By Phil Riske, managing editor
Death subjects have produced several major news stories this month, including a heart-wrenching profile of a Scottsdale woman who made an unorthodox choice about what to do with her brain after her death.
Norman Farberow, 97, the renowned psychologist and co-founder of the groundbreaking Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center, died on September 10, which coincided with World Suicide Prevention Day.
Meanwhile, it was reported there are 800, 000 suicides in the Unites States annually.
The California State Legislature last week gave its final approval to a bill that would permit doctors to help terminally ill people end their lives. California now joins Oregon, Washington, Montana and Vermont to permit physicians to prescribe life-ending medication to some patients.
The Goldwater Institute here put out a release Thursday urging support of California’s “Right to Try” bill, a law that would help terminally ill patients try promising new medicines, pending final approval from the Food and Drug Administration.
Can the dead be revived?
As described in a recent New York Times article, cancer claimed Kim Suozzi of Scottsdale at age 23, but she chose to have her brain preserved with the dream that neuroscience might one day revive her mind.
As Kim began chemotherapy in 2001, an unusual letter appeared in Cryonics magazine. The Times reported. Titled “The Brain Preservation Technology Prize: A challenge to cryonicists, a challenge to scientists,” it argued that if a brain was properly preserved, time would not be an issue.
The magazine is published by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation of Scottsdale, the larger of two United States cryonics organizations. Founded in the 1970s, Alcor is best known for storing the frozen head of the baseball great Ted Williams, along with some 140 others who hoped to one day be revived. The foundation, a nonprofit, has about 1,000 members who have made financial arrangements to undergo its preservation procedure upon death.
“The NY Times piece was fairly accurate,” Marji Klima, Alcor executive assistance told Rose Law Group Reporter in an email. “The journalist did an excellent job of communicating the journey of a very intelligent girl who would have had a very bright future if it were not for such a devastating disease.”
In 2004, I reported on a controversy that surrounded Alcor Life because of a family fight over the freezing and storage of Ted Williams head at Alcor and claims by a former employee there his head was abused.
Larry Johnson alleged in the book “Frozen: My Journey Into the World of Cryonics, Deception and Death,” he watched an Alcor official swing a monkey wrench at Williams’ frozen severed head to try to remove a tuna can stuck to it.
Alcor issued a statement on its Web site denying the allegations and promised legal action.
Attempts to state regulate Alcor were abandoned in 2004 after then-Rep. Bob Stump failed with a bill to place Alcor Lunder the regulatory authority of the Arizona Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers.
The bill cames on the heels of the arrest of a former Alcor bookkeeper for allegedly bilking the cryonics company of nearly $180,000. Meanwhile, Alcor’s president and CEO, Joe Waynick resigned that to pursue other interests after fewer than two years at the company.
Alcor was cordial and open to my request back then to visit the facility. The tank holding Williams head was pointed out to me. I have no words to describe how I reacted.
Although one wonders whether brain or body regeneration is really possible after death, I was struck by the support for the technology of cryonics.
Even more struck by the hope and faith of Kim Suozzi.
