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Medical experts: Yasser Arafat died of AIDS or poisoning

 

By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent, and AP

 

An analysis of the confidential medical report on Yasser Arafat's death reveals three main possibilities as to the cause: poisoning, AIDS or an infection.

 

Israel and foreign doctors who have seen the report say the details do not lead to a conclusive determination on what caused the death.

 

After Arafat died on November 11, 2004 at a military hospital in Paris, copies of the pathology report compiled by the hospital staff - and kept under wraps until now - were handed over to Arafat's widow, Suha, and senior Palestinian Authority officials. The report's findings are now being published for the first time in the revised edition of "The Seventh War" by journalists Amos Harel and Avi Isacharoff, to be released next week by Yedioth Ahronoth in Hebrew.

 

The chapter of the book dealing with Arafat's death appears on Friday in the Haaretz magazine. To read the full story click here.

 

The report does not lift the veil of mystery surrounding Arafat's death entirely: It lists the immediate cause of death as a massive brain hemorrhage, but adds that "a discussion among a large number of medical experts... shows that it is impossible to pinpoint a cause that will explain the combination of symptoms that led to the death of the patient."

 

Dr. Ashraf al-Kurdi, Arafat's personal physician who played no part in the late PA chairman's medical care during the final weeks of his life, said that he knows that the French doctors found the AIDS virus in Arafat's blood. Al-Kurdi refuses to divulge the source of this information, but claims that the virus was put into Arafat's blood in an effort to blur the traces of poisoning, which was the cause of death.

 

Most senior Palestinian officials, including Mohammed Dahlan and Jibril Rajoub, have said in interviews with the book's authors that they are convinced Arafat was poisoned by Israel. The Palestinians mention Israel's assassination attempt by means of poison on Hamas leader Khaled Meshal in Amman in 1997. According to the officials, Arafat was not sufficiently cautious and could easily have been poisoned, because he would receive candies and medicines from visitors and consume them without medical supervision.

 

A statement from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office defined the poison claims as "nonsense," adding that such claims were investigated in the past and found to be false.

 

Prof. Gil Lugassi, president of the Israel Hematologists Association who read the French report, said that the symptoms described could be typical of AIDS.

 

"An infection that begins in the digestive system and deteriorates so quickly into the collapse of the clotting system is typical of AIDS," he says. "What is simply unacceptable and seems very perplexing is the absolute disregard for the possibility of AIDS.

 

"The report mentions dozens of illnesses or bacteria that were tested for, but there is no evidence of an HIV test, or even a mention of a discussion on the matter. I can only assume that if there were an AIDS test that gave a negative result, there would not have been any problem in writing this in the report."

 

An AIDS expert from one of Israel's major hospitals also says that the report's total disregard for the possibility of AIDS raises some tough questions. Nevertheless, he adds, the possibility that Arafat had contracted AIDS was very small.

 

The expert, who also reviewed the French medical report, says it is unlikely that an illness that continued for some two weeks, with severe diarrhea, vomiting, harm to the digestive system, and the eventual collapse of the blood clotting system, was caused by AIDS.

 

Another senior Israeli physician who read the report said that based on the symptoms that appeared in Arafat some four hours after he ate dinner on October 12, 2004, about a month before his death, it appears that his death was caused by that meal. "It is a classic case of food poisoning that is taught at medical school," the doctor said.

 

The doctor adds that according to the symptoms described in the report, it appears that Arafat came down with regular food poisoning caused by a bacteria that releases poisons. Such poisoning should have been discovered in the tests carried out on Arafat in Ramallah, and should have been countered with antibiotics.

 

The French medical report stipulates that no traces of poison were found in Arafat's body, but the tests were not comprehensive and did not include checks for all types of known poisons.

 

 

 

The report does not clear up the ambiguities surrounding Yasser Arafat's death. It also leaves a third option: Arafat died of an infection.

 

 

Senior Palestinian Authority officials, including Jibril Rajoub: The Rais was poisoned.

