined to endorse, (or allow someone to endorse, on my behalf), the activities of those I consider to be quite incompetent, unprofessional and unethical. These organizations have consistently failed to provide the services they sell, with any degree of skill and finesse. They've made a mockery of all that is dear to me, in regard to hypothermic medicine. In my opinion, to provide any sort of funding to them, (whether directly, or indirectly), would constitute participating in fraudulent activities, perpetuating extremely substandard services, and delaying any possible real progress, in the field of cryonics.
I want to Welcome you to LessWrong, and say that I hope you will stick around beyond this argument.
What would be useful to know is whether that was your opinion at the time you made the decision not to accept the services. Also it would be useful to know if you plan to accept the services of an organization that does meet your standards, once it has come into existence (by whatever route -- be it regulation, reform, or replacement). If you are simply not planning to sign up at all, that's fine of course -- but it should not be surprising if this does not exactly inspire trust among cryonicists.
For those of us who don't have any experience in this area, approximately how much would hiring "one full-time staff member competent in performing vascular cannulations" cost? How much would hiring "one full-time staff member skilled in perfusion" cost?
Alcor already employs a full-time paramedic with surgical training in large animal models to do vascular cannulations when it is possible to do so in the field. Cannulations at Alcor are typically done by either a contract neurosurgeon or a veterinary surgeon. I've written further details about who does surgeries at Alcor, and who has done them historically, here:
http://www.imminst.org/forum/topic/44772-is-cryonics-quackery/page__p__437779#entry437779
It's misleading for people to keep saying that Alcor sends out "laypeople" to do vascular cannulations.
The standard being applied to Alcor in recent criticisms is not just that people doing the cannulations be competent, or even have a medical credential, but that they should be the same professionals who do vascular cannulations for elective surgeries in tertiary care hospitals, i.e. cardiovascular surgeons. According to this website
http://www.studentdoc.com/cardiovascular-surgery-salary.html
the lowest reported salary for a cardiovascular surgeon is $351108 per year. According to this website
http://www.bestsampleresume.com/salary/perfusionist.html
the average salary of a clinical perfusionist is $122,000 per year. The sum of these two figures is approximately equal to Alcor's entire staff budget. Notwithstanding, a clinical perfusion credential was listed as a desirable qualification in Alcor's last clinical cryonics job ad. No perfusionists responded.
Surgeons and perfusionists employed full-time by a cryonics organization might only do a couple of cryonics cases per year, quickly losing their clinical-level skills, and employability outside of cryonics. The perfusionist making all these recent criticisms against cryonics, and insisting that full-time cardiovascular surgeons and perfusionsts be hired (not just contract ones), herself never had the opportunity to work on even one cryonics case during her entire employment at SA four years ago. Cases are that infrequent.
Dr. Wowk is misrepresenting the situation, yet again. It is not misleading to say Alcor has allowed laypersons to have performed vascular cannulations. Not only have they done so, but they have falsely referred to such people as “surgeons,” and even "Chief Surgeon," in their public reports, (something that is a violation of Arizona law). If they want to send a layman to do a surgeon's job, FINE...but, let them so note, in their case reports, and on their website!!!!!
Dr. Wowk also distorts the truth when he writes that recent criticisms (mine, I assume) call for cardiovascular surgeons, at a price of $351,108 dollars a year. Personally, I think if SA tried hard enough, for Ms. Baldwin’s salary, they COULD convince a retired vascular surgeon to move to Florida and do their few cases a year, but MANY times I’ve also suggested other persons, familiar with vascular cannulations, (such as embalmers, scrub techs, or physician assistants). The average embalmer’s salary, in Florida, is $43,171, as per this site: http://www.cbsalary.com/state-salary-chart.aspx?specialty=Embalmer&cty=&kw=Embalmer&jn=jn013&tid=2523&sid=FL , Does Dr. Wowk think a skilled embalmer wouldn’t love to have Ms. Baldwin’s six-figure salary-and-benefits package, and an easy caseload? Wasn't it an embalmer, not even employed by any cryonics organization, who had to perform the cannulation, for the Henderson case, because Ms. Baldwin could not do so, even in five hours time???
Dr. Wowk pretending SA and/or Alcor would have to pay $122,000, for a perfusionist is equally absurd, and has already been proven to be untrue. I am a perfusionist, and I worked at SA. My salary was $75,000 a year, and if it would not have been for the unprofessional and unethical activities, it would have been the highest-paying, least-demanding, job I had ever had! (Perfusionists who make the kind of salary Dr. Wowk quotes, work in demanding positions, doing MANY scheduled cases, AND getting called out in the evenings and on the weekends, on a regular basis.)
I could come and go, from the SA facility, as I pleased, and do whatever I wanted, as long as I did not complain about any of the totally absurd projects, (for which one of Dr. Wowk's peers was earning a whole lot of money!). As Dr. Wowk points out, I never even had to do a case. Who is Dr. Wowk trying to fool??? Many people would love to have a high-paying job, in sunny Florida, with so little to do, and so much freedom!!!
There was no supervision, at SA, for the most part. Some people punched in, and then left the building; some people played on the Internet, all day. If the surf came up, in Delray, some of the employees grabbed their surfboards, and left. When Bary Wilson (SA's manager, for a short time), complained about not being able to complete projects, because no one was ever there at the same time, (even in the middle of the day), they banded together and got rid of him. It was a total, and absolute joke, and not one meaningful thing was being accomplished. (Bill and Saul seem to be clueless, as to how much they have been taken advantage of.)
Dr. Wowk's facility might be doing some valid research, but the "research" at SA consisted of things like seeing how many tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of dollars one could spend on "reinventing the wheel." Want to buy a reasonably-priced, professionally-built cooldown and transport box, from a company that had specialized in cryogenic containers, for many years? Forget it. SA's answer to something like that was to run out to Home Depot for materials, and engage in endless email discussions, (with Dr. Wowk, and others), in regard to the project.
Dr. Wowk is just making excuses, including those about professionals losing their skills, due to the low frequency of cases. People who have been performing cannulations, or perfusion, for many years, don't just forget how to do those things. Even if their skills get "rusty," they would certainly be preferable to laymen, who have only practiced on a few pigs, in the back of SA's van. It's insane, and I don't understand how any reasonable person could defend such activities. It seems dishonest for Dr. Wowk to pretend money is the primary issue, here, when most, (if not all), of the salaries at SA, are significantly more than salaries earned by paramedics, nurses, and other medical professionals.
Finally, Dr. Wowk misses the key point…that being HONESTY. If SA is going to send golf pros, metal fabricators, and other laymen to perform their procedures, THEY SHOULD JUST SAY SO, ON THEIR WEBSITE, AND IN THEIR CASE REPORTS. Not disclosing that information, and writing case reports in a manner intended to deceive the public into believing their cases are being performed by competent medical professionals is DISHONEST. Dr. Wowk wrote, (in another post), that SA’s manager, Catherine Baldwin, did not refer to herself as a “credentialed surgeon.” Does Dr. Wowk think the readers of lesswrong are unintelligent??? I'm sure most intelligent people are able to ascertain that, when someone fills a report with medical jargon and refers to “surgeons” and a “backup surgeon,” their intent is to deceive the reader into believing qualified medical personnel were present. It's ridiculous for him to maintain that it was acceptable for Ms. Baldwin to refer to herself as a "surgeon," because she did not place "credentialed" in front of it.
Do what you want, at Alcor and SA, Dr. Wowk, but at least be honest about it!!!
How much information do you have about SA these days Melody? I thought you quit your job there a couple years ago. (Welcome to Less Wrong by the way!)