| Founded | December 10, 1969 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Dr. M. Coleman Harris, Edgar Swank, Dr. Grace Talbot, Jerome B. White |
| 94-2398719 | |
| Registration no. | C0587199 |
| Focus | cryonics |
| Location |
|
| Coordinates | 37°22′17.1048″N 122°2′8.718″W |
| Website | americancryonics cryonics |
Formerly called
| Bay Area Cryonics Society |
The American Cryonics Society (ACS), also known as the Cryonics Society of America, is a member-run, California-based, 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization that supports and promotes research and education into cryonics and cryobiology. Cryonics is the preservation through cold storage, usually with liquid nitrogen, of humans (and sometimes non-human animals) after legal death. This procedure is done in the hopes of eventual "reanimation." Any such reanimation depends upon future technological advances that are hoped for, but by no means assured or promised.
The American Cryonics Society is the oldest cryonics organization still in existence. Since 1972 ACS has offered a program where members who enroll, are placed into cryonic suspension upon their deaths and then maintained in liquid nitrogen. This program provides for continuous funding so that the relatives of the subject are not required to pay for the initial freezing, yearly maintenance in liquid nitrogen, or eventual reanimation (should the latter prove possible). Members often provide such funding through the purchase of a life insurance policy.
History
The American Cryonics Society was first incorporated in 1969 in San Francisco as the Bay Area Cryonics Society (BACS);
its name was changed to the American Cryonics Society in 1985. The
founding of the company followed over two years of organizational
meetings by cryonics activists. Signers of the founding charter
included two well-known Bay Area physicians,
Dr. M. Coleman Harris, and Dr. Grace Talbot. The 1969 incorporation
date makes it the oldest cryonics society still in existence. The Immortalist Society
(IS), with which the American Cryonics Society works closely, is a
successor to the Cryonics Society of Michigan whose founding predates
that of the American Cryonics Society. Since its beginning, the American Cryonics Society has made valuable
contributions to research and methodology of freezing and cold storage
of organs and organism. The first suspensions of humans under the ACS
program were in 1974 through Trans Time, a company founded in 1972 by
activist members of the American Cryonics Society (then BACS). This was
followed by a succession of additional suspensions and ongoing research
into methods of preservation and procedures for maintaining tissue,
organs, and organisms at liquid nitrogen temperature.
Starting in 1974 ACS-sponsored research into establishing
suspension procedures included development of "blood substitutes" and
flushes to replace the blood in cryonic patients with a solution which
had cryoprotective properties.
Dr. Paul Segall was the chief researcher, and following a technological
report that the international press viewed as significant, Dr. Segall,
Dr. Richard Marsh, and Avi Ben-Abraham, MD, appeared on Good Morning America, The Phil Donahue Show, The Sally Jessy Raphael Show, and made many other popular media appearances.
In 1987 Dr. Avi Ben-Abraham was elected as Chairman, President
and Governor of the American Cryonics Society and led the society for
over a decade. A prominent physician and scientist, Dr. Ben-Abraham
brought a high degree of respectability and public attention to ACS.
During Dr. Ben-Abraham's tenure, cryonics research received a major
boost, and the scientific progress made by ACS's scientists, was
featured in the New York Times, The Saturday Evening Post and on the
cover of Leaders magazine among others.Dr. Ben-Abraham was featured on
several prestigious television programs in the US and overseas,
including CBS's 48 Hours and 60 Minutes, The Joan Rivers Show, CNBC Live
and on a special BBC television documentary.
American Cryonics Society researchers would later develop
commercial organ preservation solutions, based in part on ACS-sponsored
research.
In May 1988, ACS researchers , Paul Segal, Hal Sternberg, Harry
Weitz and Avi Ben-Abraham, authored a scientific paper, "Interventive
Gerentology, Cloning, and Cryonics: Relevance to Life Extension," that
was published in Biomedical Advances in Aging and edited by Allan
L. Goldstein. The team presented this paper at a symposium held at
George Washington University. The inclusion of this paper in a
publication of serious academic inquiry properly identifies cryonics as
scientific discipline.
Concurrent with biological research, the American Cryonics
Society established financial and managerial policy to better safeguard
the funds of members in suspension. This included funding through life
insurance and conservative estimates of suspension and maintenance costs
to ensure adequate funding. In 1981, the American Cryonics Society
employed attorney
Jim Bianchi to develop model trust and model will documents for people
who wished suspension. Mr. Bianchi also researched the legal basis for
cryonics, and developed a set of related documents.
In 1978, the Cryonics Society of America researchers collaborated with Jerry Leaf
of Cryovita Laboratories in experiments that would apply the
methodology to cryonic suspensions that were then in use as surgical
procedures to treat patients with heart disease. Thus a team led by a
thoracic surgeon and a perfusionist would use cardio-pulmonary
resuscitation equipment and blood-pumps to quickly cool a patient, and
replace his blood with a blood substitute containing cryoprotectants.
