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Frozen in Hope

3/18/2017

13 Comments

 
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by David Hagenbuch, founder of Mindful Marketing & author of Honorable Influence

A recent arctic blast and some significant snow left many Americans feeling frozen.  The frigid experience reminded me of a recent news story about a young girl in the U.K. who actually asked to be frozen, and a judge granted her wish.
 
No, her desire was not symbolically tied to the popular Disney movie (“Frozen”); rather, her request stemmed from a much more serious need.  The fourteen-year-old girl, known as JS, suffered from a rare form of cancer, such that there was nothing modern medicine could do to remedy her terminal condition.
 
Knowing that her fate was sealed, JS searched the Internet to see if anything could be done to extend her life of just fourteen years.  She came across cryonics and spent her final months researching the controversial process in which humans are frozen with the hope of reviving them sometime in the future, when medical advances presumably will make such resuscitation and extended life possible.

However, before contracting with one of just a few organizations in the world that practice cryonic preservation, JS had to surmount two other significant obstacles: 1) the high cost of the procedure, which ranges from $28,000 to $200,000, and 2) permission to undergo the process, since she was not of legal age.
 
Fortunately, her maternal grandparents raised the $46,000 that JS need to be preserved. However, a court battle ensued between the girl’s divorced parents: Her mother was in favor of the procedure, but her father was not.  Shortly before JS passed away in a London hospital, Justice Peter Jackson ruled in favor of her mother, granting the dying girl’s request.  After she passed, JS’s body was preserved and flown to the Cryonics Institute in Michigan where it’s now stored in a 10-ft.-high vat of liquid nitrogen.

The case of JS’s death and freezing is both fascinating and tragic, but what does it have to do with marketing ethics?  Well, the organizations offering cryonics are marketing a service that an increasing number of people are considering despite its very high price.  Again, the cost of cryonic preservation can range from $28,000 - $200,000.  Of course, people ‘of means’ often pay that much or more for all sorts of other exclusive and possibly superfluous services, such as entertainment and travel, so why shouldn’t they pay handsomely to hold onto something far more valuable—their life?

The big difference is that when someone books something like a $50,000 European vacation, there’s a high probability that the trip will happen.  However, when individuals undergo cryonics, the chance that anyone will ever see them alive again, not to mention healthy, is extremely slim.  In fact, one might even say the possibility is virtually nonexistent. 
 
Despite the fact that cryonics has been used for about 50 years, no human being has been successfully unfrozen.  Science has no real track record for bringing people back to life.  Yes, there have been instances in which people have “died” on operating room tables, etc., and miraculously kept living.  There was even a case in 2015 in which a Pennsylvania man was revived after spending 12 hours unconscious in the snow, while temperatures dipped to minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit.
 
In such situations, it’s questionable whether the subjects had truly passed.  In the case of cryonics, however, people must be legally dead before they can be frozen (freezing live subjects is not allowed), which of course adds another degree of difficulty: It’s not ‘just’ a matter of carefully thawing a previously frozen living person; medical technicians also somehow need to bring that person back from the dead.  Then, after performing that miracle, they must solve other significant issues, like curing the person of the advanced-stage disease that killed him or her.

All this to say, someone who purchases a cryonics contract is far from holding a guarantee of a second chance at life.  These risk-takers are, however, recipients of an ever-so-slim ray of hope:  Perhaps at some point in the future, science will discover a way to overcome death and cure currently fatal diseases.  Maybe that hope is worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars when the alternative is certain, irreversible physical demise.
 
Cryonics isn’t the only industry to place a price tag on hope.  Everyday, people spend significant money on many items that cannot promise positive outcomes.  Certain surgeries are extremely risky with low rates of success.  Likewise, there’s no guarantee that cancer patients who undergo radiation or chemotherapy will survive.  Or, to take a completely different example, only the smallest fraction of people who play the lottery win.  The rest enjoy just a brief period of belief, prior to the drawing, during which they imagine that they might be the winner.
 
So, what’s different when cryonics companies make a similar sale of hope?  The main distinction is that other entities have shown they can succeed, or produce positive results.  Some of their customers will, in fact, realize their wishes.  However, again, cryonics has no history of success and its future prospects are extremely dim.
 
Furthermore, cryonics introduces an array of other ethical issues, especially if more and more people place hope in the uncertain science, for instance:
  • Use of resources
  • Responsibility for bodies if/when a cryonics organization closes
  • Reintegration into society of people who have been dead for decades or centuries
    
So, should cryonics be offered at all?  That’s a question that has significant spiritual implications, as well as environmental, financial, and social ones.  I’ll simply suggest here that if it is, it should be framed as entirely experimental, such that people who participate essentially donate their bodies to science.  Those individuals, then, should not be charged.  Furthermore, only a limited number of select cases should be accepted—not everyone who wants to add another ten years to his or her life.
 
There are many positive outcomes that organizations legitimately promise and successfully deliver, some more reliably than others.  Restoring to life the frozen deceased, however, is not a current reality, and it may never be one.  Consequently, any over-inflation of such hope should be seen as “Single-Minded Marketing.”


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13 Comments
Osmar Barker
3/24/2017 06:32:28 am

I thought this was just something you hear about in the movies but I had no idea that people actually practice this. You raise some very valid points regarding the ethical practices of cryonic preservation. It seems like a criminal plot to scam people one last time before they die. Perfect opportunity to take advantage of the huge amount of money that a beneficiary receives if the person that died had life insurance.

