Terminally ill British girl wins right to freeze her body

failinis · 18-11-2016 9:29pm

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

I think she would take the loneliness over the cancer

Death (in itself) is a terrifying prospect but also, I assume for most people, its the thought of when you die you won't see your loved ones again (unless you are religious and believe in an afterlife).

So what happens when you wake up a good few decades or even centuries from now? With everyone you love is dead?

(Again this was a scared 14yr old facing death - I don't judge her actions)

Ted111 · 18-11-2016 9:32pm

Flint Fredstone wrote: »

She's dead. Even if they froze her while she was still alive and a cure for her cancer was found, she would still be dead as freezing her solid would like... you know... kill her.

It's a disputed point whether she is dead/permanently dead.
Some argue that with no tissue damage, thawed and heart/life systems restarted that she will be up and foxtrotting around the place.

18-11-2016 9:33pm

Felix Jones is God wrote: »

I know somebody who was cryogenically frozen 7 years ago....he's still dead and his family footing the bill......cupid stunt .

i thought of the Porridge movie reading this now where the prison guard Barraclough was advising Fletcher that he could make something of himself with bit of hard graft and Fletch tells him the story of his mate who saved up to buy himself a small wheelbarra' to pick up newspapers and do you know how much he made?...Nothing and he still owes for the barra!

Ulysses Gaze · 18-11-2016 9:33pm

The flying mouse wrote: »

A 14-year old girl who died of cancer has been cryogenically frozen in the hope she could be brought back to life in the future after winning a landmark court case shortly before her death, the BBC reported on Friday.

It said the girl was supported in her wish to be preserved by her mother but not by her father.

Cryonics is the practice or technique of deep-freezing the bodies of those who have died of an incurable disease, in the hope of a future cure.

https://www.google.es/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwid0cv68bLQAhWFWxoKHTKNBRkQqUMIJzAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.reuters.com%2Farticle%2Fus-britain-science-girl-idUSKBN13D0QI&usg=AFQjCNFRE9iqCm70iAn5jNlaf_GH65c9rg

I don't see any downsides to this ? Wouldn't it be great to come back and have a look around , what you think AH ? would you do it ?

Venom · 18-11-2016 9:35pm

Deleted User wrote: »

If it can be done with embryos, why not with bodies?

The complexity of the organism and the specimens in question not being dead I would imagine.

A very sad situation with no winners at all. I believe the cryogenic process is hookum but harmless in this case seeing the money was there and it gave peace of mind to the girl and the father was an absolute arsewipe to drag his dying child to court

ChikiChiki · 18-11-2016 9:51pm

Puts a lot in perspective. It doesn't bear thinking about that prospect to me at 29 let alone being 14. Life can be so cruel.

Carlos Orange · 18-11-2016 9:52pm

Venom wrote: »

The complexity of the organism and the specimens in question not being dead I would imagine.

Seems to be related to the number of cells but the article isn't too explicit(that I noticed). Probably down to how long it takes to freeze. An embryo has about 120 and a human has about 37,200,000,000,000

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-do-embryos-survive-th/

Ulysses Gaze · 18-11-2016 9:54pm

Venom wrote: »

The complexity of the organism and the specimens in question not being dead I would imagine.

A very sad situation with no winners at all. I believe the cryogenic process is hookum but harmless in this case seeing the money was there and it gave peace of mind to the girl and the father was an absolute arsewipe to drag his dying child to court

And as a result of his gob****ery, he didn't even get to say goodbye to her.

He was banned from her bedside by the judge.

Jimbob1977 · 18-11-2016 9:59pm

Remember that film 'Forever Young'?

Mel Gibson was frozen during World War Two as an experiment. His sarcophagus was forgotten about due to a clerical error.

Then he was thawed in the 1990s as a man in his thirties...... he aged at a rapid rate and ended up the correct age (his eighties).

It's a gamble. Worth a try, I suppose.

Carlos Orange · 18-11-2016 10:15pm

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

And as a result of his gob****ery, he didn't even get to say goodbye to her.

