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[Bruce Klein]

Alcor News Bulletin
Number 10: March 10th, 2003

Alcor's Oldest Member Enters Cryopreservation

Less than a week after the case of Thomas Munson (reported
in the previous Alcor News), we responded to a call from a
Los Angeles emergency room where Alcor member A-1025 had
experienced cardiac arrest. Although he requested anonymity,
he had become well known among cryonicists over a period of
more than two decades, having joined Alcor originally in
September, 1977 when our organ donor documents identified us
as "The Alcor Society for Solid State Hypothermia." When his
legal death was pronounced at 10:52 PM PST on Saturday,
March 1st, 2003, A-1025 was our oldest patient, aged 88.

Purely by coincidence we had deployed a standby team at
another hospital less than a mile away, where we were
concerned about a member who had been suffering from
pneumonia complicated by congestive heart failure. Since she
was beginning to show a marked improvement (which we are
pleased to report has continued), the standby team for her
case, including David Hayes, paramedic Larry Johnson, and
some Southern California members, quickly moved to the
emergency room where A-1025 was located.

This also happened to be the first night of our training
sessions in Arizona at Creekside Lodge, a luxury motel owned
by former Alcor vice-president David Pizer. Fortunately we
had overstaffed the training sessions as a precautionary
measure and were able to continue without two of our
instructors who were dealing with events in California.

A-1025 had been incapacitated alone at home and had suffered
two days of dehydration before being taken to the emergency
room. A staff physician administered heparin and did chest
compressions, but we were not able to witness this, and we
speculate that the stressful conditions in a Los Angeles
hospital on a Saturday night may have allowed very little
time for CPR on someone who would have been perceived as
beyond help. We believe that A-1025 probably was subjected
to a combination of dehydration and inadequate
heparinization.

Some blood clots were found during the washout procedure,
and the usual 20 liters of solution were insufficient to
obtain a clear venous return. The patient was delayed
overnight by mortuary paperwork problems and reached Alcor
by ground transportation at 4:35 PM PST on Sunday, March
2nd. We regret that he failed to perfuse as well as our
previous four cases.

On the upside, he lived long enough to reach the emergency
room before he was pronounced. If legal death had occurred
earlier while he was still in his home, he could have been
subjected to an autopsy.

Many thanks to Dr. Jerry Lemler for managing the case of
A-1025 while our director of suspension services was running
Alcor's training sessions. We hope to augment this brief
summary when we have time to assemble reports from all the
people who were involved. Our thanks, once again, to our
Southern California team members who responded to yet
another case which occurred without warning.

------------------------------------------------------------

Training Sessions Completed


More than twenty people gathered for training sessions which
commenced at 4 PM on Saturday, March 1st and lasted until
noon on Thursday, March 6th. A few people had participated
in previous cryonics cases, while others had received no
prior training at all. This disparity made it difficult to
provide classes that would suit everyone. Some students
told us that they would have preferred a more intensive
approach.

We felt an obligation to cover as much ground as possible,
including cryonics history and some basic cryobiology and
resuscitation medicine, because more than two years had
elapsed since our previous training. All aspects of standby
work were included, from infection control to operation of
equipment such as the ATP. On the last day a brainstorming
session yielded some extremely valuable suggestions for
service enhancements, which will be discussed in a future
issue of Cryonics magazine.

We are delighted that as a result of the training at least
half-a-dozen newcomers have been added to our list of Alcor
cryotransport technicians, and we thank everyone who made
the pilgrimage to Creekside Lodge, including four who came
all the way from England. Some of our students told us that
the best way to continue their education in the future will
be by observing future cases, and we'll do everything we can
to facilitate this.

Later this year we expect to offer shorter training events
which will address a narrower range of topics and will be
tailored for smaller groups of students sharing specific
needs.

------------------------------------------------------------

Board Meeting Addresses Timely Issues


Alcor's regular board meeting took place at our Scottsdale
facility at 11 AM Mountain Standard Time on Sunday, March
9th. While the official minutes of this meeting are the
definitive guide, Alcor News can summarize a few of the
issues that were raised.

Vice-president Michael Riskin announced that his plan for
"Universal Standby" should be implemented by January, 2004.
This will be preceded by a very thorough informational
campaign to familiarize all Alcor members with the new
system. Currently the extent of our standby service may vary
after the initial three days that are included within our
cryopreservation minimum. In the future, standbys should be
supported by a special fund for members whose health needs
are critical. Michael Riskin promised to provide details of
the new plan during the summer, after he has satisfied his
remaining concerns about financial considerations.

Hugh Hixon reported problems impeding an attempt to evaluate
results of cooling two patients who are currently at an
intermediate temperature (higher than the -196 degrees
Celsius of liquid nitrogen). "Crackphone" sensors, designed
to detect fracturing events below the glass transition point
of vitrified cryopatients, had been storing their data in a
computer which crashed periodically. While this problem has
not affected the temperature or preservation of the patients
in any way, it has deprived us of information which could be
valuable in our efforts to evaluate intermediate-temperature
storage as a practical long-term option. Hugh told board
members that he believes he understands the cause of the
computer problem and will offer more information at the
next board meeting.

Alcor's membership administrator, Jennifer Chapman, asked
the board to establish a pricing policy for members' pets.
After extensive discussion among several board members,
Ralph Merkle made a motion that Alcor should provide a
$12,500 contribution to the Patient Care Trust for each
cryopreserved pet that fully occupies the type of container
that is normally used for a human neuropatient. Alcor
management may offer a reduced rate for pets (including
"neuropets") that are small enough to share a container.
Pets will be accepted only from Alcor members, who will be
warned that the funding amount does not include the very
conservative safety factor applied to human patients. Also,
in any hypothetical emergency, the safety of pets will be
considered secondary to the safety of human patients.
Alcor's directors agreed to these terms unanimously but pet
owners are cautioned that this summary does not include all
the conditions of our pet acceptance contract. Please
contact our membership administrator if you want full
information.

CEO Jerry Lemler notified the board that in recent media
interviews he has received a mixed response to his use of
the word "patients" to describe Alcor's members who have
been cryopreserved. He wondered if there might be a more
acceptable term. After a fairly short discussion, board
members agreed that Alcor should continue to use the word
"patients" as a reminder to ourselves, as well as others,
that the people in our Dewars are still people. Some
directors offered sardonic comments on this topic. Ralph
Merkle suggested that if doctors today find our nomenclature
implausible, they should wait for a second opinion from
doctors of the future. Carlos Mondragon said that if anyone
needs a politically correct term, Alcor's cryopatients could
be referred to as "metabolically challenged."

