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Following on
July 4 2007 at 11:27 AM Joe (Login Joeperkins)
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Melody Maxim wrote:
"I don't think "filterpatrol" is Phil; I was thinking it might be Platt. After all, he is the person whose ego would most likely be bruised by Joe's "Well said" post. Anyone who believes Platt isn't reading this forum...well, I have some land you might be interested in, in Florida."

I regret I cannot take advantage of the Florida land offer as I just spent all my free capital on some Montana ocean front property

I just used Phil because of the "Fil" in Filterpatrol, after reading more from Phil I'm inclined to think it might be Mr Best, although he has posted here using his own name in the past, Mr Best was the one negotiating the re-storage of the Cryocluster patients, (Cryocare span etc), who it seems were not their patients , and of course is now the President of CI busily involved in the promotion of SA.

The writing style is very similar also.

Now, if the patients were not the responsibility of, or prepared and stored by Cryo Span etc, then I'm going to assume CryoSpan etc persuaded others to use their storage facilities which, to me, makes them Cryo Span etc patients.
Perhaps Cryo Span etc were not in business long enough to deal with any of their own signees.
It's all very strange.

Mr Best did make the initial report on the latest CI/SA case I look forward to comparing it with the SA and perhaps Andy Zawacki reports in due course.


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Melody Maxim
(Login melmax)
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Re: Following on
July 4 2007, 12:33 PM

I know Ben Best well enough to have a hard time believing he would post anonymously, and we all know Platt has admitted to doing so, on numerous occasions. I figure Ben is doing the wise thing, and remaining silent until the dust settles and he is satisfied, or not, with what is really going on at SA.

Happy Fourth of July! I think I'll take my fireworks outside, for a little while.


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Joe
(Login Joeperkins)
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Messy Basement
July 5 2007, 8:53 AM

Poolfilter...sorry Filterpatrol wrote:

"Saying that CryoCare's president "begged" to move CryoCare patients to CI was a cheap shot. It also happens to be factually wrong since there was never a need to move CryoCare patients to CI. To understand what really happened, read "CryoSpan Patients Moved to CI" at
http://www.cryonics.org/whatsold.html"

I'm a bit untidy which is why I took almost two hours of my day off to find the September/October 1999 issue of the Immortalist.
It contains an interesting report of the then CI President Robert Ettinger outlining the presence of a certain Ben Best at the CI annual general meeting. Mr Ettinger reports that Mr Best would like an agreement with CI wherby CI will accept CC members for long term storage.
The report also stated that CC would not accept any new contractees.

I also found, with this copy of the Immortalist a copy of the CI minutes from that very CI annual general meeting which confirms the presence of Mr Best at said meeting.
The minutes record QUOTE" Cryocare seems to lack any assured provider of either initial care or storage -- to the apparent extent that CC might be in an awkward position if a couple CC whole body patients were to die" END QUOTE.

So the facts: Ben Best,stating he was the acting President of CC caused by the resignation of Charles Platt, was at that meeting seeking the assistance of CI with the storage of patients.
Mr Best was not in the strongest negotiating position and my term "begging" sums up the situation at the time nicely.

Let's not pretend otherwise, the Cryocluster group were going out of business (well new business anyway, which is the same thing) Mike Darwin had departed as had Charles Platt.
Ben Best did what he could to salvage the remains, quite well really.

But lets not pretend thing were other than reported.

Meanwhile I'm sure CI/Long Life can provide copies of the material I've quoted on request



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filterpatrol
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truth or consequences
July 5 2007, 6:34 PM

Joeperkins wrote:

"The minutes record QUOTE" Cryocare seems to lack any assured provider of either initial care or storage -- to the apparent extent that CC might be in an awkward position if a couple CC whole body patients were to die" END QUOTE."

That is very different from your original statement:

"I remember being at the CI annual meeting when then Cryo"care" president virtually begged for CI assistance to store the Cryo"care" patients."