 

 

Arafat's personal doctor: The HIV virus was detected in his blood shortly before his death.

 

 

Prime Minister's Office: Arafat was not poisoned. "Absolute nonsense."

 

Erekat: No proof

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said he had not seen the medical records but had been told by many doctors that it was still not clear what had caused Arafat's death.

 

Erekat said he had not heard any proof that Arafat had AIDS or had been poisoned.

 

"The French report did not indicate any of these things," Erekat said Thursday.

 

"The family should ask the French doctors to publicize this and put an end to all these allegations and rumors."

 

Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser al-Kidwa, a nephew of Arafat and one of the few people who had access to Arafat and his doctors in France, said the report sheds no new light and the cause of death remains unknown.

 

 

 

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/622564.html

It was Mossad :mischief .

i could have sworn cnn said the exact opposite today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/08/internat.../eL7QQSduMoCTjg

The

JERUSALEM, Sept. 7 - The medical records of Yasir Arafat, which have been kept secret since his unexplained death last year at a French military hospital, show that he died from a stroke that resulted from a bleeding disorder caused by an unidentified infection.

 

The first independent review of the records, obtained by The New York Times, suggests that poisoning was highly unlikely and dispels a rumor that he may have died of AIDS. Nonetheless, the records show that despite extensive testing, his doctors could not determine the underlying infection.

 

 

Arafat seemed frail in his final months but not, by anyone's account, at death's door when he suddenly fell ill last October. After more than two weeks without improvement, he was airlifted to a French hospital, where he died on Nov. 11. The cause of death was never announced and speculation has remained rife.

 

The records indicate that Arafat did not receive antibiotics until Oct. 27, 15 days after the onset of his illness, which was originally diagnosed as "a flu." That was only two days before he was transferred to the Percy Army Teaching Hospital in Clamart, outside Paris, and it was probably too late to save him, according to Israeli and American experts consulted by The Times, who agreed to review the records on condition they not be named.

 

His doctors in Ramallah also did not seem to recognize that he suffered from a serious blood disorder, disseminated intravascular coagulation, or D.I.C., which was never controlled and led to his death.

 

But even the French doctors never discovered the specific cause of the infection that led to the bleeding disorder, the records show. "It's a big puzzle," said a specialist in infectious diseases.

 

The records make no mention of an AIDS test, an omission the experts found bizarre. An Israeli infectious disease specialist said he would have performed the test, if only to be thorough and to refute the rumors that surrounded the case.

 

He said news accounts during Arafat's illness made him strongly suspect that Arafat had AIDS. But after studying the records, he said that was improbable, given the sudden onset of the intestinal troubles.

 

A senior Palestinian official provided the medical records to Avi Isacharoff and Amos Harel, Israeli journalists who are working on a new edition of their book, "The Seventh War: How We Won and Why We Lost the War With the Palestinians." They agreed to share the records in collaboration with The Times, which did its own investigation.

 

Arafat's final illness began suddenly on the evening of Oct. 12, when he vomited and had abdominal pain and diarrhea four hours after eating supper in his compound in Ramallah, where the Israelis had kept him isolated for three years. These symptoms continued without fever for two weeks. He slipped into a stupor and lost six and a half pounds.

 

Arafat was treated for thrombocytopenia, an abnormally low platelet count, with transfusions of platelets and injections of gamma globulin.

 

Many senior Palestinian officials say Arafat was poisoned. In a recent telephone interview from Amman, Jordan, for example, Arafat's personal doctor, Ashraf al-Kurdi, said he believed Arafat was poisoned.

 

But the newly released findings argue strongly against poisoning.

 

The French doctors sent specimens to three different laboratories for standard toxicology tests to detect metals and drugs like barbiturates, opiates and amphetamines. None were detected. The laboratories included the Toxicology Department of the Criminal Division of Physics and Chemistry in the Institute of Criminal Research of the National Gendarmerie; the Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Toxicology and Pharmacology at Percy; and the French Army's Radiotoxicology Control Laboratory.

