Experts: Yasser Arafat died of AIDS or poisoning

[Brightmore]

Experts: Yasser Arafat died of AIDS or poisoning
Haaretz
Amos Harel
September 8, 2005

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 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."

Full story

[bemildred]

1. Yeah, right, so let's speculate all over the place. nt

[Jack Rabbit]

2. This looks more mudane than the first paragraph makes it out to be

The first paragraph makes this sound more intriguing than perhaps is warranted.

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.

Was Arafat done in by the Mossad? Or his enemies within the PLO? A Palestinian Lucretia Borgia?

Later, the article states:

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.

That sounds a lot more mundane than "poisoning". That could be caused by eating bad fruit, the same thing killed in President Zachary Taylor in 1850 and countless others. The only question is, if that's what it was, why didn't the tests done on Arafat in Ramallah reveal this or why wasn't he treated for it? It's not the sort of thing that kills people so often in an age of modern medicine.

Of course, if Arafat had AIDS, that would have complicated a case of food poisoning.

[JohnLocke]

4. Cherries and iced milk, to be precise.

In reference to Zachary Taylor.

[Malikshah]

3. Wow-- fascinating choice of headline they used for the story...

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/09/08/arafat.death.reut/index.html

Different take on headline from CNN

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -- French medical records show it is highly unlikely that poisoning or AIDS caused the death of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in a Paris hospital last year, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

The newspaper, in a report from Jerusalem, said it obtained the records and they showed Arafat died of a stroke that resulted from a bleeding disorder caused by an unknown ailment.