Faith and ethics

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Faith and Ethics
June 12 2007 at 2:00 PM Melody Maxim (Login melmax)
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“There is no faith component in cryonics. The purpose of contemporary cryonics is to prevent bad medical situations from becoming worse. That is a matter of objective fact. We do not know what the final outcome will be. We only know that preventing damage to people is morally right.” Brian Wowk on the Alcor United Forum, June 11, 2007.

Anyone, and everyone, who agrees with Dr. Wowk’s recent statement that “preventing damage to people is morally right,” and is aware of the conditions at SA, should step up to the plate and stop the malpractice that is going on, or will go on, at SA under the guidance of Charles Platt. Their web site makes their organization SEEM to be impressive, but everything is not as it seems. There is a lot of information being put forth that is designed to distract and deceive people, in regard to that company’s capabilities. Charles Platt has truly perfected the arts of propaganda and padding. I won’t have time to go into this, in detail, for the next two weeks, but for the time being, just look at their personnel page and ask yourself exactly WHO is going to perform all these miraculous procedures they claim to be capable of.

Saul Kent is not there on a fulltime basis; he only visited three, or four, times during the five months I was there. Even if he was there, is he qualified to make decisions regarding medical equipment and protocols, or perform medical procedures? Three staff members are guys who work with Charles in the shop, building HIS designs; they don’t know anything about medical procedures. One staff member is in charge of running the office, (though how this can be a fulltime job is beyond my comprehension), and has absolutely no medical experience, whatsoever. In my opinion, none of these individuals are devoted to progress in the field of cryonics; they are simply earning a living. Then there’s Mathew, who is absolutely devoted to cryonics, but has no medical background or cryonics field experience. (I believe the 40+ cases CP credits him with were assisting in the OR at Alcor; Mathew may certainly correct me if I am wrong.) I believe Mathew has always been very outspoken about the need to use qualified medical personnel. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have much say in the direction of SA.

If SA does a case anytime soon, you can bet the UNQUALIFIED perfusionist is most likely going to be one of the shop personnel, a fabricator who has never even perfused an animal, much less the number of patients it takes to graduate from an accredited perfusion program. A paramedic, may or may not show up, there’s no guarantee. If the client is really lucky, someone who has been doing research procedures on animals will show up to do the surgery. The “Team Leader” is undoubtedly going to be Mr. Platt, himself. He may be good with logistics, but I wouldn’t want him to lead a medical procedure on anyone I care about. IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY. If CP would quit acting like a buffoon, in regard to equipment and procedures, medical professionals would stick around.

Look on the “Vitrification” page of their website. They are working toward performing vitrification outside of an operating room or laboratory. Are they out of their minds? They don’t even have the capability of performing it in their facility and they plan to take it on the road and perform it in a vehicle? And just how do they expect to get to their clients in time? They wouldn’t be able to make it to the nearest Florida-Georgia border in less than four-and-a-half hours if they were sitting in the bus when they got called out! If they think they are going to take the equipment needed for vitrification on an airplane, they really are insane. Even if they could, how are they going to transport the client afterward? JUST HOW STUPID DOES SA THINK THEIR CLIENTS AND POTENTIAL CLIENTS ARE???

Their two cryomobiles are either for the benefit of Bill and Saul, alone, or are a tremendous tax write-off for LEF. There is no way in hell these two vehicles are going to be of benefit to clients that are hundreds, or thousands of miles away, unless assisted suicide is suddenly and miraculously legalized, and SA knows of a client’s impending legal death well ahead of time. Even then, there is no one at SA capable of carrying out these medical procedures.


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Finance Department
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We may soon learn just how well SA did on their first CI case ...
June 12 2007, 9:10 PM

... and with which personnel, doing exactly what, and with what equipment.

Grapevine has it that SA did recently do a case, most likely for a CI patient. My info could be mistaken, but we shall see.

If so, I'm definitely looking forward to reading the case writeup! SA, come forward ...