Jerry Lemler raised the issue of last-minute cases.
Recently we declined a patient in Florida who could not give
informed consent because she was unconscious and had never
completed signup paperwork. (Her case was taken subsequently
by The Cryonics Institute, assisted by Suspended Animation,
an independent Florida-based service provider.) Under what
circumstances should Alcor accept or decline this type of
case, and where should we draw the line between a regular
signup an a last-minute signup?

Carlos Mondragon provided some historical perspective,
reminding board members that Alcor traditionally used the
term "last-minute case" to describe people who are unable to
complete signup documents on their own behalf. He said that
a person who can still execute documents despite a terminal
condition should not be treated differently from anyone else
who seeks to become an Alcor member. Board member Michael
Seidl agreed, conjecturing that antidiscrimination laws
might prevent Alcor from refusing to accept a new member
merely because the person is near legal death.

Charles Platt pointed out that insurance companies routinely
deny service to people who have serious health problems. He
said that although Alcor should always try to extend its
service to as many people as possible, he was concerned that
if the organization is compelled to accept any new member
whose legal death is imminent, this might compromise
treatment for a longterm member who happens to die suddenly
around the same time. Alcor advisor Bob Newport advocated a
formal or informal policy under which longterm members would
receive preferential treatment in a crisis situation where
two cases occur simultaneously. Ralph Merkle said that a
more acceptable way of implementing this kind of policy
would be for Alcor to disclose any current service
limitations to applicants who are near legal death, so that
they can decide for themselves whether to seek service from
another organization.

Alcor's directors seemed to agree that Alcor can turn down
any case where a prospective member is unable to sign
documents, but Michael Riskin remained unconvinced that we
can be accused of discrimination if we refuse to accept an
applicant who is able to execute paperwork but is near legal
death and might overburden our ability to provide service
because of conflicting obligations or limited resources.
He asked that Alcor should seek legal advice on this.
Pending such advice, the question remains unresolved.

Charles Platt asked the directors to accept a recommendation
from management to hire a new fulltime employee, Todd
Huffman, who has worked with the Southern California standby
team and has offered to do lab work fulltime at Alcor while
pursuing a Ph.D. in neuroscience. The board approved his
employment, which will commence on June 1st. We believe that
he will greatly enhance our ability to serve our growing
cryonics membership.

Tanya Jones, Jennifer Chapman, and Charles Platt were
nominated as board advisors. Alcor's directors approved all
three unanimously.

Jerry Lemler announced that he has accepted a proposed
agreement to extend Charles Platt's association with Alcor
as an independent contractor for another six months.
Paramedic Larry Johnson will take over many of the
responsibilities for standby work while Charles Platt will
refocus his attention primarily on inventory control,
production of meds kits and other equipment, and the
expansion of our lab space in accordance with a plan that
was approved previously.

The March 9th board meeting ended at 1:30 PM Mountain
Standard Time.

[Bruce Klein]

Alcor News Bulletin
---------------------------
Number 11: March 23rd, 2003

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============================================================

Yet Another Unexpected Case in Southern California

by Charles Platt


At the end of February this year we initiated a brief
standby for A-1234, an elderly woman in Southern California
(whose signup documents requested confidentiality). Although
she was suffering from severe circulatory problems and had
been admitted to an ICU with pneumonia, she managed to
recover, and we discontinued our standby. Subsequently she
relocated in a nursing home in Hollywood.

On Saturday March 22nd at 8:02 AM Mountain Standard Time a
staff member at the nursing home found that A-1234 had
suffered cardiac arrest. Attempts to revive the patient were
unsuccessful, and the nurse called Alcor's emergency number
at approximately 8:15 AM. (All times in this report are in
MST, which is one hour later than Pacific time during the
winter months.)

Dr. Jerry Lemler contacted me at my home in northern Arizona
around 8:20 AM and said he would coordinate activities in
Scottsdale while I would organize the Southern California
response. I telephoned one of our California coordinators,
Bobby June, who was not entirely happy to be woken since he
had been up partying for most of the night. Still, he
tackled the task of finding a van that we could rent to
transport the patient to Arizona. I was worried that renting
the vehicle might be the most time-consuming task in the
transport operation. This concern turned out to be correct.

I called our other Southern California coordinator, Todd
Huffman, who had been planning to go snowboarding with a
friend and had already started driving out of Los Angeles.
He promptly changed his plans and returned home to grab a
backup meds kit. Next I checked my map of Southern
California volunteers and found that Peter Voss was located
closest to the nursing home. Peter was awake and ready to
respond. He left his house to retrieve our primary standby
equipment from its storage location before continuing to
the nursing home.

Alcor's paramedic Larry Johnson, in Phoenix, tried
unsuccessfully to contact A-1234's son, an Alcor member
possessing durable power of attorney for health care for the
patient. Under California law the nursing home could refuse
to release the patient without signed consent from the next
of kin, and the son was the only person who could provide
this. Since he was probably 60 miles away and is legally
blind, I didn't know if it would be physically possible for
him to reach the nursing home and sign a release within a
short time. However, after I asked our California mortician
Joe Klockgether to discuss this situation with staff at the
nursing home, they agreed to waive the requirement for a
signed release. Mr. Klockgether also had a copy of the death
certificate which we had prepared in advance when we
arranged the standby for the same patient at the end of
February.

In the meantime the nurse who had discovered A-1234 had
injected heparin, had administered chest compressions, and
had placed ice around the patient. Peter Voss had collected
our kit and was on his way, and Todd Huffman would soon be
joining him.

The patient's son received our messages and called me, and I
told him the news about his mother. He seemed calm but said that the death had come as a surprise, since his mother's
health had been improving during the past couple of weeks.

By 10 AM our team members were at the nursing home and I
asked Larry Johnson to give instructions via the phone to
Todd Huffman regarding medications. (Larry had considered
flying to Los Angeles himself, but clearly he would have
been unable to get there in time.) Larry described to Todd
the technique for putting the patient in the Trendeleburg
position, which causes the external jugular veins to become
distended. This enabled Todd to place an IV line. It was
then relatively easy to push the various medications that we
use to mitigate ischemic injury.

I checked back with Bobby June, who was having difficulty
finding a truck that we could rent. Trucks often tend to be
in short supply for last-minute rentals on a weekend,
because this is when many people move personal possessions.
Finally Bobby found a truck that was available reasonably
close to the nursing home. Peter went to collect it while I
conferred with our medical advisor, Dr. Steve Harris,
regarding the option of doing a washout before the patient
was moved to Arizona.

Intravenous cooling is many times faster than cooling by
external application of ice or icewater, and for each 10- degree (Celsius) reduction of temperature, we halve the
metabolic rate. If a patient's temperature is reduced from
35 (close to normal) to 5 (our terminal target value),
theoretically we reduce the rate of ischemic injury by a
factor of eight.

