Cryonic freezing companies should be banned from marketing the technique to vulnerable people, according to a leading neuroscientist who said they were being sold a false hope that freezing their bodies would allow them to be brought back to life in the future.

Clive Coen, a professor of neuroscience at King’s College London, said the high court decision which allowed a dying 14-year-old girl to have her body cryogenically frozen could have the “unintended consequence … that a lot of people are going to think this is worth a punt”.

“Ethically it’s very complicated. The trade-off is that she got the comfort, but others may now be duped,” he added.



Coen said it would be a “sensible step” for the UK to consider following the example of the Canadian state of British Columbia which bans funeral homes from marketing cryonics – thought to be the only place with anti-cryonics laws in North America. “At the moment that seems a very sensible strategy,” he said.

He added: “There is no evidence outside amphibia and tissue slices that any of this works [...] We’re not at a point where regulation is appropriate. The whole body is just ridiculous and the whole brain is only slightly less ridiculous.”



The British philosopher Mary Warnock said people considering cryogenic freezing had to be better informed, although she did not support a ban or other legislation. “People are being ruthlessly exploited by these companies who are guilty of exploiting those who are vulnerable because of distress – that is the real ethical dilemma,” she said.



The cosmologist and astrophysicist Prof Martin Rees said the promises made by cryonics enthusiasts were “ridiculous and not to be taken seriously”. He said: “In my view it is most unlikely that this is feasible and even if it is, it should be discouraged.



“From an ethical point of view if people are going to be frozen and revived, even if they could survive they would be imposing a great obligation on future generations, and any revived person would be a nuisance or a misfit.”

But leading transhumanists – an international movement that aims to transform the human condition through technology – argue that any regulation of the fledgling industry at this stage could hamper developments. Anders Sandberg, research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, said cryonics was a controversial area better known in science fiction than in real life.

“People who want to be cryopreserved are like refugees from the present, fleeing to the future because they can’t survive here,” he said. “There is a good chance they won’t make it, their chances are slim – but it beats the alternative.”

He said cryonics companies did not promise potential users that they would be restored in full health in the future. “They say, we’ll do our best and here is our theory, but you are still confronted with mortality,” he said.

But, he argued, if people could be reanimated in the future after being frozen, medical advances were likely to mean that physical, if not emotional, complications could be fixed. “In the middle ages people thought that if you weren’t breathing, you were dead, now we know how to give CPR. In the future just because your heart is not beating may not necessarily mean that you are gone.”



Currently cryonics is unregulated and not subject to any laws in the UK. It does not fall under the remit of the Human Tissue Authority (HTA), which regulates the removal, storage and use of human tissue, because it was “not contemplated” when the Human Tissue Act was passed in 2004, the authority advised the court.

The HTA confirmed it was not seeking further regulation, but was looking at the current situation and working with others to evaluate where there may be risks to the public, or to public confidence.

Cryonics UK, the non-profit organisation that prepared the girl’s body for transport to the US cryogenic storage facility, said it would welcome regulation. “We expect that future regulation will help hospitals to know where they stand legally and procedurally. The opportunity to utilise professional medical assistance may increase as we become a recognised and better regulated field,” the organisation said in a statement.

But the legal ramifications of successful cryonics could be complex and far-reaching said Prof Nils Hoppe, an ethicist and leading academic in the field of life sciences law. “As long as it never works then we don’t have to talk about regulation, but in 10 years’ time if it has progressed to the stage where it might be possible then there are serious ethical, legal and societal questions to answer,” he said. “If death is reversible then the body is no longer an item of property to be disposed of, [the dead person] suddenly becomes an agent again.”

That possibility raised a plethora of legal and ethical complications including who would have access to expensive technology and whether people would choose to be frozen as soon as they became ill, as well as throwing inheritance laws into disarray. But he cautioned against imposing restrictive regulations or laws. “Strong laws can hinder innovation which we do need in this area,” Hoppe said.

He added: “It would be a fantastic thing if it works – but while fascinating, it could be massively problematic.”