From: Horace Blimpo (extroacnt77@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Aug 26 2003 - 19:28:58 MDT
The Cryonics Institute has been ordered by to stop freezing bodies.
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/sports/6623689.htm
State orders Cryonics Institute to stop freezing bodies
Associated Press
LANSING, Mich. - The state on Tuesday ordered a company to stop freezing
bodies after media reports surrounding the death of baseball legend Ted
Williams alerted regulators that the practice was taking place in Michigan.
Considered a founding father of cryonics, Robert Ettinger has proclaimed the
possibility of freezing and unfreezing people to extend their lives. He is
president of the Cryonics Institute in Macomb County's Clinton Township
north of Detroit.
But an investigation by the state's Department of Consumer and Industry
Services found that the Cryonics Institute, which has frozen both people and
pets, is operating an unlicensed mortuary science establishment and a
non-registered cemetery.
"We are extremely concerned that people from around the world have invested
their trust and finances into this facility to preserve their bodies for
eternity, yet this facility continues to knowingly operate outside the scope
of the law," CIS Director David Hollister said in a statement.
David Ettinger, Robert Ettinger's son and a lawyer for Cryonics Institute,
said the state's action is without merit and the company plans to fight the
order.
"What we do is not what a mortuary does and not what a cemetery does," he
said. "We've been doing it openly in the state of Michigan for nearly 30
years."
Cryonics is the practice of freezing corpses in liquid nitrogen in the hopes
that future technological and medical advances will allow for a second shot
at life. The state has ordered the company to preserve the bodies in its
care but accept no new ones.
In Scottsdale, Ariz., at what could be one of the only other cryonics labs
in the United States, the body of Ted Williams reportedly is waiting as his
children squabble over his body. The case has been publicized by Sports
Illustrated.
Robert Ettinger opened the nonprofit institute in 1976 with two founding
members who are now frozen in the lab's storage area. The first patient, in
1977, was Robert Ettinger's mother, Rhea. The next was his first wife,
Elaine. His second wife, Mae, also was frozen.
ON THE NET
Cryonics Institute, http://www.cryonics.org
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