Steve Harris defends CI handover to SA

[+]. In the "Services not contracted for" thread in CF, SHarris throws a few curves.

Harris's argument is that we don't know why C81 didn't contract with SA-- as if that makes a difference in this case.

Did not want *at the price they had previously been offered for*-- that is all we can say. Simply saying "Did not want," has connotations which go far beyond what we know[+]

Harris writes "SIMPLY" saying "DID NOT WANT" has "CONNOTATIONS" that go BEYOND what we know.... it does? What part of "NO" does Harris not understand. The "N" part? Or the "O" part? He simply did not want to sign up with SA-- because HE DIDN"T.

Harris implies that price had something to do with it. THAT goes "far beyond what we know". The son probably knows because the son and C81 attended the SA conference where SA did NOT "close the deal" with C81. Someone at SA KNOWS why the deal wasn't closed. Maybe it WAS price. But the deal did not close. So there WAS no deal.

Ben Best wrote (in the CI account of C81)--

""Only a few weeks earlier the patient had attended a Suspended Animation, Inc. conference in Florida with his son. However, for reasons that are clear only to the patient, the patient did not sign up with Suspended Animation for their services. It occurred to me that Suspended Animation might offer cryonics rescue procedures for reduced cost, especially in light of the fact that there would be no standby. I saw this as a benefit for both the patient and for Suspended Animation. I contacted the patient's son and Suspended Animation to confirm that this could be done. Both parties agreed that this would be worthwhile and that the costs were acceptable"

Why does Ben thing the reasons are clear ONLY to the C81? The reasons HAD to have been clear to whoever was reprenting SA to C81 as the "closer" in this sales pitch / "conference". The reasons ALSO had to have been clear to the son who ALSO attended. I BET they ALL KNOW and they're just not saying they know. We can't even know who we're talking about here so we don't get the priviledge of being cryonics papparazzi to find out-- as would be the case if this were Hollywood instead of cryonics.

Ben writes "it OCCURRED to him" that SA might "offer cryonics rescue procedures for reduced cost" ESPECIALLY since there is no standby. He doesn't offer a number. But what DOES SA charge for a "cryonics rescue procedure"? $100,000? $50,000? Their website offers no clue. [+].

UPDATE-- I just found the price schedule for CI members who buy the SA rider-- [+. Looks like 30K.

What would have been the reduced cost-- with no standby? Ben doesn't say. $40,000? $20,000?

What would have been the standard cost through CI is SA were not involved? Here's the offer on the CI site--

A: Good news: you heard wrong! With CI, the minimum fee for cryopreservation at CI (which includes vitrification perfusion and long term storage) is $28,000 -- a one-time fee, due at time of death. And though it can be paid in cash, usually a member has a life insurance policy made that pays the amount to CI upon death. To have all this and also to have a professional cryonics team wait by the bedside to perform rapid cooling and cardiopulmonary support upon pronouncement of death you need a $100,000 life insurance policy. But many CI Members simply take the $28,000 option, without professional Standby, which can cost around $30 a month for someone starting his insurance when middle aged and in good health. [+]

It APPEARS as though what has happened here is that SA didn't close C81 on the sign up in the May conference due to price. That's a viable objection.

WE also see that Ben negotiated with [Saul?] on having SA do this "with no standby"-- which implies that there was no standby in the CI-contact-- which implies that C81 did NOT have $100,000 of life insurance, but only the $28,000 policy in place... which implies that SA did this deal with LESS than $28,000 since part of the 28K would have to go to CI for storage.

The fact that Harris AND Best both REMIND readers about price is a PRETTY GOOD INDICATION that price played a role in C81 NOT signing up with SA. The fact that C81 even ATTENDED the SA conference is PRETTY GOOD INDICATION that he was interested insofar as that goes. He was not, in principle, opposed to what SA was doing-- like I am.

So-- where's the point of inflection-- where Ben decides to offer a counter proposal to SA? I think it must be at the point of realization that C81 is on life support and that that eliminates the "standby" problem in terms of not knowing when the person will be declared dead.

Now-- THIS in and of itself is a problem because only a CERTAIN percentage of people on life support systems-- like that C81 ventilator-- die. Medical personnel don't like to "pull the plug" because it can be traumatic. Yet-- the "next of kin" had already decided to pull the plug on their own... which implies that C81 did NOT have a "living will".... because if he DID, it would have said "nobody pulls the plug on me other than CI".

And THIS indicates that CI is not training their members to create living wills for themselves. Of course, niether is Alcor. And that's a whole other dimension to the cryonics problem that I don't understand. Every issue of cryonics magazine should be a part-training manual for members-- but instead it's become a glossy sales pitch to acquire new members. Ugh.

Anyway...

So Ben must have realized that since the next of kin would pull the plug, the the moment of legal death would be predictable enough that this would be a no-standby case. That was a risky move in my opinion. People don't neccessarily expire if you pull the plug. For SA it was a risky move too. They cannot assume the patient will expire when the plug is pulled.

The whole issue of standby comes into play on a deeper level here. C81 appears to me to have been 200 miles from the CI lab. That's close enough to be close but far enough to be far. My argument is that when you're in trouble, you should locate yourself to within a stone's throw of a cryonics lab. C81 ought to have been located in a hospital near the CI lab. Actually, this is an argumnet for locating a cryonics lab near a hosptial too. I haven't seen that argument presented-- and I think its because something ELSE is going on in cryonics-- with money-- that I STILL don't understand-- that over-rides what you would normally think of as physically smart.