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Danytza Avila
3/24/2017 08:57:15 pm

I found this very interesting! I had never heard about those types of services. I do agree that it is single-minded. Although it accomplishes stockholder value, which would be a desirable service it does not accomplish societal value. I believe its safe to say that the company is preying off hopeless people. The fact that it has no successful case recorded makes it even more doubtful and really supports the idea of having no charge on their costumers. At least until there is a successful case recorded.

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Ken Choi
3/27/2017 02:53:24 pm

This is actually really really cool. I think that I may possibly consider this. Not that I am totally down for being brought back to life after death, but I think donating my body for a scientific cause would be really amazing and helpful for the advancement in medicine and technology. In the long run I dont think there will be much success with the bringing people back from the dead part.

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Sam Karabashian
3/27/2017 02:56:37 pm

Wow. I have studied Cryonics before and it interested me greatly. What I never realized, but learned from this article was that there is more to this process than just being frozen and unfrozen. One must first be technically dead and before they are frozen because the law wont allow for a live person to be frozen to death. Then the task of reanimation comes into play which is also not a simple, if not possible, process either. The last major point is that someone, if terminally ill, needs to be healed. It is because of these factors that it makes sense that Cryonics is very far fetched.

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Sandra Thong
3/27/2017 03:31:47 pm

I found this blog post very interesting! I was not aware that these types of services existed. I've always heard about this type of service in the movies but I never knew that it was offered in the real world. Personally, although I do not believe that this is ethically sound, I also believe that it is the decision of each individual consumer. All products and services are simply optional services that you may buy into. It is up to the consumer to decipher whether or not they have a desire to use it or not. Particularly in this case, since the actual service has never been successfully completed, it becomes a sort of blurred line if whether or not this service is moral. Essentially, like this article mentioned, what is being sold is hope. Their consumer base is the hopeless. There is a sense of "preying" on the hopeless in this market, but when given a "death sentence" I believe that the consumers only have this hope, although they may be false, to rely on. Since the cost is so high, I believe there should be some restrictions and regulations in this market, until a case has successfully been observed.

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Lauren Tom
3/27/2017 03:48:56 pm

I definitely found this post to be extremely interesting. After reading through this post, I now have questions.
However, I would not participate in Cryonics. To be honest, why go through that process, when you could be in Heaven?

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Andre Rasilim
3/27/2017 06:21:33 pm

Very interesting read. Personally, I do not believe in the argument that science can and will ever get to a point whereby they can reanimate a dead corpse but it is amazing whenever I come across articles such as this which put things into perspective in regards to where we started. Furthermore, I would also be a lot less skeptical about the probability of success if the people were still alive for the procedure.

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Matthew Garza
3/27/2017 08:26:04 pm

It was very interesting to read about Cryonics. I honestly had no idea such services were offered, or that people would be willing to pay so much money for this service. I'm continually baffled with the different world views other people have. I feel that being a Christian has led me to live a much different lifestyle than someone who is not. For example, I would never consider freezing my body because I know there is only one giver of Life.

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Justin Adams
3/27/2017 10:25:08 pm

This was a fascinating blog article, and I think it raises an interesting question. Cryogenics is something we have seen in so many sci-fi films, and it would be interesting if it actually worked. I agree that since there are no results as of yet no one should be charged for it. It doesn't make sense to have such a high price when there is no guaranteed benefit. Also, there are enough people who would want to test it and help further science.

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Bethany Suhr
3/28/2017 01:33:19 am

The real hesitation that I have condoning a procedure like this is if someone were to choose to place their hope in cryogenics, bypassing a medical procedure that may be available to them currently, even if it's risky.

I'm not as concerned about the use of resources, or the money spent; I feel the money is a choice the individual is making and will cover the resources necessary. I would be afraid, however, that people could blindly place their trust/hope in cryogenics, and not take all the opportunities they could before they passed.

Without any success stories, it's hard for me to imagine that this is more than a scheme for a company to make money. However, science is furthered by taking risks - the first transplants weren't successful, but taught us how to do to them correctly. Maybe we are in the beginning stages of learning for this type of science.

Aside from all of this are the questions of ethics. The situation as a whole feels rather questionable.

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Rita Gomez
3/28/2017 02:48:38 am

I thought this article was very interesting. To begin I would think that the 14 year old would want to do something else with all the money raised. I agree with the author that this process should be free to those who want to do it. The chances of actually coming back to life is basically impossible. Perhaps those who want their bodies to be frozen truly believe in this procedure because of the cost. It seems to me that this process is not just about science. Personally I would not want to do this because of the chances that it will actually happen.

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Rachel Howard
3/28/2017 02:56:38 pm

I found this article very interesting. I personally find new accomplishments in medicine absolutely fascinating, so reading the about cryonics process was very very intriguing. I was confused for a while about how this concept was relevant to marketing, but was informed throughout my reading and had a lot of thoughts on the blog post in general. It is such a different concept that people would willingly pay such excessive prices on the slight possibility that after their death they can be revived and restored from a previous illness. I think that that marketing technique is somewhat brilliant. You do not need to offer any kind of guarantee, and make an obscene amount of money with no promises attached.

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Morgan Fritzius
3/28/2017 03:28:53 pm

This article really stood out to me and was very fascinating. I have heard of cryonics before and have actually did some research myself. Not for the purpose of ever using it but just the sheer intrigue I had for it led me to want to know more. While the concept is interesting and in theory could work, I agree that it is still very much in the experimental phase. The places that are providing this service to people need to make it clear that there is no guarantee of success. In addition, the fact that you must pay money seems somewhat like a scam due to the fact that it is so uncertain. I found it interesting that one must also be legally dead before being frozen. I had no idea and that presents even more complications for when the procedure.

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