For several years thereafter, Cryovita Laboratories led by Jerry Leaf
and Mike Darwin, were responsible for the initial cryonic suspension of
patients of the American Cryonics Society, which were then perfused,
transported, and kept in cryogenic storage by Trans Time.
This method of making use of contract companies as a means of risk
management was unique to the American Cryonics Society and has been
followed to the present day.
In 1992, the American Cryonics Society signed contracts with the
newly formed CryoSpan Corporation and transferred a number of patients
to that Southern California facility, as well as making use of CryoSpan
services for a number of new patients. At about this same time it
contracted with BioPreservation Inc., operated by Mike Darwin,
to perform the standby and initial suspension of the Cryonics Society
of America members. The American Cryonics Society also purchased
suspension and “first response” equipment from Darwin and other
suppliers to enable the American Cryonics Society to freeze its own
members, to supplement its employment of contract companies.
In 2002 when CryoSpan opted to close down its long-term cryogenic
storage operations, 10 ACS patients and a number of pets were
transferred to the Cryonics Institute (CI) facility in Michigan. The American Cryonics Society had contracted with CI for the long-term cryogenic
storage of a number of other members prior to the 2002 patient
transfer. The ACS inspects CI yearly to ensure ACS quality standards are
met.
The extra funds charged to ACS members beyond CI minimums could be used
for moving the patients in the future if necessary, or other uses.
In 2004, the American Cryonics Society signed a contract with Suspended Animation, a Florida
based company, and in the same year Suspended Animation performed a
stand-by and suspension on an ACS member living in Florida at the time
of his death. The patient was then transported to the CI Facility in
Michigan for long-term cryogenic storage. When circumstances warrant, neural vitrification technology may also be applied to ACS subjects by CI personnel prior to long-term cryogenic storage.
Policies
The
American Cryonics Society is managed by a seven-person Board of
Governors. Governors must themselves be full members, and are expected
to have made suspension arrangements. Funds are managed by professional
funds managers. As a further safeguard, a sponsor is designated for each
person in suspension, to review financial records and cold-storage
procedures.
The Cryonics Society of America works cooperatively with the
Cryonics Institute and supports the research program of that
organization. Most ACS (frozen) members are in suspension at the CI
facility. The agreement with CI calls for the American Cryonics Society
to have inspection authority, and to have the right to remove ACS
subjects from that facility should the American Cryonics Society warrant
that such removal is warranted and beneficial. Such subject would then
be transferred to another facility. All ACS subjects are fully funded
to CI’s specification, and in addition, funds to benefit the subjects
are maintained by the American Cryonics Society. This funding plan
provides a double safety net against the possible financial insolvency
of either CI or ACS.
The American Cryonics Society encourages members and the public in
general to subscribe to the Immortalist Magazine. This bi-monthly magazine
is devoted to discussion of cryonics activities, especially those of
the Cryonics Institute where most patients of the American Cryonics
Society are in long term cryogenic storage.
Scope
The
American Cryonics Society welcomes members from any country, however the
level of service that a member can expect in most countries outside the
US and Canada
is limited, and in many cases the member himself, sometimes working
with other cryonics advocates, must work to make local arrangements.
Even then, given so much uncertainty, the American Cryonics Society can
make no guarantees.
Perspective
The cryonics movement, which started with the publication of Robert Ettinger’s book The Prospect of Immortality
in 1964, is still treated as a curiosity by most people, though
cryonics continues to gain in acceptance by both the general public, and
the scientific community.
Given the small number of people in suspension, and the incidents of
patients lost to carelessness or accident in the past, the risk
management approach to cryonics followed by the American Cryonics
Society is warranted. That said, the extant cryonics organizations
appear to have stability not always present in the past, and there have
been no recent incidents of lost patients.
There are (perhaps) 1,800 people with pre-need cryonics
arrangements in place; however many of these people are young and not
apt to need services for many years. As of the end of 2010, there are
about 220 bodies now frozen. These numbers include members and frozen
bodies from all organizations, in all countries. Almost half of them are
at the Alcor
facility, and half at the CI facility (which includes the patients of
the American Cryonics Society). A couple of subjects are at Trans Time
and KrioRus, and we will include in our count the dry ice storage of Mr. Bredo Morstoel, in Nederland, Colorado,
though many cryonicists argue that because of the warmer storage
temperature of Mr. Morstoel, he should not be counted as a "patient."
Since the patients at the CI facility are almost all whole body patients
(as opposed to head only), the volume of biological material at the CI
facility is far greater than at the other facilities.
From 1974 to present, only one American Cryonics Society body has
had to be transferred out of long-term cold storage. In that case the
transfer was following a request made by the patient’s family,
apparently for financial reasons. The patient was then preserved by
chemical means. However, there have been several patients "converted"
from whole-body to "neuro" because of funding concerns. The American
Cryonics Society members either pre-approve or opt out of such
arrangements as part of their contract. There have been no incidents in
ACS history of embezzlement or loss of any patient funds.