On the other hand, I realized that in order to perform the
washout our transport team would have to leave the
Interstate highway, find the lab where our surgical team
consisting of Steve Harris, Sandra Russell, and Joan
O'Farrell were located, wait for the procedure to be
completed, and then drive back to the Interstate and
continue to Arizona. Depending on how much difficulty our
surgeons might have in obtaining vascular access, I
estimated that the detour could cost us three hours. Since
the patient's temperature was already down to 21 degrees
(measured via a nasopharyngeal probe which had been placed
by team members at the nursing home), we were already
halfway from normal body temperature to the target terminal
temperature. With concurrence from Steve Harris I decided
that it would make better sense for the patient to go
straight to Arizona, packed in ice, with occasional chest
compressions along the way.

I called Alcor Central and told Jerry Lemler that the
patient's probable arrival time would be between 6 PM and 7
PM. He suggested that I didn't need to come to the operating
room myself, since he had assembled adequate staff for the
procedure.

The patient entered the facility at 7:02 PM with a probe
temperature of 4.1 degrees Celsius. When I called Alcor at
8:30 PM I was told that neuroseparation was complete and
perfusion had begun. I was very relieved to learn that no
one could find any evidence of blood clotting. Todd Huffman
can take much of the credit for this by having managed to
place the IV and administer heparin and streptokinase, in resonse to the valuable instructions from Larry Johnson.
Another fortuitous factor is that the patient had been
taking Coumadin, an anticoagulant medication, before
she died.

No edema was visible, and despite a moderate flow rate, by
11:30 PM the patient exceeded the concentration of
cryoprotectant necessary to vitrify. We can regard this as a
successful case, especially since it occurred with no prior
warning. Less than eleven hours elapsed from the moment when
we received the emergency call to the time when the patient
arrived at our facility. Our only concern is that the time
of death remains unknown, since nursing homes typically do
not monitor patients constantly. It is possible that A-1234
arrested several hours before she was found at 7:02 AM.

The question of whether to take time for washout and
intravascular cooling of California patients during the
transport phase remains unresolved. Clearly the procedure is
necessary when a patient is located farther away and we want
to achieve rapid initial cooling prior to a relatively
lengthy transport. Washout is also advisable if the patient
has a higher initial temperature, has been collected by a
mortuary service, or is close to the location where the
procedure can be done. But when our own team members have
collected the patient without any paperwork problems and can
reach Alcor from Los Angeles in less than seven hours, the
simplicity of this option is attractive.

Once again we thank our Southern California team for
performing outstandingly at short notice. We regret the loss
of A-1234, a longtime Alcor member who would have been 83
next month and showed great courage and tenacity in dealing
with her health problems. We're thankful that she opted for
cryopreservation, and hope that her decision will be justly
rewarded in a future world where death and aging are no
longer regarded as inevitabilities.

------------------------------------------------------------

New Job Titles at Alcor

Alcor's CEO, Dr. Jerry Lemler, has assigned new job titles
to Larry Johnson, Charles Platt, and Michael Riskin, and has
clarified Alcor's organizational structure.

Larry Johnson, who joined Alcor earlier this year, will play
an increasingly important role in standby work and is now
Director of Clinical Services.

Charles Platt is now Chief Operating Officer. His
responsibilities will include standby and rescue activities,
O.R. procedures, facility expansion, ambulance and vehicle
conversion, cooldown procedures, and long-term storage
protocols, as well as website maintenance.

Michael Riskin, Ph.D., who serves as Vice-President and
Chairman of the Board, now has the additional title of Chief
Financial Officer. He will have ultimate fiduciary oversight
responsibilities to include budgetary review, capital
raising activities, and management of the accounting
department. Additionally he will supervise the membership
department in all facets of its operations.

Below is a current list of Alcor personnel and independent
contractors. Each full-time employee is identified with an
asterisk.

CEO:
Dr. Jerry Lemler*

Reporting to the CEO:
Bill Haworth (Public Relations Counsel)
Charles Platt (COO)
Michael Riskin (CFO)

Reporting to the COO:
Tim Carney (Consulting Engineer)
Hugh Hixon* (Facility Engineer and Alcor Research Fellow)
Larry Johnson* (Director of Clinical Services)
Dr. Jose Kanshepolsky (Surgeon)
Jeff Kelling (Scrub Nurse)
Paula Lemler (Human Resources Administrator, Projected)
Dr. Nancy McEachern (Surgeon)
Mike Perry* (Patient Care Associate)
Jerry Searcy* (Special Projects Operative)
James Sikes* (Facility Operations Manager)
Mathew Sullivan* (Director of Suspension Readiness)

Reporting to the CFO:
Jennifer Chapman* (Membership Administrator)
Joe Hovey* (Comptroller)
Jessica Sikes* (Administrative and Membership Associate)
Katherine Waters* (Accounting Manager)

============================================================

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[Bruce Klein]

Alcor News Bulletin
---------------------------
Number 14: August 1st, 2003

=============================================================

Alcor Upgrades its Regional Capabilities

July was a pleasantly quiet month at Alcor. None of our
members required help, and we're happy to report that no one
contacted us with news of any potentially serious medical
condition.

Mathew Sullivan, Director of Suspension Readiness, used the
welcome break in our case load as an opportunity to complete
his assembly of ten new meds kits, plus additional support
kits which are now required because our meds kits have grown
in content and complexity. Two meds kits and two support kits
have already been sent to our team in Southern California.
Meds/support packages are also destined for northern
California, Florida, Boston, Canada, and the UK.


The purpose of deploying these kits is to enable "first aid"
for cryopatients in an emergency, ideally with the help of
local volunteers who have received basic training at Alcor.


When paramedic Larry Johnson joined Alcor as Director of
Clinical Services earlier this year, one of his first
decisions was to change the way we package our medications.
Formerly each set of meds was contained in numbered Zip-Loc
bags inside a rigid plastic Pelican-brand suitcase of the
type that is often used to transport photographic equipment.
Larry recommended that we switch to "Thomas packs," which are
padded backpacks specifically designed to hold pharmaceutical
supplies in color-coded compartments. These packs are widely
used by paramedics, and we adopted them earlier this year as
our new standard.


The medications in our kits include anticoagulants and
specially compounded drugs that help to minimize ischemic
injury to the brain. Critical Care Research, a California
laboratory specializing in resuscitation medicine, revamped
our medications based on their unique and unmatched success
in reviving dogs after substantial periods of warm ischemia
(lack of blood flow at normal body temperature). At this
time, Alcor is the only cryonics organization that has
obtained a license to use compounds developed and tested by
CCR.


We are not claiming to prevent ischemic injury, but we
believe that our current medications enable us to delay it
more successfully than has been possible in the past.


To continue our regional upgrades, we hope to distribute more
Air Transportable Perfusion kits (ATPs) which enable blood
washout and intravenous cooling in remote locations. Surgical
trays containing instruments for vascular access must be
assembled to accompany each ATP, and our new lab assistant
Todd Huffman will be working on this with Hugh Hixon in the
near future.