I doubt he would have gotten to say goodbye anyway since he was refused his requests to see his daughter for the last 8 years and he offered to agree to the cryogenics if he could say goodbye to her after she died.

Ayuntamiento · 18-11-2016 10:22pm

psinno wrote: »

I doubt he would have gotten to say goodbye anyway since he was refused his requests to see his daughter for the last 8 years and he offered to agree to the cryogenics if he could say goodbye to her after she died.

If he loved her why would he ever make conditional requests like that he would agree to cryogenics as long as he got access to her prior to her death. If that's the case then he's an absolute sc**bag.

Flint Fredstone · 18-11-2016 10:27pm

Ted111 wrote: »

It's a disputed point whether she is dead/permanently dead.
Some argue that with no tissue damage, thawed and heart/life systems restarted that she will be up and foxtrotting around the place.

No it's not. She died.

Ted111 · 18-11-2016 10:31pm

Flint Fredstone wrote: »

No it's not. She died.

So if there's a patient in James' hospital tonight who is clinically dead and
they are resuscitated, as far as your concerned the medical staff are suffering a mass hallucination and should promptly bury her alive.

Flint Fredstone · 18-11-2016 10:37pm

Ted111 wrote: »

So if there's a patient in James' hospital tonight who is clinically dead and
they are resuscitated, as far as your concerned the medical staff are suffering a mass hallucination and should promptly bury her alive.

She died from cancer. Hardly the same.
Why are they not trying to resuscitate every patient that dies in hospital?

TireeTerror · 18-11-2016 10:43pm

There is more chance of her being revived and being cured than going to heaven or hell, yet plenty worship a fictitious load of pish every day of their lives. Humans are so weird.

Ted111 · 18-11-2016 10:50pm

Flint Fredstone wrote: »

She died from cancer.

No. You said she died from freezing.

Which is it ?

Flint Fredstone · 18-11-2016 10:53pm

Ted111 wrote: »

No. You said she died from freezing.

Which is it ?

I didn't say she died from freezing. I put forward a hypothetical which I see now that's what you were replying to.

Maximus Alexander · 18-11-2016 10:53pm

I'd be of the view the it's an extremely long shot that anyone will ever be revived from cryonics, but its still better than the absolute zero chance you'll have being revived from rotting in the ground or being incinerated. So if someone can afford it and it gives them peace of mind, more power to them. I'm not gonna stand in their way.

Ted111 · 18-11-2016 11:08pm

Flint Fredstone wrote: »

I didn't say she died from freezing.

she would still be dead as freezing her solid would like... you know... kill her.

Freezing and unfreezing her won't prevent her life systems restarting.
When that was pointed out to you you changed your story to oh she's dying of cancer. Like that's up for debate.

Flint Fredstone · 18-11-2016 11:31pm

Ted111 wrote: »

Freezing and unfreezing her won't prevent her life systems restarting.
When that was pointed out to you you changed your story to oh she's dying of cancer. Like that's up for debate.

What are you on about? I said if she was frozen while still alive so again, I did not say she died from freezing.

How many people have been unfrozen and brought back to life?

Ted111 · 18-11-2016 11:37pm

Flint Fredstone wrote: »

What are you on about? I said if she was frozen while still alive so again, I did not say she died from freezing.

How many people have been unfrozen and brought back to life?

Since you're too stupid to follow your own argument there's nothing I can do for you.

MrDiyFan · 18-11-2016 11:40pm

it must cost a fortune?

Flint Fredstone · 18-11-2016 11:44pm

Ted111 wrote: »

Since you're too stupid to follow your own argument there's nothing I can do for you.

Well done you.

Maybe if I travel back in time and then teleport to a place with no Internet I can prevent this little exchange with you.

Jimoslimos · 19-11-2016 12:33am

Something that many people appear to miss here, how do you properly grieve and get over the death of a loved one who may or may not actually be fully dead...ok, they probably are dead...but...

