Get moving, Lazarus

2000-09-26

The title refers to the legend where a paralysed man was cured by divine intervention. I don't know how it goes in english so that's my private version. In any case, there are millions of partially or totally paralysed people all over the globe. Everybody knows they might end up in a paralysed condition from a car accident or from some working place accident or even from some hobby activity. In many cases these people are relatively unharmed appart from the fatal circumstance that their spinal cord has been broken. It's like having the telephone cable connecting two cities dug up accidentally. Only, presently, there isn't any established method to repair the cable in the case of spinal damage. It seems so frustrating that a small piece of biological tissue not visible from without should create this condition of helplessness and you can do nothing about it.
I am not an expert in this field but I do know that advanced technology exists which is kept secret to most(?) medical students and that there are no convincing legitimate reasons for this secrecy. The legitimacy has been completely erased by the unworthy and abusive uses of the technology and therefore nobody can seriously argue that it should be kept secret for reasons of national security any longer.
But I have talked about that so many times before so lets skip it and move on and try to find a way to see the great potential of the technology being realised in helping all these paralysed people. How to do it. Who to do it and what to do?
This is how I see it. I am adressing myself to medical students all over the world, especially those who are ambitious and interested in the problems discussed above. Contact people who know about neuroelectronics, it may be both brain specialists and other experts. Show that your interest for this is sincere and that your main motive is that you want to inform yourself about how you can help in developing and or using the technology as your studies advances. It's important that you try to approach the problem in the way of a scientist and not like a casual observer. Due to all the abuses with mind control, many people who know about neuroelectronics are likely to be hesitant to demonstrate their expertise in this field. Remember that the duty of medical science is to help the patients by the best means possible. This means that any important information concerning new technological methods should be made available to those who have chosen to become medical students and researchers. Normally the athmosphere in the academic world tends to foster opportunism, the students avoiding to question authority, should there be a tendency to avoid any discussion about the subject at hand. However as long as you are sincerely interested in the subject from a scientific point of view I think it is safe to say that you will be respected. Don't loose momentum by bringing up ethical issues. Use informal contacts and politely insist on getting info about the latest advances. Be aware of the fact that the technology was fully evolved already in the 1960s and that there are many modern articles that falsely give the impression that it is a very recent technology, most of the technology being classified. Don't be too respectful about that. It should be made openly available. Don't satisfy yourself with evasive answers. Demand that you be directed to other experts for further informal contacts. Discuss it with fellow students. Back experts in bringing forward what they know. Show enthusiasm about their participation. Use your imagination. Learn and get wiser. Think about the millions of people who will have a much brighter future if you and your fellow students all over the world, succeed.
I don't know how far the classified research has come what regards artificial or otherwise repairable nerves, but since neuroelectronics is very advanced it seems possible that they have come a long way there too. It goes without saying that every person who possesses any info relevant in this context is warmly welcomed to take active part in this process. Investors, dealing with technological activities relevant to neuroelectronics, are welcomed to enter into the debate. If they don't know enough about the subject, maybe they can ask somebody who might know something to brief them. Note that we are talking about classified technology. Everybody who wants to help paralysed people should be asking questions about it. Show some interest. If you are in touch with powerful people maybe you could use your influence on them to make things happen.
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There are a number of challenging technical problems for experts in rf technology. How is it with the available radio frequencies? How many people can be simultaneously handled safely and so forth. Further how should one preferrably go about dividing the available bandwidth to optimise every aspect. Both that of getting a jamming-proof communication line and to avoid leaving room for abusive uses as much as possible. This is a very intricate optimization problem likely to attract some scientific minds. Note that a large part of neuroelectronic applications as well as other forms of body electronics wouldn't need any permanent rf connection. But it seems necessary to have that feature among the available options.
In the above there is only mention of helping patients suffering from spinal damage. However there are other applications which require no further development. One possibility is genuinely consensual behavioural modification, should a person sincerely wish to get rid of some kind of socially unacceptable behaviour. Meaning very serious types of crimes where innocent people are being abused or murdered. I don't really feel like discussing behavioural modification for personal reasons. But clearly the potential is enormous for useful applications.

2000-09-28
The above was written after receiving a letter from somebody who claimed to have two relatives, paralysed after a car accident and where the living conditions were unfavorable.
Obviously there are many families all over the world where advances in applied medical technology could mean a great releif and improved quality of life.
I should explain myself a little bit better. When I said that there are articles which give a false impression that the technology is recent, I didn't mean that there is any deliberate deceit only that it is seriously misleading since it doesn't give any references to important older research. And further that there is no mention of the fact that much of the technology is classified. There is no law against stating that circumstance in general terms. It would be valuable if somebody would write about these problems in such qualitative terms even if not all technical details were revealed. Further everybody who has access to this kind of classified info could use their influence to push for openness, and help to make the technology available for use in medical practise. This would be the complementary action to the one mentioned above, where novices were urged to try to get into informal discussions with experts about it.
Everybody who knows something about it can affect the situation.
And the title of this document could be interpreted as a call for action on their part too.

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