Saturday, January 16, 2010

I've been reading "The Hot Zone," by Richard Preston, (about the Ebola breakout). There's an interesting chapter, where the Army and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) are battling for control of some samples. From the book:

In the past,McCormick had publicly criticized Gene Johnson, the Army's Ebola expert for spending a lot of money to explore Kitum Cave and then not publishing his findings. McCormick expressed his opinion of the Army to me this way; "They want to tell you about their experiments, but the way to tell people about them is to publish them."

How much has Alcor published, in 30+ years? How many publications have come out of Suspended Animation (SA), (which has frequently been called a "cryonics research facility"), over the past 7 1/2 years? How many publications have come out of Critical Care Research (CCR), or 21st Century Medicine (21CM)? (I don't know how long those two organizations have existed, but I believe they were derived from Alcor, and some of the same players are involved, so let's just say "decades," unless someone corrects me.)

They might argue "trade secrets," but being familiar with some of their efforts, I think it's more likely these groups don't want to expose themselves to ridicule from scientists, working in the area of hypothermic medicine, in conventional medicine.

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