 

The researchers said Arafat did not suffer the extensive kidney and liver damage they would expect from a poison, although he did have jaundice.

 

Arafat did improve for a time in the Percy hospital, talking and walking with members of his entourage. Then he slipped into a coma on Nov. 3, when he was transferred to intensive care from the hematology service. That would seem to contradict the idea of poison, the experts said.

 

The biggest mystery is the exact nature of the infection that seemed to start the prolonged, irreversible course of the bleeding disorder, D.I.C.

 

The rest is in the link

i could have sworn cnn said the exact opposite today.

935287[/snapback]

 

They did.

I don't care how he died, I'm just glad he is dead.

cnn is full of s***. why would u listen to them. I personally like (here it goes even thouhg im goin to get bashed.....) Fox news. they are always reliable and up to the second!

I don't care how he died, I'm just glad he is dead.

936402[/snapback]

 

Amen.

cnn is full of s***. why would u listen to them. I personally like (here it goes even thouhg im goin to get bashed.....) Fox news. they are always reliable and up to the second!

936446[/snapback]

 

 

reliable for what? the republican party agenda?

I don't care how he died, I'm just glad he is dead.

936402[/snapback]

 

 

so when a person in power that i hate dies can i say i'm just glad he is dead too?

I don't care how he died, I'm just glad he is dead.

936402[/snapback]

 

 

so when a person in power that i hate dies can i say i'm just glad he is dead too?

936468[/snapback]

 

Why not?

yay we have some fellow jews on the board. BTW im not happy that he died (because thats just horrible to say) but i can say that after his passing, there have been severely less suicide bombings. and in response to Das Texan umm no they have alot of info that cnn rarely talks about...cnn is full of s***, hates the jews, and is owned by anti semites (time warner)! It seems like every damn person on this board is a democrat ugh where are all the republican??

Yay for partisan politics!

I don't care how he died, I'm just glad he is dead.

936402[/snapback]

 

 

so when a person in power that i hate dies can i say i'm just glad he is dead too?

936468[/snapback]

 

Why not?

936484[/snapback]

 

 

 

*files away and waits for that fateful day*

yay we have some fellow jews on the board. BTW im not happy that he died (because thats just horrible to say) but i can say that after his passing, there have been severely less suicide bombings. and in response to Das Texan umm no they have alot of info that cnn rarely talks about...cnn is full of s***, hates the jews, and is owned by anti semites (time warner)! It seems like every damn person on this board is a democrat ugh where are all the republican??

936488[/snapback]

 

 

maybe i should start saying yay fellow catholics whenever i come across one... :plain

 

ya i'm sure cnn truly hates jews, and how can a corporate entitity be anti-semite when they dont exist in humanistic form?

 

ps i'm not a democrat, in fact i claim zero allegiance to any political party, although if a gun were put to my head i'd probably choose the democrats i guess

yay we have some fellow jews on the board. BTW im not happy that he died (because thats just horrible to say) but i can say that after his passing, there have been severely less suicide bombings. and in response to Das Texan umm no they have alot of info that cnn rarely talks about...cnn is full of s***, hates the jews, and is owned by anti semites (time warner)! It seems like every damn person on this board is a democrat ugh where are all the republican??

936488[/snapback]

 

 

maybe i should start saying yay fellow catholics whenever i come across one... :plain

 

ya i'm sure cnn truly hates jews, and how can a corporate entitity be anti-semite when they dont exist in humanistic form?

 

ps i'm not a democrat, in fact i claim zero allegiance to any political party, although if a gun were put to my head i'd probably choose the democrats i guess

936647[/snapback]

 

umm do you know what CEO, CFO, or COO are? see those are people. Those people have opinions and feelings. Their feelings are that they dont respect jews. I really dont care I was just trying to state my opinon...I thouhgt thats what message boards are for. What ever its sad that Yasser died and of AIDS is even worse, my only question is how the hell did he get aids, was he gay?

yay we have some fellow jews on the board. BTW im not happy that he died (because thats just horrible to say) but i can say that after his passing, there have been severely less suicide bombings. and in response to Das Texan umm no they have alot of info that cnn rarely talks about...cnn is full of s***, hates the jews, and is owned by anti semites (time warner)! It seems like every damn person on this board is a democrat ugh where are all the republican??

