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.
...
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.
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 ... (read more)