CI's mortician-based cryonics program destroyed.

I've been in discussion in a thread here with someone who defends CI's funeral director assistance program-- and it's not polite conversation. I feel that the person I'm speaking to is trying to hoodwink me-- and insults (as usual with me) are being thrown around. This person thinks they know what they're talking about but makes what I consider to be outrageous remarks about CI members being able to arrange their own funeral director guided cryonics service-- which is patently absurd in my view.

I contend something radical-- and politically "incorrect"-- a radical hostile view that Cryonics Institute has NOT being doing cryonics-- that they've been doing pseudo-cryonics-- something that "looks like" cryonics but isn't. And I now contend that SA riders for CI members are not an "option" but a neccessity-- otherwise they're not "fully signed up". There are, in essence, 34 fully signed up members at CI-- those who have the SA rider.

I contend that there was a hope that the funeral director assistance progream COULD work-- and for some time-- it seemed believeable. However that changed radically at one point-- as FD points out in CF--

Funeral directors no longer do washout or perfusion when handling Cryonics Institute patients. Please see Funeral Directors' Guidelines for instructions.

Funeral directors no longer do washout or perfusion when handling Cryonics Institute patients. Please see Funeral Directors' Guidelines for instructions. Formerly the Cryonics Institute (CI) requested distant funeral directors to do washout and perfusion. (Perfusion means infusion through blood vessels. For cryonics patients perfusion is done with washout solution or cryoprotectant -- "anti-freeze"-- solution.) It is now no longer CI policy to have any funeral director other than CI's Michigan funeral director do washout or perfusion. The remote funeral director should emphasize prompt cooling to ice-water temperature and rapid shipment. A remote washout can be damaging to blood vessels. Avoid cooling below ice-water temperature because freezing damages blood vessels, making perfusion impossible. Cryoprotectant perfusion is best done in Michigan and requires immediate cooling when perfusion is complete.

Right there-- we have the centerpiece of the destruction of the CI funeral director program. THAT was the inflection point where theres' an upward curve turning into a downward curve. That ended the program... because without INCREASED funeral director participation in cryonics, CI lost that development path. They said nothing. They didn't point to it. They didn't draw attention to it. And yet-- I sense now that it was a major disaster for them.... because without the immedaite washout and cold perfusion with organ preservation solution-- the kind used in organ transplants developed as early as 1984 I understand, , the "standard" by which we think of cryonics as cryonics today is not met. And you have to wonder at what point does a process become "not cryonics" and only "pseudo cryonics".

Note too that the above quote on CI's current protocol page for fueneral directors refers only to CRYOPROTECTIVE PERFUSION and that there is NO REFERENCE to ORGAN PRESERVATION perfusion-- they KEY item in the cryonics chain of events now.

CI therefore needs SA, as my earlier post today points out. SA is underwritten with millions of dollars-- and it's continued existence is by no means guaranteed. They say they're a for-profit business. Some profit. In any case-- the situation as it exists at this moment is just that.

The key item in the cryonics process has to be thought of in terms of the immediate washout and perfusion using an ATP (air transportable perfusion kit) with organ preservation solution-- and THEN the transport can take place. As it is with CI now, funeral directors are NOT to do that initial perfusion... they damage the blood vessels because these guys are not trained MEDICAL perfusionists... just as SA people on C81 were not trained MEDICAL perfusionsists. This is key to why CI STOPPPED letting their morticians do perfusions... they were probably wrecking the vascular systems of the cryonics patients... which means that SA personnel might have wrecked the vascular system of C81... and that's why it takes someone with YEARS OF EXPERIENCE and good equpment like MAxim to do a MEDICALLY VALID perfusion.

Alcor apparently does medical quality perfusions-- using thei own ATP kit-- but we don't know WHO is on the team.. it seems that their personnel are anonymous-- or DO we know if Tanya is able to run medical quality perfusions? The entire cryonics program revolves around the FIRST perfusion-- as the key hardest part-- because you have to do it immediately and it has to be done right. CI's current protocol is for the mortician to get to the patient when he can and do a little chest thumping and put bags of ice around his head-- that would be great if this were 1963.

CI doesn't HAVE a cryonics program. That's the take home message. CI has a pseudo-cryonics program. And the CI members who are signed up with SA are "in" a cryonics program. There are 34 CI cryoneers. Let the mainstream media get THAT. And that assumes that SA has a medical person working the medical perfusion system-- which they don't... so even with THIS statement, I'm being generous.

Here's the thread this morning where I got involved in a hostile debate with someone who believes in CI's mortician based "pseudo cryonics" program. [+].