"The Cryocare patients" clearly implies assistance was needed with already-frozen people. Perhaps that was what you remembered, but it was not correct.

It continues to be unfortunate that people are throwing around rhetorical hyperbole all over this discussion. One of the possible outcomes is that Saul Kent may actually read this board and take it seriously--- that SA has been wasting money, it is not going well, that he does too much for cryonics already (an unfair monopoly on philanthropy!) ---and does something about it, like folding SA. If that happens, another organization will be in a difficult position, with poor Ben in the middle of it again. I have heard that most CI members don't subscribe to (or believe in?) standby services, but I hope that doesn't mean any will take pleasure in such a development.


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Melody Maxim
(Login melmax)
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Re: truth or consequences
July 5 2007, 8:10 PM

Definitely Charles.

The consequences you speak of are virtually nil to everyone except the personnel and consultants at SA; nothing is really being accomplished there, in my opinion. On the other hand, maybe Saul and/or Bill WILL read this forum and decide to invest in more qualified personnel and some REAL research, which would benefit cryonicists, including Ben, on a rather grand scale.


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filterpatrol
(Login filterpatrol)
Consequences
July 6 2007, 2:39 AM

Melody wrote:

"The consequences you speak of are virtually nil to everyone except the personnel and consultants at SA; nothing is really being accomplished there, in my opinion."

Case readiness is "accomplished" in that SA was apparently able to field a response to Wisconsin on short notice and generate an outcome much better than just a mortician gathering up remains and shipping them on ice at his convenience. How can you say there would be no consequences when the second largest cryonics organization in the world depends on SA for national standby services?

It blows me away that there seem to be CI partisans here dumping on Saul Kent and SA, hurling terms like "medical malpractice". WTF? As if before Kent started this expensive subsidy of the cryonics industry, no matter how inefficiently run, mortician cryonics was good medical practice? Before berating organizations for how bad things are compared to what they could be, you would do well to look back at how bad things have historically been at all organizations compared to medical ideals.


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Melody Maxim
(Login melmax)
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Re: Consequences
July 6 2007, 9:55 AM

FILTERPATROL (no doubt in my mind, Platt): "Case readiness is "accomplished" in that SA was apparently able to field a response to Wisconsin on short notice and generate an outcome much better than just a mortician gathering up remains and shipping them on ice at his convenience. How can you say there would be no consequences when the second largest cryonics organization in the world depends on SA for national standby services?"

I disagree with this. I am a medical professional, educated at one of the most prestigious medical schools in the world, and I have spent a decade in heart surgery, the field that uses perfusion technology, which is undeniably one of the key factors in cryonic preservation. I spent five months at SA, and I know what they are doing, and more importantly, what they are not doing. Unless a staff member is interested in doing something that requires a lot of design and fabrication hours for Platt, most suggestions for projects, or improvement, are turned down.

For those who have infinite faith in nanotechnology, the mortician route would probably be just as good as what SA is doing. For those who, like me, believe as pristine a cryopreservation as possibly is necessary, you need someone other than a couple of designer/fabricators and a secretary to show up at the time of your legal death. And, you need the professionals to show up with the proper equipment and the knowledge with which to use it. The fact that Platt and Harris persist in trying to win this debate by comparing SA to other entities that may be even worse, says a lot to me.

I don't care if their patients are "legally dead," I think what they are doing is medical malpractice. Just because things were even worse, historically, doesn't absolve SA from not doing better, now. A great deal of the technology and equipment they need already exists. Platt refuses to even consider existing equipment before he takes off on paying himself tens of thousands of dollars to build his own. The best example of this was the level detectors. Did he even ask to see the $385 FDA-approved models before he spent a year building his own? No. I called the manufacturer up and had a model in my hand, to examine and test, in one week, at no charge to SA. Why didn't Platt do that when I suggested it? Why didn't he do it a year earlier, when Mathew suggested it?? This situation is mind-boggling. It appears to me that, what they have at SA, is someone taking the route that best benefits HIM, not the company, or the field of cryonics. What Kent seems to be in total denial of, is that there are trained personnel, such as myself, (and I'm not the only one), who would be willing to participate if it weren't for Platt's antics at SA.

