I recently found something that may be of concern to some of the readers here.
On her blog, Melody Maxim, former employee of Suspended Animation, provider of "standby services" for Cryonics Institute customers, describes several examples of gross incompetence in providing those services. Specifically, spending large amounts of money on designing and manufacturing novel perfusion equipment when cheaper, more effective devices that could be adapted to serve their purposes already existed, hiring laymen to perform difficult medical procedures who then botched them, and even finding themselves unable to get their equipment loaded onto a plane because it exceeded the weight limit.
An excerpt from one of her posts, "Why I Believe Cryonics Should Be Regulated":
It is no longer possible for me to believe what I witnessed was an isolated bit of corruption, and the picture gets bigger, by the year...
For forty years, cryonics "research" has primarily consisted of laymen attempting to build equipment that already exists, and laymen trying to train other laymen how to perform the tasks of paramedics, perfusionists, and vascular surgeons...much of this time with the benefactors having ample funding to provide the real thing, in regard to both equipment and personnel. Organizations such as Alcor and Suspended Animation, which want to charge $60,000 to $150,000, (not to mention other extra charges, or years worth of membership dues), are not capable of preserving brains and/or bodies in a condition likely to be viable in the future. People associated with these companies, have been known to encourage people, not only to leave hefty life insurance policies with their organizations listed as the beneficiaries, to pay for these amateur surgical procedures, but to leave their estates and irrevocable trusts to cryonics organizations.
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Again, I have no problem with people receiving their last wishes. If people want to be cryopreserved, I think they should have that right. BUT...companies should not be allowed to deceive people who wish to be cryopreserved. They should not be allowed to publish photos of what looks like medical professionals performing surgery, but in actuality, is a group of laymen playing doctor with a dead body...people whose incompetency will result in their clients being left warm (and decaying), for many hours while they struggle to perform a vascular cannulation, or people whose brains will be underperfused or turned to mush, by laymen who have no idea how to properly and safely operate a perfusion circuit. Cryonics companies should not be allowed to refer to laymen as "Chief Surgeon," "Surgeon," "Perfusionist," when these people hold no medical credentials.
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 ... (read more)