936488[/snapback]

 

 

maybe i should start saying yay fellow catholics whenever i come across one... :plain

 

ya i'm sure cnn truly hates jews, and how can a corporate entitity be anti-semite when they dont exist in humanistic form?

 

ps i'm not a democrat, in fact i claim zero allegiance to any political party, although if a gun were put to my head i'd probably choose the democrats i guess

936647[/snapback]

 

umm do you know what CEO, CFO, or COO are? see those are people. Those people have opinions and feelings. Their feelings are that they dont respect jews. I really dont care I was just trying to state my opinon...I thouhgt thats what message boards are for. What ever its sad that Yasser died and of AIDS is even worse, my only question is how the hell did he get aids, was he gay?

936954[/snapback]

 

 

 

they are not time warner though. they are merely representatives of time warner. in the world of business which timewarner is...there is no 'time warner' thats why they have perpetuity. so you are looking at time warner's employees as being 'time warner' when they are actually in the true sense of the word merely representatives of the company.

 

Besides now we know people's feelings???...I dont recall where they have come out and said "I hate Jews"

maybe i should start saying yay fellow catholics whenever i come across one... :plain

936647[/snapback]

It's more than just a religion, it's a culture. Jews have a unique relationship with each other and there is a great camaraderie between us not found in any other major religion, we're like a big fraternity and it's always good to meet another a member of the Tribe :thumbup .

 

It's hard to explain.

yay we have some fellow jews on the board. BTW im not happy that he died (because thats just horrible to say) but i can say that after his passing, there have been severely less suicide bombings. and in response to Das Texan umm no they have alot of info that cnn rarely talks about...cnn is full of s***, hates the jews, and is owned by anti semites (time warner)! It seems like every damn person on this board is a democrat ugh where are all the republican??

936488[/snapback]

 

 

maybe i should start saying yay fellow catholics whenever i come across one... :plain

 

ya i'm sure cnn truly hates jews, and how can a corporate entitity be anti-semite when they dont exist in humanistic form?

 

ps i'm not a democrat, in fact i claim zero allegiance to any political party, although if a gun were put to my head i'd probably choose the democrats i guess

936647[/snapback]

 

umm do you know what CEO, CFO, or COO are? see those are people. Those people have opinions and feelings. Their feelings are that they dont respect jews. I really dont care I was just trying to state my opinon...I thouhgt thats what message boards are for. What ever its sad that Yasser died and of AIDS is even worse, my only question is how the hell did he get aids, was he gay?

936954[/snapback]

 

 

 

they are not time warner though. they are merely representatives of time warner. in the world of business which timewarner is...there is no 'time warner' thats why they have perpetuity. so you are looking at time warner's employees as being 'time warner' when they are actually in the true sense of the word merely representatives of the company.

 

Besides now we know people's feelings???...I dont recall where they have come out and said "I hate Jews"

937175[/snapback]

CNN's anti-semitism is quite obvious on their reporting of Jewish issues and happenings in the middle east. Most major news networks (NBC, ABC, FoxNews, and even CBS) report the Israel/Palestinian news straight down the middle, but CNN's reporting is different than anyone else and their reporting shows an obvious favoritism for the Palestinians and more often than not, their reporting comes off as blatantly hating Israel and makes Israel seem like the bad guys in all of this, which is certainly not the case.

I'm glad to see that people still believe that only gays can get HIV/AIDS. :plain

 

I would think it's more likely that he died of a kind of poisoning than had AIDS. But I wouldn't rule it out.

 

Hopefully his death will eventually lead to an eventual peace, but not much has happened lately.

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