Quick question, can anyone tell me why the price for whole body cryopreservation in the CI is of approximately U$30,000 while it's U$150,000 in Alcor?

As I understand it, CI's minimum price only includes procedures done near in or CI's facilities. It doesn't include standby, stabilization, or even the cost of a local funeral director recovering and shipping remains to CI. That would have to be arranged and paid for separately. Many newer CI members contract with Suspended Animation, Inc., to provide these services, which makes costs more comparable.

Another big difference is that CI only perfuses cryoprotectants into the head, not the whole body. Other differences are the sophistication of cryoprotection procedures, costs of solutions, supplies, and contract surgeons (Alcor's out-of-pocket costs are tens of thousands of dollars for a whole body case), and the amount of money set aside to finance long-term storage. For example, Alcor budgets a minimum of $65,000 to be sent to the Patient Care Trust for long-term care of a whole body case. This doesn't necessarily imply greater storage security because many different factors are involved in that, just that Alcor sets aside a much greater dollar amount per patient.

There is a more detailed discussion of some of these differences here

http://www.alcor.org/FAQs/faq06.html#choose

I should mention in closing that the past decade has been a very peaceful and cooperative one between Alcor and CI, and this post is not intended to be critical of CI.

Just to be clear, I'd like to mention that this can be (and my understanding is that it ordinarily is) paid for out of the excess life insurance funding. For example, my life insurance policy is £100,000, and my suspension with CI costs me $28,000 out of that, bearing in mind the exchange rate differential, that leaves around $130,000 spare funding knocking around to pay for the other expenses.

It is in the contract that CI will pay those expenses, on the understanding that the patient must have made sure there is sufficient insurance funding for this.

So if I'm hit by the proverbial bus tomorrow (and having failed to dodge the bus, ideally succeed in dodging an autopsy) my standby team in the UK will call CI to check they will pay the costs, CI will check my papers and see that I have an insurance policy that overfunds by enough to buy me a small house, and will pay the costs incurred.

I don't need to put aside any large sums of money myself to pay those things (though frankly I have, as a back-up, but that's just me being über-careful about having back-up plans for my back-up plans); the same life insurance policy will pay it all.

For this reason, I do not think the cost is a relevant deciding factor between CI and Alcor. It's just numbers on paper when it's all being paid for by life insurance.



Last I heard (and I could well be wrong; I'm thinking back to the member questionnaire they sent out a few years ago), this is optional, and related to the various arguments regarding which course of action will produce the better cryopreservation on the balance of things. Much like the argument in favour of Alcor's neuro option over full-body, regardless of the cost some would argue that with just the head it is easier to regulate things and thus have a better cryopreservation.

Are you aware of some change at CI in this regard, whereupon they will now not do full body perfusions?

I'm unconcerned for myself, as I'll have a full body perfusion done over here before shipping out, but not everyone has that luxury.

Sidenote: Anyone from the UK or nearby who's reading this and doesn't have that luxury but would like it, by all means let me know and I'll do my level best to sort you out with standby/stabilisation/transport services, to include (thanks mostly to the hard work of Ben Best) perfusion (edit to add: "of the head") with vitrification solution before shipping on dry ice to America. Doesn't matter who you're signed with (unless you're signed with KrioRus obviously, in which case we won't ship you to America). We work with both Alcor and CI, and would certainly look at working with KrioRus should someone ask us to).




Then just for balance, I'll point also to CI's comparison page: http://cryonics.org/comparisons.html



And likewise, my defence of CI should be taken in no way as a criticism of Alcor; I heartily support any organisation that's on the same side in the real war, against death.

Brian, I think you know how strongly I feel about working without political bias, and how I appreciate the benefits of both Alcor and CI, but I include the comment for others who are less likely to know.

This post has been edited by David Styles: Jan 23 2010, 09:27 PM

The current CI protocol describes a head-only perfusion.

http://cryonics.org/phases.html

Thank you; that clears up a gap in my knowledge that I'm happy to have filled.

Of course, I won't be perfused by CI at all, but by our own team and funeral directors in England, using input from both CI and Alcor, taking advice regarding what will be best from any experts (yourself, Ben Best, Aschwin and Chana, etc) who are there for us in terms of offering that advice.

My understanding is that this currently involves VM-1 perfusion of the head for vitrification and glycerol perfusion of the rest of the body, but my technical understanding could very easily be wrong, and I have replied to your email, copying in Alan Sinclair for clarification on our policies, and will be sure to report here when any confusion is cleared up.

Ah, I'm off the hook!

I have just an hour ago received (and not read before writing the above) an email from Alan addressing exactly this issue.

While this was not the case previously, we will now be adhering to CI protocols since we are using their substances.

I hope that clears things up!

you can request whole body perfusion in your suspension agreement with CI tho, they do offer it. from what i understand, the main reason why CI is so much cheaper than Alcor has to do with overhead costs and expenses. CI owns it's property outright (and has only 2 paid employees) and has much less expenses than Alcor. In a nutshell, CI is technically more financially stable than Alcor. However, a lot has to do with standby costs as well. with CI you pay $5000 on top of your suspension cost to cover a rider for immediate care and shipment to CI with a local funeral director of your choosing.

Yes; it is an elective still; the default policy being to forgo the body perfusion if one does not express a preference otherwise.



That is my understanding also, with the caveat that it is more expensive overseas.

That information is outdated, and I regret to say that the statement
quoted above is an example of my failing to be aware of outdated
material on the CI website. I will correct that webpage within a
few days. For a while we were ready to abandon body perfusion
due to the unpleasant effects of ethylene glycol, but many CI
Members were very upset by that policy. So not very long
after the 77th patient we decided that for those who strongly want
their body perfused CI will use glycerol for the body after
vitrifying the head/brain (as David Styles pointed-out). There is
a personal preference statement that CI Members can sign:

http://www.cryonics.org/documents/Perfusion_Preference.html

If no statement is signed, the current default is that CI will
only perfuse the head. Perfusing the body with glycerol can
reduce, but not eliminate ice formation. Perfusing the body
adds delay to the cool-down process, meaning longer exposure
of the brain to cryoprotectant toxicity, if not ischemic damage
-- so what's the point of perfusing the body? (We tried perfusing
the body first and found that it made the head harder to perfuse.)
My recommendation is for CI Members *not* to have their body
perfused.

There is a similar argument as to why Alcor Members should
choose neuro over whole body perfusion. The head can be
perfused much faster than the body, and the time spent
waiting for equilibration of the body means longer exposure
of the brain to cryoprotectant toxicity, if not ischemic damage.
Alcor, too, can only reduce (but not eliminate) ice formation
in the body. I think that it will be a long time before full body
vitrification is possible.

-- Ben Best

This post has been edited by benbest: Feb 20 2010, 03:09 AM

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