Upgrading our regional capability has been a long-term goal
at Alcor. It took longer than we hoped, but is now becoming a
reality.


We can't afford to distribute meds kits and ATPs to every
part of the country, but if you live in an area where there
is a concentration of Alcor members, your first step should
be to attend our training course to learn how we treat
cryopatients immediately after legal death is pronounced.


=============================================================


Training Update


As reported in the previous Alcor News, Alcor's next training
sessions will be at Creekside Lodge, near Mayer, Arizona,
commencing Friday, October 24th and continuing until Monday,
October 27th. A free shuttle-bus service will transport
attendees to Creekside from Phoenix Sky Harbor airport. The
shuttle takes approximately 90 minutes to make the journey.


Students who arrive at Creekside during the afternoon of
Friday 24th will find a free buffet waiting for them.
Registration will be at 6 PM, followed by an evening class
providing an overview of standby/transport tasks, problems,
and priorities.


Hands-on work will start the next day at 8 AM and will
continue till 6 PM, with a break for lunch in the Creekside
Lodge dining room. Classes on Sunday will run from 8 AM
through 7 PM.


Some of our students at the March training session commented
that the instruction could have been a little more intensive,
and we've taken their advice. If you spend the weekend with
us at Creekside in October, you should expect us to keep you
fully occupied.


Topics will include intubation, medications, cardiopulmonary
support, blood washout and intravenous cooling with the ATP,
and legal issues associated with cryonics. Students will be
able to practice with our equipment in the evenings.


We are planning to limit attendance to 20 students, who will
be divided into two groups of 10 for the hands-on work during
the weekend. Some students have already registered, so we
encourage you to make your reservation as soon as possible.


Learning the basics of cryonics field work is a challenging
but fulfilling experience, and can help you to establish a
nucleus of volunteers in your area. The more Alcor members
who become actively involved, the better the chances are for
all of us to receive a successful cryopreservation.


For additional information, please send email to:


Paula Lemler


=============================================================


Progress Toward Intermediate Temperature Storage


In the previous Alcor News we reported that Alcor has
acquired the prototype of an Intermediate Temperature Storage
(ITS) device developed by Brian Wowk of 21st Century
Medicine. (For an explanation of why ITS is desirable, please
go to our archives at www.alcornews.org and check the
explanatory section in Alcor News #13 dated July 1st, 2003.)


Our new lab assistant, Todd Huffman, has been studying Brian
Wowk's design and has visited 21st Century Medicine to
discuss reliability issues and possible modifications. Since
the ITS pod will be cooled by positioning it above a pool of
liquid nitrogen inside a Dewar, we have been debating which
type of Dewar to use. An off-the-shelf industrial design is
available, large enough to contain seven ITS pods (one in the
center and six around it, in a hexagonal pattern). However,
our proprietary "bigfoot" Dewar design is much taller, only
slightly more expensive, and we have had extensive experience
operating them over the past decade. A "bigfoot" seems our
best option at this point.


In theory, it would be tall enough to contain a stack of
three layers of ITS pods, with seven pods in each layer. The
problem is that a tall Dewar will allow a more severe
temperature gradient. In other words, the pods at the top
will tend to be warmer than the pods at the bottom, and ITS
requires that the temperature should be controlled with some
precision.


One way around the problem is to use an internal framework of
metal such as aluminum, which is a good conductor of heat and
could minimize the temperature gradient. Another possibility
is to fill the lower part of the Dewar with conventional
neuropatients fully immersed in liquid nitrogen, with a
single layer of ITS pods above them at the top. The
disadvantage of this configuration is that we would have to
modify our standard neuropatient containment shell. Also
the ITS pods would get in the way during insertion or removal
of neuropatients.


Another issue which Todd is investigating is the optimal
refill system to maintain the reservoir of liquid nitrogen. A
gravity feed would provide the security of constant refill
without pumps, but would be grossly inefficient since the
pipe connecting it with the Dewar cannot be optimally
insulated and will promote nitrogen boiloff.


Using a pump for automatic refill sounds intuitively risky,
but low-temperature pump design has been perfected in
industrial applications, and a Dewar refill pump probably
would run only for a few minutes per week. Two pumps could be
installed in parallel for redundancy.


Todd has been tabulating every conceivable failure mode,
including liquid-nitrogen level sensor malfunction (Dewar
will boil dry), failure of temperature sensor inside ITS pod
(patient may become too cold or too warm), wire-break
failure, pod heater failure, control system failure, and many
others.


Probably we will need four months to explore all these
failure modes and develop satisfactory solutions, after which
the construction and testing of actual patient storage units
may take another two months. This is longer than we would
like, but obviously the system must be absolutely reliable
before we can offer it as an option to our members.


We can't predict how much ITS will cost relative to
conventional Dewar storage until we have established all the
components in the system and have measured the liquid
nitrogen boiloff rate.


=============================================================


July Board Meeting


Here are some quick items from the board meeting which was
held at the Alcor facility in Scottsdale on July 13th:


Our membership administrator, Jennifer Chapman, reported that
Alcor membership is growing at an annualized rate of 10
percent.


A bulk storage liquid nitrogen tank has been located for our
new patient care bay, but construction of the patient care
bay is still being delayed by our difficulty in finding an
engineer who will come to the facility to evaluate the
strength of the roof, where we plan to install a crane for
Dewar-to-Dewar patient transfers.


Alcor's web site is being moved to a new hosting service,
where we will have direct control over the content.
(Previously, a web design company implemented every
alteration, which was a slow and costly procedure.) We hope
the new site will be up within another couple of weeks, but
the transfer must be carefully handled, since all of Alcor's
email addresses and email distribution lists will move to the
new hosting service along with the web pages.


Alcor is renewing its licensing agreement with 21st Century
Medicine for the vitrification solution which we use for
cryoprotection of our patients.


A plan to change our rules for remote standby will be
presented for a board vote at the September meeting. Also,
our board members will be up for election at that meeting.


Alcor director Ralph Merkle made a motion to transfer a
cryopatient from the CryoStar freezer into conventional
liquid nitrogen storage. Five directors voted in favor, one
abstained, and one voted against. The transfer has since
taken place. This helped to resolve an issue which has been a
source of debate during several board meetings. For further
details, see "The CryoStar Controversy," below.


Paramedic Larry Johnson, who serves as Alcor's Director of
Clinical Services, has completed all the necessary signup
paperwork and is now an Alcor member. Jerry Lemler stated
that Larry will be taking on responsibilities of Chief
Operating Officer, since Charles Platt resigned from that
position (as reported in the previous Alcor News). However,
any appointee to the position of C.O.O. must be confirmed by
the Alcor board.