Imagine living a life where every cancer breakthrough story means having to consider whether now is the time you might see your daughter again. Sorrow-hope-despair...repeat ad infinitum.

I'd also be extremely critical of a company that takes the consent of a 14 yo girl to do this.

Edups · 19-11-2016 12:43am

Ayuntamiento wrote: »

The money has already been raised via a funding campaign. But yes you're right, what a selfish dying 14yr old cancer victim she was...

Oh good throw in the cancer victim to make your point more valid

Oh wait.

wakka12 · 19-11-2016 12:55am

To all the people calling her selfish, Id like to see you in her place, dying of a horrible painful slow death before you've even done your junior cert. Also she's ****ing 14, what child that young is going to be okay with death? How could you expect a 14 year old to be okay with that in any way? The comments on this thread are shocking

tomwaterford · 19-11-2016 12:57am

Jimoslimos wrote: »

Something that many people appear to miss here, how do you properly grieve and get over the death of a loved one who may or may not actually be fully dead...ok, they probably are dead...but...

Imagine living a life where every cancer breakthrough story means having to consider whether now is the time you might see your daughter again. Sorrow-hope-despair...repeat ad infinitum.

I'd also be extremely critical of a company that takes the consent of a 14 yo girl to do this.

I do think you are right on the grieving part.....but I assume the parents here don't actually believe in this

And presumably just wanted to do anything to help/ease their child minds to accept it.

BorneTobyWilde · 19-11-2016 1:10am

A lot of opinion but no one explains the process.
How can someone who could be dead for 50 years be brought back to life.
It's like a person dying on an operating table as there was simply no time to help them before they passed. If time is no issue then one could let a person die on table , treat their wounds and then bring them back once treated.

Flint Fredstone · 19-11-2016 1:19am

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

A lot of opinion but no one explains the process.
How can someone who could be dead for 50 years be brought back to life.
It like a person dying on an operating table as there was simply no time to help them before they passed. If time is no issue then one could let a person die on table , treat their wounds and then bring them back one treated.

Lightning or something???

BorneTobyWilde · 19-11-2016 1:20am

Today’s technology has no way to revive a cryonically-suspended patient

wakka12 · 19-11-2016 1:55am

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

Today’s technology has no way to revive a cryonically-suspended patient

Yes the point is that theyre frozen until there is

Edups · 19-11-2016 2:45am

wakka12 wrote: »

Yes the point is that theyre frozen until there is

And if there never is? They need to develop both a cure for cancer - and death. These cryo labs are con men. They promise the world to you while in fact you're not only dead - you're frozen and dead. This isn't science fiction this is real life. When you've died you're dead. It's horrible this happened to a child but that doesn't dispute the facts. Even if this was scientificly possible, she's never going to be back as the person she was. Who's to say she'll be back worse off than if she had died? I completely agree her father was against it, we don't spend 37k to preserve ourselves, when the time is up we are all going to die. If this had an credible evidence it worked we would all be saving for cryogenic storage not funerals. That girl has died she won't be back and the thing that upsets me most is those con men got another 40 grand to keep going a few weeks longer. No one wants to die either. But everyone gets to. That's how life works. We don't get to turn off dying because we are afraid. Doesn't make a difference what age you are.

Jimoslimos · 19-11-2016 3:02am

wakka12 wrote: »

Yes the point is that theyre frozen until there is

The big problem, especially with a lot of the early cases won't be thawing - it is the freezing where trouble begins. Rate of freezing (it needs to be slow) is critical to avoid ice crystals forming, and it is the ice crystals that end up lysing cells. However too slow and cells end up dying anyway.

In cell culture we use DMSO as a cryopreservant, which minimises the size of ice crystals formed, but DMSO is pretty toxic so when you thaw it needs to be as quickly as possible and removed.

Not sure how they do whole body cryogenics but I suspect early adopters will be screwed in any case.

