Make a Body and Alive Again

Within a Scottsdale office building are the heads and bodies of 168 people who have been "cryonically preserved" with the hope that death will not be permanent.

Ane of the most famous occupants at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation is baseball legend Ted Williams, whose caput and body are stored separately within large cylindrical stainless-steel tanks at the foundation's offices.

Alcor, which began in California in 1972, has operated in Arizona since 1994. The nonprofit company'southward office houses 168 "patients" and 90 pets (cats, dogs, i turtle and one chinchilla), who have died but are existence preserved at subzero temperatures in a way that may permit them to be revived and ane solar day live over again, Alcor officials say.

 Alcor considers its patients as not dead, but rather in a suspended, in-betwixt country.

The visitor has 1,250 even so-living "members" who take fabricated the legal arrangements and paid up to $200,000 apiece to reserve a spot in one of Alcor'south thermos-like tanks when they dice. Each tank is stocked with liquid nitrogen to keep bodies at a temperature of minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit and can hold 5 heads and four whole bodies.

And then far, cryonics has proven far more pop with men than women. About 75 percent of Alcor members and patients are male.

'This is notwithstanding an experimental process'

Alcor is not a big organization. Most eight members die per year, only there have been years when none has died. One of the reasons for its depression membership is that Alcor does most no marketing. They don't want to mislead the public into thinking that they take a guaranteed ticket to the futurity later they die, officials said.

"It's an engineering problem, how to brand it happen," Alcor co-founder Linda Chamberlain said. "We desire people to understand that this is still an experimental process. We don't desire anyone to come up into this, make arrangements and call back this is like going to the hospital and having open-heart surgery, that their chances are just as good. It's not there notwithstanding."

When "members" die, they become patients who may choose to remain bearding. Those non-confidential patients who have waived anonymity may have their photograph and name up on the wall inside Alcor'due south offices, where patients are regarded as people company officials will eventually see once more.

The photos are a daily reminder to Alcor employees of "why we're here" and "who nosotros're working for," Chamberlain said.

As well Ted Williams, patients include Dick Clair Jones, who was a author for CBS-Television receiver's "The Carol Burnett Show" and a co-creator of the NBC-TV situation comedy "The Facts of Life"; American scientist Marvin Minsky, who co-founded the Massachusetts Institute of Engineering science's artificial intelligence laboratory; and Chinese science fiction writer Du Hong.

Though Alcor prefers that patients die in Scottsdale, they deploy a team anywhere in the world when 1 of their members dies. The team includes ii physicians, a medical response manager and Alcor CEO Max More.

They bring with them a folding ice bath and other equipment to the places where members dice, and will contract to use an operating room if needed to infuse patients with a chilled organ transplant solution and cryoprotective chemicals.

Bioethics practiced: 'Information technology is just non achievable'

Not surprisingly, many are skeptical of Alcor's mission. While human embryos can be successfully frozen for in vitro fertilization, at that place's a big difference betwixt freezing a cluster of cells and a human being, critics say.

"The whole matter is too science fiction-y. I however believe no one will be able to do what they wish, which is to bring dorsum the dead," said Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at New York Academy. "It is merely not doable."

In the event cryonics does work, Caplan questions whether anyone would really desire to come dorsum to life 400 or 500 years from now. He compared it to having a person from the 16th century suddenly dropping into 2019.

"I fearfulness you would become mentally deranged by it all," he said.

The Maryland-based Lodge for Cryobiology says storing a preserved body, head or brain on the chance that a future generation may restore it to life "is an deed of speculation or hope, non scientific discipline."

Chamberlain keeps an open up mind. While information technology's easy to be dismissive, no one tin say for certain what volition be possible in the time to come, she said. And it's a take chances she and other cryonics devotees are willing to take.

Case in point: Alcor recently received an anonymous donation of $5 million from i of its members to do more than research into cryonics and downtime.

Uproar over Ted Williams' frozen head

Some Alcor patients are classified as "neuro," which means they've donated their heads merely, and that comes at a cost of $80,000. Others cull the whole body, at the more than expensive cost of $200,000. Many members pay past taking out a life insurance policy in the amount of the Alcor fee.

Half of the money paid goes into the preservation process and half into a patient trust to cover the costs of long-term storage and revival.

Prices for cryopreserving a pet can vary by size, and how much of the pet is frozen. The pet pick is bachelor only to Alcor members. A price list for pets ranges from $2,500 to $30,000.

Williams, the longtime Boston Reddish Sox superstar who died in 2002, is what'due south known every bit a "neuro with whole body," so his head was removed from his body and cryopreserved, but both parts are at Alcor.

