Is being frozen for reappearance in the future, really a scam?

For many people on earth, the fear of dying is distressing, not because it leads them to a world of the unknown, but because they hate leaving life and its benefits behind. Many people also believe in reincarnation and that they will be born again and reappear as another human being in the future.

There are also people who want to reappear in the future but not as someone else but rather as themselves. Now that would be quite a feat if it could be done but according to the Christian Bible, only Jesus Christ could have pulled that feat off, when he raised Lazarus from the dead and himself also.

In search of existence after death, along came cryogenics. Believers in cryogenics use extreme cold to preserve the body of a person who has died of a disease in hopes that the technology to cure the disease is available in the future that will justify reversing the process and bring the person back to life. The process cannot be started on living patients, so it can't be used to prevent damage to the body caused by illness or any pain and suffering. The person must be declared legally dead before any freezing of the body takes place.

Procedures of the freezing of the body would have to start in the first minute or two after the heart has stopped since waiting longer than 5 minutes would be pointless because longer periods of time would decrease the viability of the brain being fully restored to his original condition. Humans have been revived hours after drowning in cold water. Their lungs are filled with water, their hearts have stopped beating, and they are dead by any medical definition that exists. But people have survived such situations with their mental functions and memory completely intact. It is the coldness of the water that made this possible.

I suppose a person could be placed in a cryogenic container as soon as he is declared dead in an operating room but it would be illegal to do this in one’s home since a medical examiner would have to make the decision that the person is legally dead. An exception could be made if there is a doctor present in the home at the moment of death.

If a cryogenic container isn’t in the home, then within minutes of being pronounced dead, the deceased’s loved ones would need to begin the cooling process by placing ice around his or her head and if possible immersing the body in a cold bath or covering it entirely with ice. CPR would also be helpful in keeping the blood circulating until assistance from the cryogenic facility arrives to pick the deceased up and transport the deceased’s body to their facility.

There are about a half a dozen cryogenics companies in the United States today, all them recognized companies utilizing the best currently known cryropreservation methodologies. There are two methods these companies use to cryropreserve deceased persons after they are legally dead (i.e. their hearts have completely stopped beating)

With ‘whole body preservation’ their entire body stays intact and is frozen in liquid nitrogen. ‘Neuropreservation’ is a euphemism for the macabre thought of having one’s head severed from one’s body and just the deceased’s head is stored in liquid nitrogen.

On average, ‘whole body cryropreservation’ costs about $150,000 however ‘neuropreservation’ is somewhat cheaper, averaging about $90,000. Some companies also charge an annual membership fee while the people are still alive. These fees average around $500/year. Additionally, they may pay an additional premium of up to $10,000 for a “standby team” that is by their side as they die who will then quickly get their brain in a state that has the best probability of being revived intact in the future. Most of the cost, however, arises from the need to create a dedicated fund large enough so the interest or income from the fund can pay on-going expenses to keep the member frozen for centuries if necessary.

As soon as a person dies, the aim is to stop cellular decomposition caused by oxygen deprivation. Crucially, brain cells are the first to die. Once they are dead, there is no hope of reviving them.

The first step is to cool the body. For every 10°C drop in temperature there is a 50% reduction in metabolic demand which means it takes twice as long for damage to occur. The aim is to cool the body to just above freezing. Next, a mechanical chest compressor is used to temporarily restore circulation before injecting a cocktail of medications to stop the blood clotting. Then, the patient's blood is washed out and replaced with a temporary protective fluid. Once the body has been placed in the cryogenic facility, the main preservation process can begin.

The process begins by opening the chest cavity to allow plastic cannulation tubes to be sewn into the heart to provide entry and exit points for the cryoprotectant fluid. These tubes connect to a heart-bypass machine that will pump the cryopreservation fluid around the body.

Current cryonic techniques rely on the success of a process called vitrification. This means replacing over 60% of the water in the body with, potentially toxic, preservation chemicals. When exposed to cryogenic temperatures of below -120°C they react by turning tissue to a glass-like solid.

Throughout the procedure the body is kept packed in ice inside a perspex container. Liquid nitrogen vapour is regularly pumped around the body to keep the temperature at -3°C.