All Alcor board meetings are open to the public. The dates of
future meetings have been established for the rest of the
year:


Sunday, August 10th.
Sunday, September 7th.
Sunday, October 5th.
Sunday, November 2nd.
Sunday, December 14th.


Meetings usually begin at 10 AM during the summer months and
11 AM in the winter. They are held at the Alcor facility in
Scottsdale. Please contact Alcor for additional details.


=============================================================


The CryoStar Controversy


Rick Potvin, an Alcor member who lives in the Phoenix area,
has been publishing some personal commentary about Alcor on a
web site which some of our members may have visited after
Rick publicized it on CryoNet. We welcome opinions and
suggestions from anyone who takes an active interest in
cryonics, but we found some of Rick's statements a bit
surprising. For instance, he wrote on July 14th:


"In trying to figure out what I can say and not say--which I
suppose is going to be par for the course if I continue to
write about cryonics--I concluded that it's okay to talk
about what a piece of junk the Cryostar is."


Alcor owns a CryoStar freezer of a type that is a standard
item of equipment in hundreds of laboratories, and our
directors, advisors, and staff have been discussing the
relative merits of maintaining patients around -125 degrees
Celsius in the CryoStar instead of immersing them at -196
degrees in liquid nitrogen. While we are waiting for the Wowk
design of Intermediate Temperature Storage pod to be refined
and tested, the CryoStar can provide ITS on an interim basis
right now, and has proved that it will reduce the incidence
of fractures which tend to occur after vitrification. Alcor
clearly should do whatever it can to minimize all forms of
damage to its patients.


The disadvantages of the CryoStar are obvious: It requires a
supply of electricity and contains a compressor and a
thermostat, just like a domestic refrigerator. It is fitted
with an alarm and a highly dependable liquid-nitrogen backup
system, and a patient can be "evacuated" from it quickly if
necessary; but overall it may be less reliable than a Dewar.


That said, we feel that characterizing the CryoStar as "a
piece of junk" may be a bit misleading.


A recent concern about the performance of our CryoStar was
resolved when a technician visited Alcor and noted that the
ambient temperature in the operating environment should not
exceed 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Exceptionally hot Phoenix
summer weather had driven the temperature above 80 degrees in
our patient care bay, even with Alcor's industrial-strength
air conditioning running constantly.


We considered options such as adding extra insulation to the
CryoStar, adding a standalone air-conditioning unit in the
patient care bay, adding a blower to increase the efficiency
of the CryoStar's heat exchanger, or devising a liquid-
nitrogen vapor system that would cool the heat exchanger more
aggressively. So far, the first of these options has been
implemented with some success.


We welcome debate on current issues at Alcor, and we welcome
visitors to our board meetings. However, debate is pointless
if it is based on misconceptions or oversimplifications, and
the CryoStar issue has been complicated enough to sustain in-
house discussions and disagreements for almost a year. Anyone
who is interested in airing this kind of issue publicly
should feel free to do so, but we invite them to contact us
for some basic fact-checking first.


=============================================================


To subscribe to Alcor News, visit www.alcornews.org and
follow instructions on the web site, or send a blank piece of
email to alcornews-request@alcornews.org with the single word

[Bruce Klein]

Alcor News Bulletin
-----------------------------
Number 15: August 13th, 2003


=================================

Renewed Ted Williams Controversy: An Interim Response

Earlier this year Alcor News reported that we hired Larry
Johnson, a nationally certified paramedic, to manage our
standby/transport work and emergency response capability.
Larry came to us with excellent references and was actively
helpful in implementing a major revision of our meds kits. He
participated in our March training sessions and also helped
to train paramedics in Phoenix and Florida. Larry became an
Alcor member and made no secret of this. He told a CBS TV
news team from Los Angeles that he had always wanted to see
the future, and he seemed to feel that cryonics would help
him to get there.

In two cases, Larry made a decisive difference by giving
emergency guidance over the phone. He helped to minimize
ischemic damage and made a radical difference to the
condition of the cryopatients in these cases. We were
impressed by his assistance generally, and were glad to have
him at Alcor.

Unfortunately Larry seemed to feel unhappy with some aspects
of Alcor. He had come to us from a very large, well-funded
paramedic facility where he had been better compensated.
Apparently he nursed a grudge to such an extent that he
provided a reporter at Sports Illustrated with confidential
information which seemed calculated to damage Alcor as much
as possible. The news item was picked up by The Associated
Press and triggered reports from sources such as The New
York Times and The Arizona Republic.

We were astonished and dismayed that a nationally certified
paramedic would behave in such a way, without any significant
provocation that we are aware of. We had done everything we
could to get to know Larry and verify that he was an ethical
person whom we could trust.

Fortunately Alcor has accumulated some redundancy among its
field team members during the past year. We can still respond
well in an emergency. In the meantime, in reply to some of
Larry Johnson's allegations, we are providing the news media
with information explaining that our procedures are
formulated to minimize damage, not create it.

In particular, the damage caused by fracturing when a
vitrified cryopatient is cooled to liquid-nitrogen
temperature is small compared with the cellular damage that
used to occur using glycerol as a cryoprotectant. While we
won't be entirely happy until the day when we achieve zero-
damage cryopreservation, we are absolutely convinced that
repair of simple fractures will be easy compared with the
reconstruction of cellular debris that used to be caused by
ice formation.

Also, when we use a perforator (a standard medical tool) in
our operating room to create two small burr holes in the
skull, this is a precaution enabling us to inspect the
surface of the brain during cryoprotective perfusion.
Observation of the brain is a safety measure to reduce the
risk of edema. Here again, we tolerate a small amount of
damage in the interests of avoiding much greater damage. (A
burr hole can be repaired even with today's medicine.)

Finally we must emphasize, contrary to news reports, that
Alcor has never collected "DNA samples" from its
cryopatients. Obviously Alcor has no need to collect "DNA
samples," since a neuropatient already contains billions of
DNA molecules. We may collect venous effluent samples during
the perfusion of a cryopatient, but the purpose of these
samples is to evaluate blood chemistry via standard lab
tests.

So far as we can tell, Larry Johnson took some of Alcor's
property away with him when he disappeared without warning at
the end of the weekend of August 9th and 10th. During the
preceding weeks he recorded conversations with Alcor
employees without notifying them or seeking their permission,
and he probably viewed confidential documents. We will be
taking appropriate action. Alcor must make a clear statement
that it will not be intimidated by the threat of bad press
and will not tolerate gross violations of its standard
nondisclosure agreement by employees or ex-employees.

We will provide additional updates when we have any
significant news to report. Currently we have been unable to
reach Larry Johnson via phone or email, despite repeated
attempts. If he has any statement to make regarding our
description of what we believe he did, we invite his
response.