FD describe the situation at SA, quite well: "It could be partly he (Kent) has so much money he doesn't care about waste. It could be he places too much reliance and trust in his "inner circle" subordinates. Those would also mean, of course, that he is not paying enough attention to whether optimal resources and procedures are being utilized, and in that, he is not paying enough attention to what will eventually be the best cryopreservation for him. Maybe Mr. Kent needs to wake up and realize things like if the best treatment SA's CI patient gets, is service from three nonmedical staff (have they all even had training in what they did or did they just get out tools and tubing and take directions over the phone? - a new meaning for "remote" standby & transport!) then that is about the same treatment Kent would get if he deanimated somewhere 1500 miles away."

What FD writes is sadly too close to the truth. Platt once told me, (I believe I even have it in an email), he could be the "Team Leader" over the phone. I think (hope) he was talking about performing the logistical aspects, such as getting people and equipment there, but I can't imagine Gary, Kelly and Ken doing the procedures on their own. I hope, for the patient's sake, at least one of the paramedics and one of the research surgeons, were there.



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Melody Maxim
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Debate and Logic
July 6 2007, 10:47 AM

My teenager, who performs in the top five percent of nationwide tests in math and language, made really poor grades in both these subjects on his report card, this year. His argument to me was, "Well, I did better than most of my friends." My answer to him is the same as what I would like to say to Platt and Harris:

The argument "We did better than X, Y and Z," does not translate to "We did our best."


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filterpatrol
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Re: Debate and Logic
July 6 2007, 12:39 PM

I hope you did not tell him that he should quit school because with marks like that quitting would have no consequences for anybody.



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Melody Maxim
(Login melmax)
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Re: Debate and Logic
July 6 2007, 1:34 PM

Don't be assinine. I basically said to him the same thing I've been saying to Kent/SA:

"Use your resources more wisely and live up to your full potential."


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filterpatrol
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Re: Debate and Logic
July 6 2007, 2:14 PM

I wrote:

"I hope you did not tell him that he should quit school because with marks like that quitting would have no consequences for anybody."

Melody responded:

"Don't be assinine."

Then don't write:

"The consequences (of SA closure) you speak of are virtually nil to everyone except the personnel and consultants at SA"


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Melody Maxim
(Login melmax)
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Context
July 7 2007, 8:15 AM

I stand by what I wrote, which "filterpatrol" took out of context. For SA to continue to exist as it is, or to close down, would not make a huge difference in the world of cryonics. They are not performing cryomedical research at that facility, though they have sometimes described research as one of their purposes, and they recently sent three people who have no knowledge of medicine, and no prior experience, to do a case.

I think everyone here is intelligent enough to realize that what I have been fighting for is reform. It's unlikely Kent and Faloon would give up on cryonics, at this point. Remember they also fund CCR and 21CM and Kent sits on the board of Alcor. If they did close down SA, they would most likely just redirect their funds to companies where there is more than one employee dedicated to progress in the field of cryonics.

For the record, my entire response to "filterpatrol's" suggestion that Kent might read this forum and decide to close down SA:

"The consequences you speak of are virtually nil to everyone except the personnel and consultants at SA; nothing is really being accomplished there, in my opinion. On the other hand, maybe Saul and/or Bill WILL read this forum and decide to invest in more qualified personnel and some REAL research, which would benefit cryonicists, including Ben, on a rather grand scale."

As everyone can see, I am suggesting change, not surrender.




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Joe
(Login Joeperkins)
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Questionable
July 6 2007, 5:41 AM

Filterpatrol wrote:

""The Cryocare patients" clearly implies assistance was needed with already-frozen people. Perhaps that was what you remembered, but it was not correct."

Ok, are you saying that no patients were moved from the Cryocluster undergound dewers to CI after Ben Bests visit?
In which case Best only wanted an arrangement for future patients of CC?