Skommando · 19-11-2016 3:05am

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

Today’s technology has no way to revive a cryonically-suspended patient

if there was they wouldn't need to be cryonically-suspended in the first place

Skommando · 19-11-2016 3:08am

The Backwards Man wrote: »

A Journal comment on this actually made me laugh;

'your brain cells are dead, at best you'll come back as a Daily Mail reader.'

wheras journal readers will remain brain dead

Phoebas · 19-11-2016 10:55am

ChikiChiki wrote: »

Puts a lot in perspective. It doesn't bear thinking about that prospect to me at 29 let alone being 14. Life can be so cruel.

That's true, but now we have the ability to gloss over that fact with fantastical ideas that death doesn't have to be forever.

Of course, the flipside is that the mourning process also becomes never ending.

Phoebas · 19-11-2016 11:06am

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

A 14 year old dying of cancer can have anything she wants and if that bit of hope made things easier for her well so be it

What ever happened to the old tried and tested way of dealing with this kind of thing:
"You're going to see your auntie Bettie in heaven, and one day we'll all be together again"

That solution has its flaws, but at least its scalable.

arayess · 19-11-2016 11:33am

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/dad-of-cryogenically-frozen-girl-i-never-got-to-see-her-body-35228111.html

interesting side story to this
also interesting to hear from the fathers side - whatever his stance on this matter , him not being able to see his daughter was cruel.

If this is true , the mother is a cnut.

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/dad-of-cryogenically-frozen-girl-i-never-got-to-see-her-body-35228111.html

The father of the 14-year-old girl cryogenically frozen after she died of cancer has spoken of his profound sadness that he was prevented by a judge from saying goodbye to her.
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Mr S, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is also suffering from cancer and spent months in the same hospital as his daughter, JS, without ever being told she was there.
Speaking for the first time since his daughter's death, he said he blamed his former wife for preventing him from even seeing his daughter's body before work began to embalm and freeze it.

Other family members suggested JS had been "brainwashed" into thinking she could cheat death by signing up with the US-based Cryonics Institute, which is now storing her body in liquid nitrogen after she became convinced she could be cured and brought back to life in the future.
JS died in a London hospital on October 17 and was immediately prepared for freezing by volunteers from Cryonics UK, the only British organisation working in the unregulated field of cryopreservation. Her estranged father had been opposed to the process, but JS won the right to be frozen after a judge in the Family Division of the High Court awarded sole responsibility for her post-mortem arrangements to her mother, who supported her wishes. The judge also refused Mr S permission to view his daughter's body because it was against JS's wishes.

Mr S said: "Last time I saw her was in 2007. The reason for this is purely her mother's doing - she said no way, full stop. She has caused this sadness between me and my daughter and she died in the end without me being able to see her. It's so sad she didn't let me have any sight of her."
Mr Justice Peter Jackson, who granted JS's wish in a court hearing 11 days before she died, said she had been the centre of "a tragic combination of childhood illness and family conflict".

Her father revealed just how bitter and destructive the family rift had been.
He and JS's mother separated in 2002, when their daughter was just a few months old. He estimated that he had been to court 10 times to ask for the right to see her and despite managing some contact with his daughter in 2005-06, his last face-to-face contact with her was when she was six.

He said: "My daughter didn't even know all the court case procedures [through which] I have been so desperately trying to see her. I am so sad about it. Unfortunately it has ended this way."
A paternal uncle of JS said: "I loved JS and I wanted to help her when she was ill. But her mother wouldn't let us get a second opinion. Only once, I talked to JS on the phone. She said 'I'm dying but I'm going to come back again in 200 years'. And then she asked me for £50,000. I said, 'Look, I don't know how they brainwashed you but this is impossible. If you find a professor in hospital who supports this theory then I will go out and find the money for you'.

"But these companies are hope-traders. They are just trying to get money off people."
The £37,000 cost of JS's cryopreservation was raised by her maternal grandparents, but a cousin of her mother said there had also been misgivings on that side of the family.

A solicitor representing JS's mother said she did not want to comment.

