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"CRYONICS AND THE ALCOR LIFE EXTENSION FOUNDATION
CRYONIC SUSPENSION is an experimental procedure whereby patients
who can no longer be kept alive with today's medical abilities are
preserved at low temperatures for treatment in the future. Although
this procedure is not yet reversible, it is based on the expectation
that medical technology of the future will be able to cure today's
diseases, reverse the effects of aging, and repair any additional injury
caused by the freezing process. That superior technology could then
rejuvenate suspended patients to enjoy health and youth indefinitely.
The field which deals with this procedure is called CRYONICS. (This
should not be confused with "cryogenics," which is the branch of physics
which studies very low temperatures.)
Cryonics is not a cult or a religion of any kind. The people
involved in cryonics hold widely varying views on religion, politics,
and social issues. Their occupations include scientists, physicians,
computer programmers, business owners, teachers, librarians, and
secretaries. However, they all agree that being alive is a wonderful
thing and that this technology may help them stay that way.
Cryonics might better be seen as a experimental medical technology.
This label may seem strange at first, since many people have gotten the
mistaken impression that cryonics patients are dead. Cryonics is not a
new way of storing dead bodies. It is a new way of saving lives.
Cryonicists refer to these frozen people as PATIENTS , because we firmly
believe that they are, in some manner, still alive.
People really are being frozen; it is no longer science fiction.
Approximately 50 persons have been frozen since the first cryonic
suspension in 1967. About 300 other people have made the financial and
legal arrangements to be suspended in case they should become terminally
ill or injured. However, any stories you may read about frozen people
being revived are definitely science fiction. No human has ever been
thawed out and revived, and it will be a long time before this happens.
Medical technology has not yet advanced to the point where cryonic
suspension is reversible; today's deadly illnesses and injuries are not
yet curable; and even if these things had been accomplished, there is no
point in reviving anyone until the aging process is fully under control.
No one wants to be reawakened as an aged, infirm person.
Cryonics is not yet accepted as a legitimate life-saving procedure
by today's medical authorities. With our current technology we cannot
prove that a frozen human can be repaired and revived (although a great
deal of research suggests that this will be possible in the future).
Unfortunately, this situation creates numerous medical, legal, and even
political difficulties. For instance, if a patient were to be suspended
while he was legally alive, someone might claim that the suspension
process itself had killed that patient, creating the possibility of
criminal or civil charges against the suspension team. Therefore,
current cryonics practice is to suspend dying patients as soon as
possible after cardiac arrest (stopping of the heart) and declaration of
"legal death."
This course of action can be seen as reasonable once one realizes
that "legal death" is not the same as "biological death." A physician
declares legal death when a patient's condition cannot be repaired with
current medical knowledge and techniques. However, the process of
deterioration which we call "dying" is not a sudden happening. It is
much more like slipping into an ever deepening coma. Even several
hours after declaration of death, most of the cells in the body
(including those in the brain) are still individually alive and ready to
regain function.
As late as the 1940's, people who stopped breathing because of
heart attacks or drowning were routinely declared dead. Today thousands
of people have survived heart attacks and other conditions which would
have been fatal 40 years ago. Children have survived over an hour of
"drowning" in cold water. Were those heart attack and drowning victims
really dead forty years ago, but nature has changed the rules today? Of
course not; those people were still alive-- doctors just did not know
what to do about it. In the same way, most people who are declared dead
TODAY would be called "alive" by doctors of the future. With that
prospect in mind, we think these patients should be considered "alive"
NOW, and we should do something to KEEP them that way.
Even within the next 10-15 years, you are likely to be amazed by
the amount of progress in recovering patients from strokes, heart
attacks, and lack of oxygen to the brain. Ultimately, it should be
possible to recover patients as long as basic brain structure remains
intact (several hours past the point at which today's doctors give up).
In the next century, the medical knowledge of the 1980's will seem as
primitive as the medical understandings of one hundred years ago seem to
us. Cryonic suspension itself will cure nothing, but it buys time for
the patient, keeping his body virtually unchanged until a future when
his frozen condition may be considered only an extremely deep coma.
Even now there is solid evidence that cooling the human body to
liquid nitrogen temperature (-320o F), with the use of techniques to
reduce freezing injury, can preserve the fine structure of the brain
indefinitely.
There is no guarantee that cryonic suspension will ever allow for
future revival. We do not know enough to state absolutely that this
procedure is workable. However, the case for the possible future
revival of suspended patients grows stronger all of the time. One
recent argument in favor of future repair and revival of suspended
patients was provided by K. Eric Drexler in his fascinating book,
ENGINES OF CREATION (Doubleday, 1986). This book details the beginnings
of the new field of "nanotechnology" (also called "molecular
engineering"). Nanotechnology is the next step smaller than micro-
technology, and it will create industries which will operate by working
with atoms and molecules one at a time. Among other astounding
developments, this will lead to computers and cell repair machines one
thousand times smaller than a human cell. Such devices could repair any
disease or injury (including that from freezing) by working directly on
the cells themselves.
It must be pointed out that cryonicists are not people with some
fixation on cold temperatures. None of us want to be frozen. We are
simply people who like being alive, and who want to see the future and
all of its wonders. For us, cryonics provides a safety net, a last-
ditch attempt at life-saving which may give us the chance to see that
future.
Our cryonics organization, Alcor Life Extension Foundation
("Alcor"), is a California not-for-profit corporation, registered with
the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt scientific organization.
Alcor has a fully equipped and operational research laboratory,
operating room, and patient storage facility in Riverside, California.
Alcor was formed as a mutual aid society, where the members are
committed to helping each other. All Alcor board members, officials,
and suspension team personnel are required to be full suspension
members. We do not want a situation which could pit "Alcor" against
"the members." Alcor IS its members. All decisions on the safety of
the patients and stability of the organization are made with the
knowledge that they will affect everyone in the organization.
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