Ben Best, Cryogirl and The American Cryonics Society

Ben Best apparently felt the need to defend himself, on the Cold Filter cryonics forum, in regard to the "Cryogirl" scandal. What did he defend himself against? Having sexual Internet exchanges with someone? How many people haven't done that?! With that said, having read the emails, and visited "Cryogirl's" Twitter page and MySpace page, I kind of doubt Ben was being totally honest, about being primarily interested in her intelligence. (I'm not going to provide the link to the emails, which have now been posted on the Internet, but I don't see much intelligent discussion in any of them.)
(*Note that Cryogirl's MySpace page lists her occupation as "American Cryonics Society" and her location as "Cupertino, CA," which is the location of ACS, something I'll probably write more about, in a separate post.)

I've had the "Cryogirl" emails, since July, and it is my understanding Ben Best and the Board of Directors of CI has had them since February. I believe they held a meeting, in which they decided to look the other way, and hope the whole thing would blow over. That would have probably been a good idea, with the intention to follow that up with a thousand "No comments," if Ben's communications with Cryogirl were really the issue, but if you ask me, the REAL issue is CI's protection of the American Cryonics Society (ACS), which is led by Edgar Swank and Jim Yount. This is NOT just a silly sex scandal, it's about the seriously inappropriate, and possibly illegal, activities of two people connected with a California non-profit cryonics organization.

Ben claims not to have been aware of Cryogirl's communications with "the ACS people," (Swank and Yount), but he has been aware of those communications, since February, and he knows there was some serious misbehavior, on the part of Swank and Yount, yet he has done NOTHING to isolate CI from ACS. He writes about "when (Cryogirl) left her husband, apparently with help from ACS people." Cryogirl didn't just leave her husband, she was allegedly avoiding questioning by the police in her home state, regarding allegations of child molestation that her husband claims to have made against her, and I believe Ben knows that.

As for the people on the AntiCult site, or the UK Cryonics Factsheet site, questioning Ben's education, I have come to question that, myself. If he does have the education he claims, he's forgotten an awful lot of the basics. In the Curtis Henderson case, he altered the cryopreservative solutions and used them on Mr. Henderson, without testing them first, (something I don't believe any reputable chemist, or pharmacist, would think of doing), and the result was disastrous.

Ben writes: "Perfusion was then attempted with the milky 70% VM−1 solution, (his untested, modified solution), but the filter immediately became clogged. The milky color had been due to PEG that had come out of solution to form tiny particles that were too small to precipitate..."
I don't know where Ben went to school, but where I went to school, solids (particles) that form in solution, (no matter how tiny), ARE precipitates.

He goes on..."But the tiny particles were too large to pass through the filter. Fortunately, the particles clogged the 40 micron filter rather than plugging the capillaries of the patient."
That's nonsense. Ben is just pretending that what he didn't see didn't hurt Mr. Henderson. He doesn't have a clue as to how many particles, passed through that filter. The pore size of that filter is 40 microns, (nearly six times the size of a red blood cell). He's just attempting to reassure himself, and everyone else, that his REALLY INSANE decision to modify a solution, during a case, didn't cause any harm. http://www.cryonics.org/reports/CI95.html

Ben may very well have all the college degrees he takes credit for, but it's my experience in working with him, that he sometimes struggles with very simple concepts that anyone with degrees in physics and chemistry should intuitively grasp.

As for his income, about which he writes: "...the truth is that I made $30,050 last year, plus a medical and dental plan, but no pension." Does that include the fair market value of his living quarters, utilities, and other taxable benefits Ben receives from CI? Or the trips he took to Great Britain, Florida, Arizona and Japan? Ben's compensation isn't as measly as he makes it out to be.

As for Ben's self-described "monkhood," is that a requirement, for a leadership position at CI? Did anyone ask Ben Best to sacrifice having a personal life, in exchange for his position at CI? Maybe "normalcy" and "common sense" would be better requirements, as such traits would certainly assist in marketing cryonics.