Suspended Animation Finalizes its Agreement with The Cryonics Institute

SA’s previous management negotiated an agreement with CI last year, but incoming general manager Rose Strain felt there were some aspects of that document which were insufficiently clear. After Rose left SA, the accumulated pages of proposals and her revisions were inherited by Charles Platt, who decided that the matter had become so affected by conflicting suggestions and detail, the quickest way to address the issue would be to start over.

Platt sent his preliminary draft to CI president Ben Best just over two months ago. The negotiation process continued with revisions from David Ettinger, Saul Kent, and a consulting attorney with extensive experience in contract law. Relatively few compromises were required, and the negotiations were quick and amicable.

In mid-April the board of directors at CI approved the document. On April 21st the difficult issue of standby fees was resolved at SA, and Ben Best and Charles Platt started discussing a format for presenting this information on the CI web site. (SA does not maintain a web site at this time). Best and Platt exchanged a signed copy of the signature page of the primary document via fax on April 24th, and the deal was done.

Highlights of the agreement include:

n Two payment plans are offered, one flat-rate, the other using a pay-as-you-go format. Both plans require prepayment for procedures that precede pronouncement of legal death. Subsequent procedures will be paid through CI, using each member’s excess life insurance.

n Reduced fees are offered for people who require help within 200 miles of the SA facility.

n All procedures are whole-body only.

n Transport to Michigan will be in water ice (dry ice is not an option).

n SA offers CI members the extra-cost option of glycerol cryoprotection by SA in Michigan if they prefer this to the new proprietary vitrification solution offered by CI.

n Air ambulance is an extra-cost option.

n No response outside of North America is available.

n Canadian response is under review.

n This is the first time that full standby service has been offered to CI members on a contractual basis.

For CI’s official announcement, go to
http://www.cryonics.org/SA/SA_CI_Announcement.html

For a tabulation of fees prepared by SA, go to
http://www.cryonics.org/SA/StandbyFees.pdf

For some sample payment scenarios prepared by SA, go to
http://www.cryonics.org/SA/Scenarios.pdf

For complete copies of all contractual agreements, go to
http://www.cryonics.org/SA/SA_documents.html

SA has a pre-existing agreement with the American Cryonics Society, which remains unchanged.

SA has offered a draft of a possible agreement to Alcor, which we have been told is under discussion.

Our primary objective at SA is to refine procedures and equipment that are used to minimize ischemic injury after cardiac arrest. We devote most of our resources to research and development in this area. Still, our work cannot be evaluated or validated unless we are able to manage cases. For this reason, SA hopes to offer assistance to all cryonics organizations in the years to come.

After a waiting period during which our architect made revisions to satisfy code requirements, buildout and renovation work at our new location began about three weeks ago. We are renting space totalling just over 8,500 square feet in a multi-tenant commercial building located in Boynton Beach, very close to the Gateway exit on Interstate 95.

Plumbing and framing work have now been completed, and our contractor is pushing ahead aggressively with the firm intention of finishing everything, including carpet installation, by mid-May.

After we move to the new location we will begin hosting training sessions using the new equipment that we have been designing. We will also welcome visitors who are interested in our work. We must emphasize however that Suspended Animation is not a cryonics organization and does not solicit customers from the general public. Our procedures are reserved for existing members of other organizations who request that initial intervention should be managed by SA.

SA does not offer patient storage of any kind.

Mike Quinn, a research surgeon who is also qualified as a paramedic, decided to resign his position at Suspended Animation last month. Mike had been at SA since the beginning, and designed some of the early equipment here.

On April 19th we welcomed a new employee, Kelly Kingston, as an office assistant who, we believe, will quickly acquire greater responsibilities than her job title suggests. Already she has taken on many of the logistical challenges involved in our upcoming relocation, and she has expressed great interest in participating in field work as soon as she receives the necessary training.

Here’s a quick summary of personnel currently working at SA or affiliated with SA:

Saul Kent, CEO and member of the board of directors.

William Faloon, member of the board of directors.

Charles Platt, general manager and member of the board of directors.

Aschwin de Wolf, chief financial officer, also involved in all policy decisions relating to standby protocol.

Robert Pruss, electromechanical engineer, also fluent in LabView control systems, playing an active role in standby kit redesign and will be working on future perfusion circuit design.

Jay Wasserlauf, biologist and surgeon, supervising standby kit inventory and deployment, has participated in one cryonics case and will be available for surgical procedures in future cases.

Kelly Kingston, office assistant, taking over some of the duties previously performed by de Wolf and Platt.

Jim di Paulo, crafts person, specializing in all forms of welding. Jim is creating our own metal-working shop and is building prototypes, working for us on a part-time basis.

Christopher Dougherty, Ph.D., molecular biologist, formerly an SA employee, currently an independent contractor testing our medications at an outside laboratory.

In addition we can request assistance from various consultants who are qualified to perform standby work, and we receive informal advice and guidance from scientists in two California laboratories that share our general source of funding. So far this year we have received visits from Bill Voice (paramedic at Alcor), Sandra Russell (from Critical Care Research), and Todd Huffman (neuroscientist and Alcor member).

Our day-to-day operations have been further enhanced by the arrival from Arizona of Eddie, the office cat, a rodent supervisor whose duties also extend to small reptiles.