After the surgery, the body is transferred to an insulated holding chamber for the rapid cool down stage. Liquid nitrogen vapour is pumped inside and probes will monitor the body's core temperature. The temperature will be dropped rapidly to just above the glass-transition point.

The body is then placed in a sleeping-bag and put into a pod which is the permanent storage container

Their bodies are preserved in chemicals designed to theoretically, protect cellular structure then they are placed in a sleeping bag before being lowered into steel insulated containers of liquid nitrogen, called ‘dewars’, cryostats, or capsules, where they will be cooled very slowly to liquid nitrogen temperature of minus 196 degrees Celsius. Here they will face an indefinite wait in the hope that medical science will discover a way to bring them back to life.

Contrary to popular belief, cryonics isn’t just for the rich. Many middle class people have signed up for cryropreservation by taking out a term life insurance policy with the cryonic company listed as the beneficiary. In fact, some cryogenics companies require you to have such insurance in place before they will accept you as a future customer.

Simon Cowell; a talent judge on TV shows such as Pop Idol, American Idol, The X Factor, and Britain's Got Talent announced at a dinner with Prime Minister Gordon Brown at 10 Downing Street, “I have decided to freeze myself when I die. You know; cryonics. You pay a lot of money and you get stuck in a deep freeze once you’ve been declared dead. Medical science is bound to work out a way of bringing us back to life in the next century or so, and I want to be available when they do.” His hopes will be dashed to the ground if he is killed in a car accident. By the time they get him into a cryogenic facility, his brain will be all mush.

Even if he could return in a century from now, his knowledge of science and everything in existence at the time of his reappearance, would be like comparing the mind of a caveman to that of a university student considering how fast science moves forward.

The current technique of full-body preservation with cryoprotectant chemicals causes extensive cellular damage to the body. To successfully bring a patient back to life, cryonics would not only need to reverse this damage, but would also have to cure the original illness the patient died from. I suppose if the first problem can be solved, the second one won’t really be a problem because medical science will probably be so advanced, all known illnesses may be cured by the turn of the next century.

Despite 30 years of media attention and various scientific advances, there have only been 70-85 people frozen. This includes ‘neuropreservation’ (head only) and brain-only suspensions. Presently, somewhere between 800 and 1,000 people are enrolled in pre-need suspension programs.

Cryonics is an unproven theory. There are scientific obstacles that, some would say, are insurmountable. The major problem facing those who have chosen this way to take this alternative way to leave us; is cellular destruction.

Intracellular ice formation causes injury to cellular membranes and intracellular structures and, finally, cellular death. With slower freezing rates, extracellular ice will form, causing an increase in the osmolariry of the remaining extracellular fluid, creating an osmotic gradient and causing the cells to dehydrate. The resulting changes in the intracellular milieu, such as changes in the pH, ionic concentration or denaturation of cell proteins, may be lethal to the cells. In addition, mechanical interactions between extracellular ice crystals and cells lead to the deformation of cells and the rupture of cell membranes. Despite these problems, to a certain extent, cells may survive freezing and rehydrate after thawing and the preservation of isolated cells by freezing in the presence of cryopreservants such as Dimethyl sulphoxide which is widely used in laboratory research.

Freezing tissues and organs has not evolved as an effective means of cryopreservation. A promising alternative approach is to use high concentrations of solutes and low temperatures to induce vitrification. Such a vitrified, amorphous solid state avoids damaging ice crystals. Very recently it has been demonstrated for the first time that vitrification can be used to preserve smooth muscle contractile function significantly better than conventional freezing and thawing methods. This appears to be the first instance for a multi-cellular tissue in which vitrification produces a better result than standard freezing methods. It may be the basis for extension to more complex biomaterials.

Unfortunately, so far, no one in one of these cryogenic containers has been revived so there is no sure way of determining whether or not this concept of returning to the afterlife in the future is viable. Until that happens, this concept is mere theory.

What amazes me is that none of these firms that operate these cryogenic facilities has placed an animal in one of their cryogenic containers and after freezing it via their procedures, then thawed it out for the purpose of seeing if it can be brought back to life. If they have tried it, they have not been successful. If they were, we would have heard about their successes as it would be a great boost for their business. Until that happens, I will look at this cryogenic theory of bringing the dead back to life with a jaundice eye.