===================================


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follow instructions on the web site, or send a blank piece of
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============================================================


End of Alcor News bulletin #15 dated August 13th, 2003.
Distribution: 350 subscribers.




_______________________________________________
AlcorNews mailing list
http://www.AlcorNews.org/

[Bruce Klein]

Alcor News Bulletin
-----------------------------
Number 16: September 1st 2003

After the Media Blitz

As reported in the previous Alcor News, our former Director
of Clinical Services, Larry Johnson, provided confidential
information to a journalist at Sports Illustrated, which
published a seven-page feature about Alcor around August
13th. (The cover date of the issue was August 18th.) We have
moved quickly in response to the negative nationwide
publicity which followed.

Former Alcor president Carlos Mondragon flew to Scottsdale to
help manage the media blitz while our current President and
CEO, Jerry Lemler, was in a local hospital receiving
chemotherapy. Carlos has been active in cryonics for more
than twenty years. He originally signed up with the Cryonics
Institute of Michigan in 1978 but became an Alcor member in
1982. He joined the Alcor board of directors as Treasurer in
April 1987 and took over as President in December of that
year. He is often credited with playing a very significant
role helping to defend Alcor against legal allegations from
the coroner's office in Riverside, California during 1988. At
the end of that case all charges were dismissed, the legality
of cryonics was affirmed by the court, and California became
the only state where cryonics is listed as an official option
on death certificates.

Soon after arriving in Scottsdale on August 11th 2003, Carlos
gave a press conference and we issued a press release to
counter the ways in which Alcor had been mischaracterized.
Excerpts were circulated by Associated Press.

Since we had lost our Director of Clinical Services,
contingency plans were made in the event that any of our
members experienced a health emergency. "I reviewed the
transport protocol, went over our equipment, and talked to
all the people involved, so that I could deal with an
emergency," Carlos comments.

On Saturday August 23rd Alcor served a law suit against Larry
Johnson and his wife alleging breach of contract, breach of
fiduciary duty, and conversion of property, meaning that
Alcor believes he took company property with the intention of
converting it to his own use. (Johnson's wife is named in the
suit because married couples own property jointly under
Arizona law.) Local police subsequently have returned some
items to Alcor which they obtained from Johnson, but other
items are still missing, including a laptop computer.

Johnson must respond to the law suit by September 20th. If he
fails to do so, Alcor may win a default judgment. If he does
respond, the discovery process will begin, and after it is
complete a court date will be set. This can take a
substantial period of time.

Separately from Alcor's civil suit, another investigation has
been initiated. Since this has not resulted in formal charges
yet, we can't provide any information about it at this time.

The flow of calls from journalists to Alcor has now ceased. A
Good Morning America segment is pending and is expected to
include footage shot at the facility, but the segment has
already been delayed by a week and may never be aired.

Alcor has found a replacement for Larry Johnson who has
substantial experience in cryonics standby/transport work and
in the operating room, but this person will not be available
until the end of September. Carlos Mondragon will return home
to Oregon on Sunday September 7th but will continue to be
available for phone consultations during the remainder of
that month. We are extremely indebted to him for the large
amount of time that he has donated to Alcor during this
stressful period, and for his decisiveness and fairness
during his temporary management role.

Alcor's other emergency team members remain on-call as usual.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Cryonics Institute Faces Regulatory Action

According to a news item that appeared on August 26th in
about a dozen newspapers around the nation, the Cryonics
Institute of Michigan has been prohibited from performing
procedures at its facility until it conforms with regulations
intended for mortuaries and cemeteries. We have no additional
information at this time, but naturally we hope that the
management at CI is successful in resolving this serious
situation. It is in the best interests of all cryonics
organizations for human cryopreservation to be a legimate
legal procedure in every county of every state. Also there is
an obvious need to avoid any legal precedent for applying
mortuary or cemetery regulations to cryonics.

In the past, Alcor has successfully and correctly argued that
since we are a research institution receiving anatomical
donations under the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, we should
not be subject to mortuary regulations that enforce
procedures such as embalming. Similarly, a sperm bank or a
laboratory storing tissue samples would be unable to do its
work if it were classified as a mortuary.

Cemetery regulations are equally inappropriate. To take just
one example, we cannot maintain patients in hermetically
sealed containers (as specified by Arizona mortuary law)
since venting is necessary to allow liquid nitrogen vapor to
escape.

If any readers of Alcor News have academic credentials or
other status which might be respected in a court of law, CI
asks them please to contact David Ettinger at the Cryonics
Institute in case they may be willing to make a statement
defending or explaining cryonics. David Ettinger's email
address is
dae@honigman.com

Some Alcor members have expressed concern that we may be
vulnerable to the same kind of legislative initiative that
has been aimed at CI. Fortunately former president Steve
Bridge and former vice president David Pizer obtained
preapproval from local zoning officials before Alcor moved to
Scottsdale from its previous location in California. Alcor
also received formal preapproval from the local Health
Department and other agencies.

Alcor has undergone several regulatory inspections during the
past month, including a visit from the Fire Department and
the Department of Environmental Quality. The only concern
expressed by DEQ was that some cement left over from a floor-
tiling procedure was found in the parking lot behind the
facility. We are waiting for instructions on the correct way
to dispose of this waste. The fire department made eight
requests for minor changes, all of which have been completed.

Alcor has now requested an inspection from the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). By initiating this
assessment Alcor avoids the possibility of being fined for
previous regulatory noncompliance, but naturally if any
violations are found we will have to rectify them within a
period that will be specified by the agency.

Facility manager Cindy Felix has had valuable experience
dealing with OSHA at a previous place of employment, and is
going through every section of Alcor's facility prior to the
inspection. In a related activity, Director of Suspension
Readiness Mathew Sullivan has been working for two weeks to
update a book of handling procedures for every chemical that
is used at Alcor.

We expected to be scrutinized after the Sports Illustrated
article appeared. So far, Alcor has not suffered any
significant consequences.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Facility Expansion Update

As reported in previous issues of Alcor News, we are midway
through an ambitious facility expansion plan. Earlier this
year a committee comprised of former Alcor president Steve
Bridge, director Steve Van Sickle, and then-C.O.O. Charles
Platt established a floor plan which was accepted by board
members and Alcor staff after protracted negotiations. A new
conference room has been created, new office cubicles were
built in the lobby, and plans were established for a new
operating room after consultation with one of our surgeons,
Jose Kanshepolsky, and our surgical technician, Jeff Kelling.

At the request of Carlos Mondragon, the facility expansion
committee has been disbanded, having completed its most
important work. Cindy Felix, our highly capable facility
manager, has been given the primary responsibility of
implementing the remaining tasks that were itemized by the
committee. An engineer has visited Alcor and has advised that
an upper storage level above our new operating room could be
prohibitively expensive if it conforms with local building
codes. Discussion is also in progress regarding the best way
to enable Dewar-to-Dewar patient transfers, which require
sufficient headroom to lift a wholebody pod from one Dewar
and lower it into another.

