> Anders Sandberg wrote: This kind of sustaining of the body might be useful,
> but I doubt we are talking about months or even weeks.
One week should be enough. My notion is that currently organ
transplant patients need to take major immunosuppressants because
of non-optimal tissue matches. When the organs become available
they have only a few hours, so they grab the locals, regardless of
optimal suitability. Perhaps if transplants *worked* better, more
people would sign up to donate.
> I'll discuss it with Henrik Ohrstrom, he has started working at a
> transplant clinic recently and should be getting up to date on the
> subject.
Do ask him if there are better/worse tissue type matches, and
if the less optimal fits require more drugs and have less success.
Im way outta my area of expertise here.
> Well, why remove the head in the first place?
In order to freeze it. My idea is this: offer head freezing in exchange
for total organ donation. I imagine the total worth of ones organs
far exceeds the 30k or so required to freeze a noggin. This also
saves the family the cost of a funeral and a grave site, as well as
getting us around the ethically sticky issues surrounding the sale
of transplant organs. Let some nonprofit bear the cost of freezing
us, and also collect the compensation for your remaining salvagable
parts. Then organ recipients would simply buy what they need,
and any leftovers could be donated to the poor. Everyone wins. spike
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:56:17 MDT