Life Extension Society 990 N. Powhatan St. Arlington VA 22205 703-534-7277 ================================================================== 1994 VOL. II LIFE EXTENSION SOCIETY NEWS APRIL, 1994 ================================================================== 1994 Annual Meeting A new Board of Directors was elected at the second annual meeting of the Life Extension Society, held on February 6, 1994. Returning Directors are as follows: Austin Esfandiary, Greg F*hy, Cleve Lunsford, Mike Miller, and Mark Mugler. New Directors are Nooshin Mesbah-Karimi and Joel Finkleman. The Directors in turn elected officers for 1994. The 1993 officers were re-elected: Mark Mugler, President; Cleve Lunsford, Vice President; and Joel Finkleman, Secretary and Treasurer. The Board's priorities for 1994 are to beef up membership and get members signed up with one of the national cryonics organizations. Long-term goals include establishing local backup cryogenic preservation (cryonic suspension) capabilities and improving local knowledge about life extension nutrition. A Conversation with Mike Darwin The March 13 meeting of LES was a conference call with Mike Darwin, Principal of BioPreservation, Inc. BioPreservation is the firm under contract with the CryoCare Foundation to perform suspensions of its members. The purpose of the call was to hear Mike's opinions on what biostasis capabilities LES should have to augment those available from BioPreservation, ALCOR, or other organizations involved in remote suspensions. Mike recommended that LES acquire three components: a portable ice bath, a heart-lung resuscitator (thumper), and a medications kit. These will enable LES to stabilize a patient if the remote team is not available. The next stage of readiness -- blood washout -- is beyond our reach at the present time. These three stabilization components cost $5,000 to $6,000 up front. Training would cost $800 to $1,000 per person. Annual costs of replacing the medications could be minimized by rotating aging stock between LES and BioPreservation or ALCOR. Mike also discussed the institutional relations needed for timely suspension. His advice: don't die accidentally, or suddenly, or of a reportable disease. Don't die in a hospital. Make sure that your fellow cryonicists have established good relations with a local morticians, who can smooth the way with hospitals and coroners, provide transportation, and initiate the "blood washout" phase of a suspension. Upcoming Meetings Pencil or click these tentative LES meeting dates into your calendar: Apr 17 May 15 Jun 12 Jul 17 Sep 11 Oct 16 Nov 13 Dec 11 The April 17 meeting will be dedicated to a follow-up to the conversation with Mike Darwin. The purpose: to develop a strategic plan for acquiring and maintaining local biostasis capability. The key consideration is how to finance the three stabilization components. At the May 15 meeting, Mark Mugler will provide an overview of the signup process for cryogenic preservation. Mark has been suffering through the process for some time now, and will share his lessons learned. He will cover estate planning, wills, advance medical directives, insurance, and applications and agreements for the national cryonics organizations. Future meetings include a followup meeting to discuss insurance, estates, and trusts in more detail, and an overview of life extension nutrients. The Life Extension Society is a mutual assistance organization. We are working together to ensure one another's survival. Call a friend today and tell him/her about LES! Meeting of Washington Gerontological Research Group As further evidence of the symbiosis among life extensionists, cryonicists, and gerontologists, the February 15 meeting of the WGRG had a hefty turnout of LES members. Gregory F*hy, Ph.D., a cryobiologist with the American Red Cross, was the featured speaker. Dr. F*hy discussed evidence on how human growth hormone and life extension nutrients may retard aging by protecting and extending the body's abilities to synthesize protein, produce energy, repair cells, and respond to foreign substances -- all processes essential to life and health. The WGRG meets in the evening monthly at George Washington University. For information, contact Dr. Stephen Coles, 703-351-2740. Coming in the LES News Upcoming articles in the LES News include the following: o Essential reading on life extension and cryonics o FDA's policy on unapproved substances o Saving $$ on life Extension Nutrients o Results of April/May meetings Guest Article: Life Insurance for Cryonicists Most cryonicists don't have enough wealth to prepay or fund a trust for cryonic suspensions. We can't plan when we are going to die, so we can't count on saving for some future eventuality that may be closer than we think. We need to make sure funds are available whenever needed. That is where life insurance comes in. The funds available upon death are called the death