At each stage in the renovations, Alcor will be in compliance
with local codes and regulations.
-------------------------------------------------------------
From Alcor's Board of Directors

The Resignation of Alcor's President and CEO

On August 10th 2003 Jerry B. Lemler MD tendered to the Alcor
Board of Directors his intention to resign as the
foundation's CEO at the expiration of his current yearly
agreement, on December 31st of this year. The Board has
accepted Dr. Lemler's resignation. It is the expectation and
intention of all parties that Dr. Lemler be retained as
Alcor's Medical Director and chief spokesperson.

As many of you know, Dr. Lemler continues to undergo
intensive and extended chemotherapy and other treatments for
a recently diagnosed widespread lymphoma. During this
transition period he will be actively supporting and
participating in the company's search for new executive
management, and he will assist in the transition.

Alcor's Directors wish to thank Dr. Lemler for his
contributions and they look forward to his continued
association with them and his future work in the furtherance
of our mission. Dr. Lemler wishes to thank the Board of
Directors and Alcor's staff for their support of his efforts,
and to reaffirm his commitment to Alcor.
-------------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Riskin

An Appreciation of Jerry Lemler

The Alcor Board of Directors has accepted the resignation of
Jerry B. Lemler MD as its CEO and President for reasons
related to his personal health and welfare. Dr. Lemler was
diagnosed with widespread lymphoma earlier this year and has
completed approximately half of an eight-month intensive
chemotherapy program. The results to date of this treatment
are quite promising. It is anticipated that he will
experience a 100% cure with no further complications or
symptoms. Starting on January 1st 2004 he will be assuming
new duties as Alcor's medical director and chief
spokesperson.

During the rest of this year Jerry will be participating in a
search for his replacement while transferring his management
responsibilities on a timely and effective basis. In addition
he plans to fulfill his commitment to deliver a speech on
September 22nd during the Tenth Congress of the International
Association of Biomedical Gerontology at Queens College in
Cambridge, England. This PowerPoint presentation, entitled
"Medical Time Travel as a Bridge to Negligible Senescence,"
has been cowritten by a prominent team representing
cryobiology and research medicine with assistance from
science writer Charles Platt. The speech will be published
subsequently in the Annals of the New York Academy of
Sciences, marking the first time that the scientific basis of
cryonics will be presented and published in mainstream
medical venues.

Jerry's tenure with Alcor will be remembered as one of
"inclusiveness". It has been a time when diverse institutions
and people were drawn together, working as a team to
significantly raise the overall readiness, quality, and
efficiency of Alcor's cryotransport services from rescue to
cooldown. Further, it is widely acknowledged that he
developed into one of the most effective spokespersons for
Alcor and cryonics generally.

On behalf of the Alcor Board of Directors, I wish to thank
Jerry for those efforts he has already made on behalf of the
Foundation...and we look forward to more of the same as he
assumes his new responsibilities in the coming year.

Michael Riskin, PhD, CPA Chairman of The Board Alcor Life
Extension Foundation
-------------------------------------------------------------
Finding a New President and CEO

Although Jerry Lemler's resignation does not take effect
until the end of the year, we have begun the process of
looking for a successor. Some Alcor members who have been
recommended as possible candidates have been invited to send
resumes. Alcor also invites resumes from anyone else who has
a serious interest in the position of President/CEO. The
organization may also use an executive placement agency, but
has not determined whether this is appropriate. We have
three months in which to find and hire a successor, and
another month in which an orderly transition can occur.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Annual Elections at September Board Meeting

Alcor's next board meeting will be on Saturday September 6th
at the Scottsdale facility, commencing at 10 AM local time.
The annual election of Alcor directors will occur in this
meeting, which is open to the public.

[Bruce Klein]

Alcor News Bulletin
-----------------------------
Number 19: December 7th 2003

This bulletin is sent via email to anyone who has requested
it. Please do not reply to this message; the news server at
alcornews.org does not receive email. Send any comments,
suggestions, or complaints to the new address that has been
established to deal with human communications:
mail@alcornews.info. Note, this is a .info address, not a
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type carefully. Subscribe/unsubscribe information is at the
end of this message. The layout of Alcor News is best viewed
using a monospaced font such as Courier. Contents are
copyright 2003 by Alcor Foundation but permission is granted
to reprint any whole news item, so long as Alcor is credited
as the source and the reprint includes our URL at
http://www.alcornews.org.


Editors: Tanya Jones [TJ], Jennifer Chapman [JC], and Mike
Perry [MP].

===

First Words

This issue was delayed a few days by a standby and
cryopreservation (see Tanya’s article below), and also, by a
severe respiratory ailment that started around Thanksgiving
(Nov. 27) and has affected several staff members, including
Tanya. In addition to taking care of her major, patient-
related duties as the new Chief Operating Officer, she
completed her contribution to this newsletter while battling
this nasty infection, and thus deserves special
commendation. (By the way, she was confirmed as Alcor’s COO
at the public meeting, November 8). [MP]

------------------------------------------------------------

Alcor Accepts 59th Patient

A four-day standby concluded with the cryopreservation of
Alcor's 59th patient. Pronouncement occurred at 11:40 a.m.,
Dec. 3. Transport procedures were carried out quickly, and
the team left the hospice with the patient after 20 minutes
of surface cooling, the application of cardiopulmonary
support, and medication administration. CPS continued until
shortly before the patient was transferred to the operating
room table for the neuroseparation procedure. The new LUCAS
cardiopulmonary support device performed well, and the
patient's oxygen saturation levels were observed to rise
from 65% to 83% for a time.

Aside from a slight difficulty in locating the left jugular
vein, cryoprotection was carried out quickly and with few
complications. The ramp was concluded within 5.5 hours of
pronouncement, when the target molar concentration was
achieved. Cooling to -114°C was completed in under 24 hours.

As a quick summary: the patient was local, pronouncement and
protocol implementation were prompt, the hospice was
otherwise also supportive, the team performed well. This
patient by appearances received what Case Photographer
Charles Platt termed, "an excellent suspension." He
continued that this was, "a textbook example of the benefits
that can result from experienced field personnel treating a
patient who has moved near to the facility and is following
a relatively predictable path toward mortality, in a
location where the MRC can be brought to the bedside and
death can be pronounced immediately."