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Finance Department
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'Twas True - CI's Report Is Online
June 15 2007, 11:15 PM

My spiders unearthed this one this evening:

http://www.cryonics.org/reports/CI81.html

Maybe somebody forgot to post to CryoNet (or here, or ?) about it? Pretty important case, since it includes the issue of SA's ability to do what they say they can. Hope they will have more to say about that soon.

Does anyone with a much more technical background in cryonics than I have, have any comments on this CI report? I see some openended matters that I'm not sure how to form questions about: planning to perfuse the body but didn't, SA didn't wash out all the blood but CI did but did it really matter, how long did SA take to get there and why, all those graphs and charts I have no idea how to read - did he get the almost perfect suspension he should have from SA being there right at pronouncement or did he not, maybe some others. Somebody help me out here with a critique of this.



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Joe
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I Wonder
June 16 2007, 1:26 PM

The whole report sounds too good to be true and in my experience
things that sound that way generally are.
But how can we check?


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Joe
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Still wondering........
June 19 2007, 11:33 AM

This is from the CI report:

"Suspended Animation then rapidly began application of anti-ischemic medications, cool-down and cardiopulmonary support. Suspended Animation did a blood washout, used a heat exchanger for more rapid cooling while doing bypass perfusion and replaced the blood with organ preservation solution. The blood washout was done through the femorals so it did not interfere with the neck surgery required for cryoprotectant perfusion. "

I thought, under the rules making CI essentially a cemetery, that work
of this nature can now only be undertaken by a licensed funeral director.
So isn't it probable that this work was in fact carried out by the first funeral director.

Again, how can we check?


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Finance Department
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Wonders Never Cease
June 20 2007, 1:30 AM

I'm usually the one asking the questions, so find myself in the unusual position of trying to answer part of yours, since nobody else did. I'm not sure if you are focusing on whether the information is there, or on the reliability of the information, but as to the former, I think if you read the CI writeup closely most of your questions are addressed. Specifics are lacking, but you can draw the conclusion that SA travelled some indeterminate distance, for an indeterminate time, to be at the "bedside" of the patient. Later on we learn that this is definitely not on CI's premises or even near CI's funeral director, as it took two funeral directors meeting halfway to get the patient speedily to CI's funeral home. Therefore, the procedures you are referring to were not done by CI at all, but by SA. Also, one learns that the final perfusion procedures were not done by CI either, but by their local funeral home.

So does that answer your question regarding whether CI might have been doing anything they should not have done on their premises? I think I'm satisfied with that part. As for the matters I mentioned in my original post above, though, I'm not sure I'm satisfied with some of them.

FD


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Joe
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One does wonder still.................
June 20 2007, 4:29 AM

My original thought was that the report was too good to be true, I've been asking questions both here and other places.
The report was written by someone who was not present at any of the procedures until the patient was actually in CI's care.
Therefore the writer is relying on third party reports with little chance to verify the statements.
Do SA have reasons to embellish their role, certainly, would they, probably.

The fact that the kind of work stated in the report was required, by law, to be undertaken by an undertaker (no pun intended) suggests to me that the SA staff were probably only observers, or possibly working under the direction of the funeral director.

Does anyone know the name and address of the first mortician, if so let me know and I'll contact them and ask who actually carried out the procedures outlined in the report.
The oddest thing I've discovered so far is that the patient was not signed up with SA and arrangements were made after the fact, with the family.
I do hope this was carried out in a compassionate and considerate fashion.

Meanwhile FD I thank you for your, as usual, rational observations, my position remains that there is something not quite right in this whole situation.

I'll keep checking as best I can.


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Finance Department
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Eagerly Awaiting SA's Report
June 20 2007, 12:28 PM

I think a lot of both of our sets of questions may be answered by SA when they give us their report on the case. I'm assuming they are going to publish a report .. it's been requested .. even been requested/almost promised by their chief customer Ben Best/CI.

And yes, do look out for embellishments ... and cleverly omitted facts ... it's only human. But maybe there will be less of that since they will now know we are looking for such items.

Relatives signed the patient up with SA after the fact? Now there's something we will have to hear more about, if it's true. I didn't know that could be done.

Maybe the second funeral director (Walsh, according to CI's report) could tell you who the first one was.