benefit. With life insurance, you bet that you will die before you have sunk a lot into the policy. The insurance company bets you will last long enough for the company to earn more off your funds than it pays out to you. If you die young, you win the bet! Term life insurance is the simplest type of life insurance. The insurance is available for a term -- say, 20 years, or to age 65. Your premium every year buys a certain death benefit. Each premium represents a stripped-down mortality charge that buys only insurance -- it does not have an investment component. For this reason, the premium for a given death benefit usually is low initially and rises as you age. If you discontinue the policy, or if you reach the end of the term, you get none of your investment back. You can buy a rider that waives the premium if you are disabled, but what if you're broke? The policy lapses, the death benefit is zero, and you won't be cryonically suspended. Term insurance with constant premiums also is available. Low later-year premiums are cross-subsidized by higher early-year premiums. Insurance that has an investment component is appealing because the earnings of the investment component accumulate tax-free. Whole life insurance is a traditional type of insurance that has an investment component. In its simplest form, its premiums are level throughout the life of the policy. The amount paid in the early years in excess of a stripped-down mortality charge is used to build up guaranteed "cash value," which corresponds to the investment component. If over time the company does better than its minimum expectation, the cash value will yield earnings and grow faster than guaranteed. When you purchase the policy, you specify how the earnings from the cash values are to be used. The earnings may be used in three ways: paid out as cash; left to accumulate in the policy; or used topurchase "paid-up additions" (PUA's), that is, additional insurance. Accumulating earnings increases the death benefit gradually and increases future compound earnings. Purchasing PUA's also increases your death benefit, by a greater amount, and the increased death benefits themselves have cash value that grows over time. Most whole life policies permit you to draw on cash values to pay the premium if you are unable to, or choose not to, continue payment. At some point the premium "vanishes," that is, the policy will remain in force permanently even if you do not pay any further premiums. This feature protects you if you are disabled or go broke after the vanish point; therefore, you should purchase the waiver of disability rider but discontinue it once you reach the vanish point. With a typical whole life policy, when you purchase the policy you may include a rider that permits you to purchase PUA's with an extra payment over and above the premium. An additional payment on the order of 50 percent of the base premium is permissible under the tax laws without incurring adverse tax consequences. This feature permits you to increase the death benefit more rapidly than by simply purchasing PUA's with cash value earnings. Since the PUA's have cash value, you will reach the vanish point more quickly. Faster growth in death benefit and earlier premium protection are two advantages of the PUA rider for the cryonicist. Whole life policies also permit you to borrow the cash value. However, a cryonicist is interested in the death benefit, which would be reduced by the amount of borrowed cash value. Whole life policies are conservative (low risk, low reward) because they guarantee certain cash values but may earn less than other investment vehicles or other types of life insurance that have an investment component. To provide a more aggressive investment vehicle, hybrid types of policy have arisen that include an investment component overlaid on a term premium structure. Under these policies, cash values, death benefits, and/or premiums may vary with earnings. There is greater potential for high earnings, but also greater potential for paying premiums after a hoped-for vanish point, or for a less-than-hoped for death benefit. These policies are less suited to the basic need for a predictable or minimum death benefit. If you need a conservative, forced savings vehicle to provide a guaranteed minimum death benefit for cryonic suspension, whole life with disability waiver fits the bill. If you are cash-poor, term insurance with disability waiver is probably the least expensive alternative for you, but you should use it only as a stop-gap. If you are financially secure and less risk-averse, you should investigate the hybrids as an investment vehicle. If you are financially secure but interested in investing elsewhere, term insurance may be for you. To contribute a guest article to the Life Extension Society News, send the article to the address below. Life Extension Society 990 N. Powhatan St. Arlington VA 22205 703-534-7277