A more complete report will appear in _Cryonics_ magazine.
[TJ]

------------------------------------------------------------

A Further, Brief Comment

This case was the one reported in the last newsletter (#18)
as "imminent." (As often happens, it took a bit longer than
expected, but not that much.) The patient was a middle-aged
cancer victim who relocated to a hospice in the Scottsdale
area some months ago to be near Alcor when the need should
arise. The man deserves credit for his wise decision, which
can be a difficult one to make under the circumstances. The
prompt and highly effective response of the Alcor team
speaks for itself. [MP]

------------------------------------------------------------

New CEO to Be Announced

Alcor is expected to have a new CEO soon, but no
announcement has been made yet. [MP]

------------------------------------------------------------

Construction Work

Construction work has now been going on for many weeks; The
new operating room is now showing substantial progress.
Walls and ceiling are up, drywall is in place and painted;
electrical wiring, floor covering and doors remain to be
done. Next on the list should be the new Patient Care Bay,
which will be much larger than our present one. [MP]

------------------------------------------------------------

_Cryonics_ Magazine

The final, 2003 issue of _Cryonics_ will combine the 3rd and
4th quarter issues, and be extra long, with some regular
features doubled (the "For the Record" column in
particular). It will also include a review of all approved
Board meeting minutes for 2003. [MP, JC]

------------------------------------------------------------

Cell Storage

Dr. Mike Perry brought a Cryonet message to my attention the
other day where Alcor policy was questioned.
(http://www.cryonet.o...p.cgi?msg=22945). In it,
Randy Wicker quoted Mike at length as to how most
cryonicists do not consider a DNA sample to be a successful
or sufficient cryopreservation. When he implied that this
attitude is reflected in Alcor's policy, Mr. Wicker was
correct. To my knowledge, no one at Alcor believes a twin is
an adequate representation of a person who lived, loved,
learned and eventually was cryopreserved. We'll save the
limited representation of a cell sample, if that is all that
can be saved, but we prefer much greater completeness--there
should at least be substantial brain structure. Mr. Wicker
continues, "The issue is why Alcor (in particular) but not
Cryonics Institute refuses to allow members the option of
saving their cells for possible future cloning."

One point to make is that Alcor _requires_ that its
_members_ be signed up for cryopreservation, a policy not
necessarily followed in other organizations. (Each
organization will, of course, have its own requirements and
policies which a prospective member--however the
organization chooses to define it--must investigate.) Again,
to be "signed up for cryopreservation" with Alcor it is not
sufficient merely to have arrangements to store a cell
sample. Alcor does, however, encourage its members to
deposit a DNA sample in its dewars, and we even went so far
as to send out sample kits to all our members some years
back. There are hundreds of those samples logged and stored
in our vaults. Granted, perhaps we have been somewhat remiss
in the follow-up for our newer members, but the issue is not
that we _refuse_ to store those cells. The issue is instead
that we refuse to represent cloning as sufficient for
successful reanimation.

Custody of cell samples, pet or otherwise, remains with the
Owner. That Owner must be an Alcor member (again, signed up
for cryopreservation), but the Owner has the option to
decide what is done with stored property. The bottom line
here is that the Owner can use the sample for cloning, but
that Alcor will not. [TJ]

------------------------------------------------------------

Pet Storage

Non-Alcor members have been contacting us lately to ask
about temporary storage of pets. In part, this is due to the
legal restrictions being imposed on other organizations.
While we're sure those problems will soon be solved, there
are those who need help now.

Alcor's policy is that we only accept pets from Alcor
members, but the Board recently allowed a modification of
our pet suspension contract to permit the temporary
transference of custody to an existing Alcor member. This
was done for one specific case, where the individual in
question had plans to join Alcor himself at a later date.
Paperwork was drafted to allow the pet owner to recover
custody once his Alcor membership had been approved.

With the legal challenges that have lately occurred to non-
Alcor cryonics operations, Alcor has the infrastructure in
place to offer pet storage services to members of other
organizations if they so desire (or need). Cryoprotection is
also available in those cases where notice exists. Minimum
fees must be fully met for all services performed. There is
no discount on the perpetual storage fee, since we have no
guarantee that the custody will ultimately revert to the
original owner. Unlike the pricing structure for a human,
the pet scale depends more greatly on volume, for example,
whether the preservation is whole-body or neuro. [TJ]

------------------------------------------------------------


The Return of the Application Fee

Since January 2003 Alcor’s $150 application fee has been
waived. In the absence of a notable increase in the number
of applications being processed, an application fee will
again be applied effective January 1, 2004. The new rate
will be $100 for the first family member who applies. If one
or more additional family members want to join, an
additional $50 payment will be collected. In total, an
entire family can join for $150, making family memberships
much more affordable while sustaining this source of income
for the organization. (You’ll note the new fees are a
kinder, softer version than before. But you have at least
until the end of the year to start the sign-up process and
avoid them altogether.) [JC, TJ]

------------------------------------------------------------

Alcor Director of International Relations

Dr. Peter Toma, longtime Alcor member and supporter,
recently informed the Board that he would like to coordinate
a life extension conference in Davos, Switzerland and to
lecture in several places in Europe to improve Alcor’s
worldwide reputation. Dr. Toma is fluent in several European
languages and is also a brilliant computer scientist, having
developed the original SYSTRAN system for automated language
translation.

To facilitate his present goals, Dr. Toma requested being
made a representative of Alcor in some official capacity. A
special Board meeting was held immediately after the public
meeting November 8 (it being felt that further discussion
was needed), and he was given the title Director of
International Relations. [JC, MP]

------------------------------------------------------------

Membership Agreements

It has long been known that completing Alcor’s paperwork can
be a daunting task. The amount of required paperwork was
considered at the last public meeting (November 8), and the
Directors addressed the legal and practical reasons for
having multiple originals. There is no legal reason for
having more than one original, and it was agreed that a
duplicate will suffice when representing a member in the
hospital. Most prominently, only requiring one original will
be tremendously easier for those in the sign-up process, as
well as Alcor members who want to make paperwork updates.
With these considerations in mind, it was resolved that
Alcor will now only require submission of one original
contract. Clients will still be given the option of
completing additional originals, and in all cases the
original and a duplicate will be kept with Alcor’s records.
[JC]

------------------------------------------------------------

Northern California Meeting

The last Alcor Northern California meeting in 2003 will be
the customary Thanksgiving/Christmas celebration on December
14. The meeting will be at 5:00 pm and dinner will start
around 5:30. The event will be held at the Peartree
Apartments Recreation Room at 330 N. Mathilda Ave in
Sunnyvale. Turkey will be provided; please bring something
else to eat or drink. For more information, call Tim Freeman
at (408) 774-1298, or send email to tim@fungible.com. [JC]

------------------------------------------------------------

Alcor Central Meeting

Alcor's final meeting of the year will be held on Saturday,
December 13, at 11am MST (10am PST, noon CST, 1pm EST).
Alcor meetings are now held in the new conference room at
the facility's location in Scottsdale. [MP]


============================================================
End of Alcor News bulletin #19 dated December 7th, 2003.
Distribution: 412 subscribers.
============================================================
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