Skommando · 19-11-2016 11:45am

Beats me as to why anyone would want to try to survive longer 60-80 years in this world . . that's a very long tiring sentence.
And at that stage you'd have seen more than enough of it, the same thing, and the same antics going on, over and over and over.
Though granted, I can understand why a 14 year old or even someone in their 20-30's might not understand that yet.

19-11-2016 11:47am

A lot of what was seen as science fiction is fact now. We don't know what technology is around the corner in the next decades or so. Maybe we'll be able to do everything they say. Maybe she'll be back. But I can only imagine the hope it gives the family (and the girl who died) that while she is dead now, at some point in the future she might be alive again.

That's what matters. Nothing more.

TerrorFirmer · 19-11-2016 12:01pm

Edups wrote: »

These cryo labs are con men. They promise the world to you while in fact you're not only dead - you're frozen and dead.

If you'd take a brief second to take a breather from ranting and raving, you'd know that the Cryo company is a non-profit organisation and does not, in any way shape or form, promise revival in the future.

But don't let that stop a good rabble.

Phoebas · 19-11-2016 12:14pm

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

If you'd take a brief second to take a breather from ranting and raving, you'd know that the Cryo company is a non-profit organisation and does not, in any way shape or form, promise revival in the future.

But don't let that stop a good rabble.

Ah c'mon, that whole basis of the industry is the idea that you may be revived in the future. It isn't in their t&cs but that's essentially what they are selling.
As for not for profit, the cost in this case is £37k, so regardless of how the company is structured, large amounts of money are changing hands here.

If this industry could demonstrate an ability to freeze an revive a higher mammal, them maybe they could be seen as legitimate, but as it is they are just selling a pipe dream to desperate people.

TerrorFirmer · 19-11-2016 12:43pm

Phoebas wrote: »

Ah c'mon, that whole basis of the industry is the idea that you may be revived in the future. It isn't in their t&cs but that's essentially what they are selling.
As for not for profit, the cost in this case is £37k, so regardless of how the company is structured, large amounts of money are changing hands here.

If this industry could demonstrate an ability to freeze an revive a higher mammal, them maybe they could be seen as legitimate, but as it is they are just selling a pipe dream to desperate people.

They're non-profit, not money grabbing commerical ventures. They're fully upfront about the prospects, and that it's a chance, and a leap of faith in future medtech, rather than anything remotely approaching a guarantee. They view it as a scientific venture, really.

They're also pretty explicit that even if revival is possible in the future, it's impossible to say if you would still be 'you', how your memories may be affected, or if you would even be a functional human being.

Personally I think it's unfair when people paint them as snake oil selling, money grabbing vultures leeching off peoples desperation - that's not really what cryogenics is about and I don't believe they're in any way exploiting people.

And of course they can't demonstrate that revival is possible - because it's currently not possible on actual people or animals, though it is currently possible to suspend and revive simpler organic materials like embryos so it's not beyond the realms of possibility.

That is the entire point of contemporary cryogenics.....you're suspended until a time when it is, if ever, viable to revive you.

If the people of 1916 were described the cutting edge of technology of 1966, let alone 2016, it would appear so beyond the known concept of science-fiction as to be utterly absurd. Can we really pretend to know that in 2116 or 2216, cryogenic suspension and revival will 100%, resolutely, never be viable?

Once you die in the conventional sense, your time in this world is up, so banking on cryogenics is not exactly a gamble nor a waste of cash - you have nothing to lose and in most cases it's covered by life insurance plans.

alan1963 · 19-11-2016 12:50pm

Phoebas wrote: »

they are just selling a pipe dream to desperate people.

This is just what the church has been doing for century's.

Phoebas · 19-11-2016 1:00pm

alan1963 wrote: »

This is just what the church has been doing for century's.

Exactly.
This is little more than superstition dressed up as modernity.

Phoebas · 19-11-2016 1:16pm

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

They're non-profit, not money grabbing commerical ventures.

I don't doubt their motives, but there are large amounts of money changing hands here. Lots of people are getting paid. In this case, desperate people are doing the paying.