If I'm wrong, where did the patients that Cryocluster were storing actually go?




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Finance Department
(Login Finance_Department)
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OK, I did the research - here's the story.
July 6 2007, 11:45 AM

CryoCare had two patients. Apparently they were kept at CryoSpan.

http://www.cryocare.org/index.cgi

Trans Time had 5 human and 2 feline patients that were transferred to CryoSpan in 1995. Curiously, they "under the guardianship of the American Cryonics Society" at that point, according to Paul Wakfer:

http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=4687

"Late afternoon on Tuesday, April 6th the Cryonics Institute received ten American Cryonics Society patients from CryoSpan, along with some pets. CryoSpan has been attempting to close-down operations for several years and with this move will finally be able to do so. When I was Secretary of CryoCare I negotiated the move of the two CryoCare patients from CryoSpan to Alcor, so I have been very involved in helping CryoSpan to safely ensure the long-term care of all of its patients. CryoSpan can now safely cease operations." (obviously written by Ben Best)

http://www.cryonics.org/whatsold.html

So, apparently, CI got 10 human patients from CryoSpan that were ACS patients, five of whom were originally Trans Time patients. The only two patients CryoCare ever had went to Alcor. CI has NO CryoCare patients, although Best did negotiate with CI's board to handle them if the situation ever arose (reported elsewhere here).


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Ben Best
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My activities on behalf of CryoCare and CryoSpan patients
July 6 2007, 12:18 PM

Since there is so much confusion on this history I will give clarification.

I left Alcor to join CryoCare primarily because this is what most of my most respected cryonics friends had done. I was fully aware that there were many explosive personalities and that there was a great danger the organization would implode with infighting -- and I was correct about that. Nonetheless, I felt that it was worth trying to save or salvage the organization once the implosion actually happened.

CryoSpan was the cryostorage organization created by Paul Wakfer. At the time Paul resigned from CryoSpan it had two patients from CryoCare and about ten patients from the American Cryonics Society (ACS). Saul Kent took over CryoSpan and decided to refuse acceptance of new patients. This does not mean that the patients at CryoSpan were in danger, but it did mean that if CryoCare was to continue it would need a new storage organization for future patients. This is what I attempted to negotiate with the Cryonics Institute in my role as President of CryoCare. I think "begging" is a misrepresentation if it implies that the CryoSpan patients were in danger. I trust that Saul would have maintained the patients at CryoSpan as long as was necessary, which is in fact what he did. It proved to be a long time.

I had been Secretary of CryoCare when Charles Platt resigned in 1999. I took over as CryoCare President. Then when Charles decided he wanted to be President again I went back to being Secretary. As CryoCare Secretary I negotiated for the two CryoCare patients to be moved from CryoSpan to Alcor. That was around 2000 or 2001 (I am not going to check my files for the exact date right now). As President of the Cryonics Institute it was me who negotiated the move of the ACS CryoSpan patients to CI in 2004. I am glad to have negotiated the current long-term cryostorage arrangements of all of the CryoSpan patients.

I am not sure how this information will affect the arguments, but hopefully there is some benefit to be gotten from the history lesson.



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AndyZawacki
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An incorrect claim
July 9 2007, 8:27 AM

Ben Best wrote “As President of the Cryonics Institute it was me who negotiated the move of the ACS CryoSpan patients to CI in 2004. I am glad to have negotiated the current long-term cryostorage arrangements of all of the CryoSpan patients.


This is not at all accurate. The negotiations and planning for the ACS/CryoSpan move were well under way before Ben Best was appointed to replace Robert Ettinger as CI’s president in September of 2003. In fact, some of the Cryonic Storage Agreements for these patients were signed by CI’s then president, Robert Ettinger, in April of 2003 showing that the negotiations for the ACS patient move had started long before Ben Best’s presidency at CI started. The complete move took place in two separate moves. The first move was completed in August of 2003 and the second move was completed in the spring of 2004. Ben Best became president at the end of September in 2003.

