[ExI] Medical power of attorney for cryonicsts

spike spike66 at att.net
Fri Dec 5 20:47:51 UTC 2014


 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Stephen Van Sickle
Sent: Friday, December 05, 2014 12:19 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] Medical power of attorney for cryonicsts

 

>…Well, shoot....No offence intended, anyone.  And this isn't cryonet.  Not my day...s



No offense taken Steve.  We have already established you as a good guy, so don’t worry about it.  You are among friends here.

 

 

On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 12:17 PM, Stephen Van Sickle <sjv2006 at gmail.com> wrote:

 

<private reply since I don't "officially" read cryonet>


So all I am offering is a way to get more of the bexarotene to cross into  human brains.

>…Careful, there.  Just because a solvent crosses the BBB, and a molecule dissolves in the solvent, it does not automatically follow that the molecule will cross the BBB.  If it were that simple, there are hundreds if not thousands of drugs it would be used with.  Unless I am missing something here...I have not followed this thread closely.

 

steve vs

 

Ja, acknowledged.  As I understand it, bexarotene in Targretin is formulated with other chemical agents in such a way that when it goes into the bloodstream, it forms micro-clusters of molecules, specifically designed to prevent BBB crossing.  We know that the BBB differs from each species and even with different individuals within species.  Most of us know that the same medications don’t do the same thing in all patients.

What we would do then is to dissolve the bexarotene down to the ionic level.  Perhaps that would make more of it cross the barrier, but we don’t know, and we don’t know if the completely dissolved ionic form is the same as the atomic form, the micro-clusters.  The same mechanism of complete solution may also cause it to be more effective in damaging the thyroid.  Or if we go with Rafal’s feedback model (I like that one) then it wouldn’t actually damage the thyroid, it just sends hormonal signals to the thyroid to stand down, which we can compensate.  Long term of course there is atrophy, but people can survive after the thyroid is completely removed.  But if we cause that to happen when the bex doesn’t help with Alzheimer’s, then we damn sure have harmed the patient, just as Dr. Kellogg did with his radon inhalers, for radon does not help asthma one bit.

I would feel a lot better about all this if we could make Alzheimer’s chimps or gorillas and use those hairy bastards as test subjects, or failing that, some far-gone patients from countries where we know they can do nooooothing for the patients at all, where even if we haul them away and try a Hail Mary treatment, we would at least give them something in return: a nice comfortable warm clean western nursing home in which to die rather than where they are, in some hungry desperate overcrowded pit.  

Jaysus, listen me go on, oy vey.  I am as bad as I was hoping to not become, and I am hopelessly mired in yet another sticky moral dilemma: is it ethical to recruit human test subjects incapable of consent from abroad, so long as the conditions there sufficiently dire?  Would it be any better to take the medications to them and do the experiments out of the reach of the American lawsuit industry?  

Sheesh what a mess evolution has put us in.  Death be cursed. 

spike

 

 







 

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