Alcor no longer offers a "neuro with whole trunk" option, as it is considered outdated, Chamberlain said. At one time the company offered the option of preserving the torso and caput separately because technology was not as skilful at cryoprotecting the brain, she explained.

"He was a confidential member," Chamberlain said of Williams. "But in that location was so much paper coverage that it doesn't practice us whatsoever good to deny it."

Williams' cryopreservation attracted extensive media attention afterwards a old Alcor employee wrote a tell-all volume, saying Williams' head had been mistreated in the Alcor lab. Alcor has consistently denied the allegations.

The Ted Williams story as well included a well-publicized family fight, with one of Williams' daughters opposed to the idea of her father's cryopreservation.

RELATED:  Human suing Alcor for $1M – and the return of his dad's frozen head

Chamberlain says Alcor strongly prefers that members sign up when they are nevertheless live and non leave it upward to their next-of-kin because those are the situations that tin and practise put Alcor in legal fights. Alcor has been sued by relatives of its members before.

"We usually say no to last-minute cases," Chamberlain said. "Correct or wrong, you end up spending money in court. We endeavor to avoid that."

The reason and then many patients preserve only their caput is considering in the future, scientific advances may allow for a new body to exist generated using a person's Deoxyribonucleic acid, said Chamberlain, a cheerful woman whose email sign-off reads, "Boundless Life."

Since most patients died with old, sick bodies, the thought of getting a new one is popular — 110 of the patients are "neuro" only and have but their heads preserved; the rest chose to have their whole body preserved.

Technologically, "neuro" is the superior selection, Chamberlain said, and it's as well cheaper, only some people have emotional issues about separating their heads from their bodies.

"Everyone who is over the age of 40 has a certain amount of blockages in their arteries and vessels, and those blockages will prevent us from introducing our cryoprotective chemicals," she explained. "Their cryoprotection will be minimized because of that."

Alcor has no outside regulation

Alcor is exempt from a 2017 Arizona law that regulates the body-donation manufacture only has still to be enforced.

Judith Stapley, executive director of the Arizona Country Lath of Funeral Directors and Embalmers, said that since Alcor is treatment dead people, "there should exist some outside entity regulating it and making sure all protocols are in place to protect the public."

Alcor's regulation is "all internal," Chamberlain said.

While Alcor is concerned that "fly past night" organizations could be attracted to opening their own cryonics facilities, Chamberlain said it'due south important that whatsoever regulation is washed by the right authorization. Oversight past the state's funeral lath would not exist appropriate, she said.

"We don't necessarily want to be controlled past some organization that doesn't know what nosotros're doing and would be inappropriately managing us," she said.

The nonprofit does not plow away bodies if they have infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C.

"We suit up in (protective) bunny suits," Chamberlain said. "In the 1980s, when the AIDS crisis was at its pinnacle, we had many AIDS patients. Nosotros only used the very best protection that we could to protect ourselves from being infected."

Cryonics programme: Freeze, wait, reanimate

Many Alcor members specify the historic period they'd like to be when they come back to life, and 25 is probably the most popular, said Chamberlain, whose husband, female parent and begetter-in-law are all cryopreserved at Alcor.

"It's all about these guys, the patients," Chamberlain said, looking at photos of her family members on the function walls. "This is who nosotros are working for. We're not merely selling Frisbees or something. ... We accept family members and friends who are in our patient care bay. And then it is not only a business organization."

Chamberlain founded the company with her NASA engineer married man, Fred Chamberlain. The visitor always has been nonprofit so that their mission and procedures would not exist dictated by shareholders, she said.

The Chamberlains first bonded over cryonics afterwards reading a 1964 volume by American bookish Robert Ettinger titled "The Prospect of Immortality."

Ettinger is considered the "male parent of cryonics," Chamberlain said. He laid out the basic thought of cryonics — freeze, look and reanimate. Ettinger's idea was if a torso could be cooled to a low enough temperature to end the dying process, the body could exist held there until the technology is developed to bring that person back to life.

The "freezing" technique is now more sophisticated than in the past. Cryoprotective chemicals forbid crystals from forming and allow liquids in the body to form a glass-like substance, Chamberlain said. The whole process from decease to freezing tank tin take a week or longer.

"Looking at the progress of medical engineering science just over the last 50 years information technology's more of a question of when than if," Chamberlain said. "It's been a part of my life for the past 47 years. I can't really imagine not doing this for myself and my family unit. ... I enjoy life and I don't want information technology to end."

Accomplish the reporter at Stephanie.Innes@gannett.com or at 602-444-8369. Follow her on Twitter @stephanieinnes

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Source: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-health/2019/06/11/arizona-cryonics-facility-alcor-life-extension-foundation-houses-head-baseball-legend-ted-williams/1146880001/