Take Marcie Johnson-- who is in California in a nursing home-- who WAS signed up with Alcor-- who convereted to CryoCare-- and then lost her cryonics insurance money throught nursing home care-- who is STILL not located near a cryonics lab-- but then perhaps there is a cryonics depot maintained by an Alcor member in LA-- who is aware of MJ-- and the funding being gathered by Venturists--

Take the wife of the Alcor CEO, Riskin. She was signed up but not near Alcor. Or take the Ventureville idea itself which was supposed to be near Alcor but located itself 50 mi north. Not too useful there becuase 50 miles away from the lab still constitutes a standby situation that's out of zone.

Back to Ben. He must have reasoned that it's UNLIKELY that there would be a standby. SA's Kent must have been involved in the decision-- one would think anyway-- and would have reasoned that there would not be a standby-- so that eliminates that cost.

Now we're down to where we reason that C81-- MIGHT very well have turned SA down due to price. So Ben and Saul negotiate the price down. Harris leads us to believe that C81 WOULD have taken the deal had the price been better. The son concurs-- and has legal "next of kin" rights to a) pull the plug b) decide who his father goes to-- SA or CI. and may very well EVEN have been able to choose NO cryonics. Who knows? C81 should NOT have left it up to the son-- but should have put the legal decision in CI's hands somehow.

Splicing and dicing the critical line of possible thought here-- I now see that-- ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL-- Ben thinks SA could have done a "better job" than CI. HArris implies this much--

where he was going to need a fairly high-tech perfusion to get vitrification solution into the damaged half of his brain), is[+]

This implies that the CI protocol would NOT have been "fairly high tech perfusion" to get "v-soln into the damaged half of the brain".

So now THIS element-- this little idea-- of a high tech (vs. low tech?) perfusion (involving ATP which wasn't used?)-- to v-soln into the damaged half of the brain (the v-solution normally DOES NOT get into the damaged half?)-- becomes interesting to me.

This raises the question of how CI goes about doing their perfusion and vitrificaiton-- and why Ben thinks SA could have done a better job. This assumes that, as we're being led to believe-- the decision was based on this technical matter. And this assumes that the SA superiority-- would have been superior DESPITE-- no personnel for ATP, questionably trained personnel compared to CI-- and despite being 1600 mi away compared to CI perssonnel who were 200 miles away-- and DESPITE the idea that CI personnel would have had no-standby if the family were to pull to plug as well. I think-- however-- that there is a possibility-- that all these TECHNICAL factors are a FALSE CANARD.

I think the other way to look at this is that there is something going on here that is NOT about what I've just covered-- but rather something more POLITICAL and FINANCIAL in nature. Somewhere along the way, someone mentioned that this case would be a good test of SA capaibilities to see where the holes are. Something like that. SA hadn't had a case in awhile. So the COMPETING MOTIVES OR underlying elements in conflict here-- are, in my view

A. Standard CI protocol for a standard CI member-- which is how this case SHOULD have been played-- no SA contract-- so NO SA participation-- last minute changes over-rode C81's expectation and arrangment. (This is a WARNING to all CI members and all cryonicists-- watch out of post-mortem monkey business over your dead body)

B. SA field practice and case-acquisition history to increase credibility and political operational presence-- and other related murky factors.

The case that Harris makes, defending the HANDOVER, appears reasonable but on further examination, is weak. The case that Best makes for the handover is also weak-- and doesn't take into account the distance problem, the untrained ATP personnel problem and the CI capability matched point for point against SA. By rights, Best ought to have alerted the CI network response team-- whatever that is-- and the CI mechanism should have gone into full gear-- to the extent they could. That was the contract.

The fact that the SA field practise idea was even raised-- is an indication that THIS idea played into the matrix of reasoning when it simply should NOT have been ANY part of the decision making-- at least from C81's point of view. C81 would have been safer with CI-- in my opinion-- and the VITRIFICATION solution would have gone as easily into his damaged brain area via CI protocol as SA's protocal. HArris's argument is false on this count especially since the ATP wasn't used.

For me, it raises the question of what CI's capabilities really are. Do they have any sort of response capability? Maybe not. Maybe they're down-- maybe they're so out of practice-- that Best was desparate and called SA out of desperation. The line of reasoning he presents could be just a cover story. There is no independent review going on in cryonics here. Anyone can say anything they want about a case, as long as they "all get their story straight". And the outside world couldn't care less. Because the guy is dead after all- to them.

If you look at the case histories on the SA site, there are now two, including this one. There should be three, however, since SA particpated in the TW case with Alcor. So right there, is a false history. Cover up! Cover up! That's a whole other issue.

Well, that's enough of that for today. Get blogging. You can find THIS post again here in the alpha list under SA Inc.-- C81-- Harris defends CI handover to SA.

UPDATE-- Harris indicates ATP was used after all.
I can't figure out if the atp was used or not- here's a cf thread where it is used on c81 [+]

This caused me to think that maybe that the SA field practise argument for the handover was based on the atp in particular, and that this was an opportunity to use the atp... and that that is the center of the situation. Previously I thought the center involved the son knowing why C81 didn't go with sa-- I'm satisfied it was cost-- the price was negotiated down-- through the son-- SA's perfusion would be better than CI's-- so Best called SA in-- but nobody trained on SA atp-- SA report says so-- Maxim didn't participate-- yet here we see atp was used. Was it used or not?