In the first move I moved pets and biological matter. We, CI & ACS, originally planned to make the second move immediately after the first move, but because we still needed transit permits, and a good emergency backup system for transporting the human patients, we decided to wait until the spring of 2004 to make the second move. Another factor that led us to wait until spring for the second move was that even if we did get the permits and backup system in place quickly enough, we were still facing the fact that it was getting late in the year and we did not want to risk a chance of getting caught in a snow storm in the mountains.

When spring of 2004 arrived, we obtained the necessary permits, had devised an emergency backup transport system that was satisfactory to ACS and then I moved the rest of the patients form California to Michigan. There are a lot more details, but I believe that these should be enough.

I do not like to see someone take credit for something when credit should is actually owed to someone else.

Ben Best came into the picture just after I finished the first move and as we were working out the details to the second move. He did take part in some of the correspondences, but to take credit for negotiating the move of the ACS CryoSpan patients to CI in 2004 and for having negotiated the current long-term cryostorage arrangements of all of the CryoSpan patients is as I said, not at all accurate.

It is my strong opinion based on the facts surrounding this move that credit for negotiating the transfer of the ACS/CryoSpan patients is actually owed to Robert Ettinger and Jim Yount. I am sure that if everyone knew all of the details and facts surrounding this patient move that they would have the same opinion as I have. Well, almost everyone.

Sincerely,
Andy Zawacki






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Ben Best
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Modification of claim
July 9 2007, 9:52 AM

Andy is right that it would be overstating matters to say that I negotiated the ACS/CI move on my own. It is too easy to get the impression that I did this on the basis of my statements, but I am not meaning to mislead.

I became President of CI in September of 2003 when the Cryonics Institute was under a "Cease and Desist" order by the State of Michigan. No move was possible until the problems with the State had been resolved. When CI became a licensed cemetery early in 2004 conditions were again in place to finish the move. I initiated the process of completing moving the patients and did some negotiations for that phase of the operation.

I do not mean to take credit from Robert Ettinger, Andy Zawacki and others for the role they played in the negotiations. And certainly the parties on the other side deserve credit -- Jim Yount and others at the American Cryonics Society for the CryoSpan/ACS/CI move as well as Fred Chamberlain and others (primarily Directors) at Alcor for their role in the CryoSpan/CryoCare/Alcor move.


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Ben Best
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And furthermore
July 9 2007, 12:14 PM


Also deserving of great credit is Dr. Wowk and others at CryoSpan in the post-Wakfer period. Dr. Wowk not only deserves credit for his work in negotiating and implementing the moves, he deserves credit for all of the work he had to do in maintaining the patients at CryoSpan. I considered this a horrible waste of talent and I was highly motivated to accelerate the liberation of Dr. Wowk from these tasks so that he could better devote his skills to research.

As a further disclaimer on my claims to credit, I will add that I contributed little if not nothing to the physical moves themselves. Dr. Wowk, Andy Zawacki, Hugh Hixon, John Bull and many others deserve the credit for this.


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filterpatrol
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Perfectly clear
July 6 2007, 12:20 PM

"Ok, are you saying that no patients were moved from the Cryocluster undergound dewers to CI after Ben Bests visit?"

Yes, none were moved after Ben's visit to CI, and Ben's visit had nothing to do with moving patients. Also,the storage company was called Cryospan, not Cryocluster, and Ben did not represent it.

"In which case Best only wanted an arrangement for future patients of CC?"

Yes.

"If I'm wrong, where did the patients that Cryocluster were storing actually go?"

Five years after Ben's visit, ACS had their Cryospan patients moved to CI. CryoCare had their Cryospan patients moved to Alcor at an earlier date. All this was explained at the CI website link I gave earlier, and verified by FD below.


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Joe
(Login Joeperkins)
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Hmmmm
July 6 2007, 1:22 PM

Thank you Ben.


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