Since you're poking around for more info on this, please do share what you find.

FD



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Joe
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Waiting and Wondering
June 21 2007, 12:47 PM

OK FD I think I'll await the SA report also.

I do have some other info which I'll send to you, (didn't you
have a Yahoo address for messages to be sent without revealing
your secret identity )
The info is only offered on a non-disclosure basis.

Let me know................


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Finance Department
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My email address:
June 21 2007, 1:48 PM

I've gotten away from using the Yahoo one. And from Yahoo for most things, it seems. Anyone can email me at:

Knotwiller@gmail.com

If anyone wonders what that handle means, it is for the real name I provide, Will Knot, when someone asks me if I am willing to provide my name

I will respect your and anyone else's requests not to disclose elsewhere any specific information provided.

Thanks.



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Joe
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OK
June 21 2007, 4:14 PM

Message sent, you now know most of what I
have discovered so far.


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Joe
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You Know
June 26 2007, 4:01 PM

You know given that at least some of the SA crew make, or used to make, a living from writing it's taking a long time to produce a simple report about the activities of their crew over two days or so.
I don't think the report will see the light of day.............and if not why not?



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Some Possible Reasons SA Isnt Doing a Report (Yet)
June 26 2007, 9:10 PM

Thats "maybe yet" ..

Well, one reason may be that nobody is left at SA to do one. Melmax quit. Platt quit, and apparently is now only being paid to do specific things on a contract basis (mostly the same stuff he did there before? except maybe writing reports?). De Wolf quit. Who's left? Do any of them have writing skills?

Does Saul Kent want a report done?

Maybe they are afraid that Melmax will dissect it

I'd certainly like to know how it went, though. Who, exactly was on the team that went to "wherever" by whatever mode of transportation, how long it took them to get there, exactly what all they did when they got there, etc etc.

SA, your credibility as a standby and transport company is at stake here. You have one case under your belt for us to measure you by. As Ms. Pancake is fond of saying: "Let's see what ya got."


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Steve Harris
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3 weeks, and still no SA case report; somebody call the police.
June 27 2007, 11:38 PM

Dear Finance Department:

I'm sure you'd like to see the SA case report, and it will posted in due time on the SA website. However, I'm afraid you have unrealistic ideas about how fast to expect publication of an edited and detailed report which analyzes and synthesizes data from many points of view, in a cryonics standby and cool-down.

For example, a number of Alcor case reports are still missing in action, all of them after more than a year. In fact, I believe that the present official policy is that Alcor doesn't even publish case reports anymore in the old 1990's style, but rather simply "case summaries." It's not an easy process to write such things.

As to your question of whether Saul Kent wants case reports on cryonics standby cases done, if you have to ask, you don't know the man. For a time, several years ago during the Waynick Alcor administration, Kent actually offered cash bounties out of his own pocket for full Alcor case reports to be done and published. This resulted in some getting done, but others are still hanging fire even now, and quite a lot of this bounty money still remains collectable but uncollected-- a matter of some thousands of dollars. If you want to know the details of why not, you can ask Alcor; that story is not mine to tell. However, suffice to say that SA case reports will certainly be done, warts and all. Everyone at SA understands how critical such things are, for quality control reasons. That includes, perhaps more than anyone else, Saul Kent.

Steve Harris


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Thank Mr. Kent for that!
June 28 2007, 12:41 AM

I take your post, especially the last paragraph, as an authoritative communique from Mr. Kent, tell him I said thanks, probably a lot of other people do too. I find it amusing, though not altogether puzzling, why someone who does not actually work for SA is making promises on behalf of SA, as the Kent factor probably explains that.

Somehow it does not surprise me at all that case reports are missing from any cryonics organization. Ya gotta do, with what ya got ta do with. And even Alcor, who has the bucks to do them, but they have other detracting issues..

Steve, when you get a chance, ask Mr. Kent where Charles Platt went. We miss him here!

I like you too, of course.

FD

P.S. Could you give us a guesstimate on how long "in due time" might be for the first SA case report? A week? A month? A year? Um, ... and of course "warts" and all. We can be more forgiving when open disclosure is evident.


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