Policies and Procedures
Alcor is governed by a self-perpetuating board of directors. Alcor's Scientific Advisory Board currently consists of Antonei Csoka, Aubrey de Grey, Robert Freitas, Bart Kosko, James B. Lewis, Ralph Merkle, Marvin Minsky, Martine Rothblatt, and Michael D. West. Alcor also maintains a medical advisory board consisting of medical doctors.
Most Alcor patients fund the procedure through life insurance policies which name Alcor as the beneficiary. Members who have signed up wear medical alert bracelets informing hospitals and doctors to notify Alcor in case of any emergency; in the case of a person who is known to be near death, Alcor can send a team for remote standby.
In some states, members can sign certificates stating that they wish to decline an autopsy. The cutting of the body organs (especially the brain) and blood vessels required for an autopsy makes it difficult to either preserve the body, especially the brain, without damage or perfuse the body with glycerol. The optimum preservation procedure begins less than one hour after death. Members can specify whether they wish Alcor to attempt to preserve even if an autopsy occurs, or whether they wish to be buried or cremated if an autopsy renders little hope for preservation.
In cases with remote standby, cardiopulmonary support is begun as soon as a patient is declared legally dead. Some patients were not able to receive cardiopulmonary support immediately, but in deference to the possibilities of future technology, these patients have also been preserved with the best techniques available. Alcor has a network of paramedics nationwide and seven surgeons, located in different regions, who are on call 24 hours a day. If an Alcor patient is met by a standby team (usually at a hospital, hospice, or home), the team will perform CPR to maintain blood flow to the brain and organs while simultaneously pumping an organ preservation solution through the veins.
Patients are transported as quickly as possible to Alcor headquarters in Scottsdale, where they undergo final preparations in Alcor's cardiopulmonary bypass lab. Plans are underway for a second operating room to be built. In the Patient Care Bay, patients are monitored by computer sensors while kept in liquid nitrogen in dewars. Liquid nitrogen is refilled on a weekly basis and does not need electricity to operate. Riverside County, California deputy coroner Dan Cupido said that Alcor had better equipment than some medical facilities.
Membership dues cover one-third of Alcor's yearly budget, with donations and case income from cryopreservations covering the rest. Alcor receives $50,000 each year from television royalties donated by a sitcom writer and producer who is in suspension. In 1997, after a substantial effort led by then-president Steve Bridge, Alcor formed the Patient Care Trust as an entirely separate entity to manage and protect the funding for cryopatients, including owning the building. Alcor remains the only cryonics organization to segregate and protect patient funding in this way; the 2% annual growth of the Trust is enough for upkeep of the patients. At least $115,000 of the money received for each full-body patient goes into this trust for future patient care, $25,000 for a neuropatient. Alcor is currently working to create an Alcor Model Trust, which would make it easier for members to establish their own Trusts to preserve their assets following legal death and prior to being revived from cryopreservation. Some members have already taken steps to do this on their own. Members can also store possessions deep underground in a Kansas salt mine operated by Underground Vaults & Storage, Inc.
Further information about Alcor policies and procedures is available from their FAQs.
Read more about this topic: Alcor Life Extension Foundation
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