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

If the people of 1916 were described the cutting edge of technology of 1966, let alone 2016, it would appear so beyond the known concept of science-fiction as to be utterly absurd. Can we really pretend to know that in 2116 or 2216, cryogenic suspension and revival will 100%, resolutely, never be viable?

Of course we don't 'know' that this won't be possible in the future, but you could pluck almost any idea from thin air and make the same argument.

As it is, this is so early stage that they shouldn't be taking money of desperate individuals for it. By all means, do the research using the normal ways of funding highly speculative, theoretical technologies, but taking money off desperate people at this stage is, to my mind, unethical.

The flying mouse · 19-11-2016 1:21pm

Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.
- Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), ca. 1895, British mathematician and physicist

Space travel is utter bilge.
- Dr. Richard van der Reit Wooley, Astronomer Royal, space advisor to the British government, 1956. (Sputnik orbited the earth the following year.)

There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.
- Kenneth Olsen, president and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

Nuclear Power...any one who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine... - Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) [1933]

Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.”-Clifford Stoll

I certainly wouldn't discount this happening in the future, And to dismiss it as pure baloney is kinda silly imo. You can never say never.

Phoebas · 19-11-2016 1:31pm

The flying mouse wrote: »

Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.
- Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), ca. 1895, British mathematician and physicist

Space travel is utter bilge.
- Dr. Richard van der Reit Wooley, Astronomer Royal, space advisor to the British government, 1956. (Sputnik orbited the earth the following year.)

There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.
- Kenneth Olsen, president and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

Nuclear Power...any one who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine... - Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) [1933]

Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.”-Clifford Stoll

I certainly wouldn't discount this happening in the future, And to dismiss it as pure baloney is kinda silly imo. You can never say never.

I wouldn't discount it either, but normally when someone proposes (and accepts money for) a technology, the onus is on them to demonstrate at least a pathway to it.
For human medical technologies, it's usual to do the research in the lab, then on 'simple' mammals like mice, then on higher mammals, and then on humans.
And maybe then start charging vulnerable people for it.

The 'other people were wrong about other stuff in the past' argument isn't a very convincing argument for cryogenics I'm afraid.

Sam Kade · 19-11-2016 1:37pm

They were on about this story on sky news last night some fella is paying £15/month in insurance to get his head preserved after death in the hopes he'll be back some time in the future. If you saw the mullicky head on him, not worth preserving.

TerrorFirmer · 19-11-2016 1:38pm

It's mostly funded by life insurance though, people aren't handing over 50-200k in one swoop from their own piggy banks. Now, in the case of the 14 year old, it's obviously different, given the context, but 37K is not a huge sum of money considering what's actually happening here.

Lots of people are getting paid.

Of course there are, you cannot run a facility like Alcor/KrioRus without having a large complement of highly trained, specialist staff and the equipment, premises and systems to go along with it. No different than large non-profit/charities anywhere in the world.

Many of those involved with Alcor don't even take a salary, they contribute their time in the name of science.

but you could pluck almost any idea from thin air and make the same argument.

Well there are degrees. That cryogenics and revival will be possible in one or two hundred years is certainly feasible, even if opinions differ on just how feasible.

Something like 'apes will rule the planet and humans will live in underground bunkers by 2116' while not impossible, is most certainly less feasible I'm sure you'll agree.

To compare it to the church and the promise of eternal life in heaven with the 'creator' is an unfair comparison. One hopes that a greater power will greet you at the pearly gates and reveal that life as we understand it is merely a trial for eternal glory in heaven.

The other hopes to suspend (freezing is not the correct term really) those who succumb to modern illnesses in the hope that in the near future, these ailments will be treatable and they can be revived.

From a logic-based agnostic or atheist perspective, even if you doubt the feasibility of cryogenics, can we really say they're equally as likely (or unlikely)?

We have to remember that a key component in this is the definition of death - these people are clinically deceased and effectively 'dead' as we understand it today, but their brains are alive, intact and functioning at the moment of suspension and are not, theoretically, actually dead to the point that information retrieval or revival is technically impossible.

Terminally ill British girl wins right to freeze her body

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