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Comments

JR

You are not being too hard on Zimpfer. The actual medical director of the Rudolfinerhaus was until last Thursday Dr. Lothar Wicke - NOT Zimpfer. Wicke resigned on the day before Yushchenko was set to arrive for his *third* visit to the clinic in order to have his dioxin poisoning diagnosis finally confirmed. Third time is the charm. Wicke persistently rejected this diagnosis as unfounded. For more on "The Strange Case of Dr. Wicke", see here:

http://trans-int.blogspot.com/2004/12/strange-case-of-dr-wicke-or-questions.html

Lloyd

Very interesting. Unanswered here is whether Yuschenko is a heavy, moderate, or light drinker? And whether he was engaging in heavy or binge drinking at the time in question? Seems unlikely. This part, at least, should be easy to answer. Also, the guy walking in off the street presumably does not have a big fat target on his back to tempt the world's premier experts in poisons and their use. And how common is alcohol pancreatitis anyways? More common than dioxin poisoning, clearly. But more likely in the midst of an election campaign where Putin, Russia and the KGB are desperately deploying every available resource to fix? Granted, your points about presence of dioxin in liver needs answering. But why is presence of ulcers in the GI tract so easily dismissed?

dr. charles

well-researched and presented... i'll agree with rosacea gone wild. it's true about "common things..." my first reaction was something diagnostically sexy like lepromatous leprosy, even though I have never seen a case and it doesn't fit clinically. we need to worry more about getting on base than hitting the home run.

Pythagoras C

CBB concedes (see above) that "ulcerations throughout the GI tract" do not fit the diagnosis of alcohol-induced pancreatitis & rosacea. For 2 reasons I believe that this concession is unwarranted and his hypothesis is stronger than he believes:

VY's "GASTROINTESTINAL" ULCERS ARE IN REALITY ONLY GASTRIC.
This is stated in the Oct. 1st Rudolfinerhaus medical certificate: http://www.razom.org.ua/en/news/2357/
The reports of "ulcerations throughout the GI tract" are probably inaccurate.

PANCREATITIS IS FREQUENTLY ASSOCIATED WITH GASTRIC ULCERS.
The correlation has apparently not drawn much attention in clinical practice, but has been confirmed in at least 2 separate recent studies. Importantly for the VY case, one of the studies is from Russia:
"The combination of ulcer disease and pancreatitis in surgical practice" [Article in Russian]
(Medline: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=14610784 )

See also:
"Gastrointestinal mucosal lesions in patients with acute pancreatitis"
(Medline: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12201568 ).
Note that in this study the pancreatitis-associated ulcers were not only gastric but also esophageal and duodenal.

TallDave

I will accept my $20,000 in small, unmarked bills. Thanks.

Chloe

I'm a little unclear here...
Is the way he looks consistent with alcoholic pancreatitis? Or are you saying that the way he looks might be an "uncommon presentation" of alcoholic pancreatitis? And by "uncommon", does that mean "before unheard of" or "very rare" or "not usually the case"?

Just an FYI - I'm totally understanding that common illnesses can have uncommon symptoms, of course. Myself I had a bad gallbladder (very common), with no gallstones, that made it impossible for me to sit upright in a chair comfortably, and eventually caused the pain to be particularly bad - no chairs for me for many months! This was one of the most debilitating aspects when I was ill, for me, so I was quite vocal about it right from the get-go, even moreso than the other symptoms. No doctors I saw ever heard of such a thing, such a symptom of gallbladder disease... but when I got on-line in some gastro forums, I found that there are others who had that same experience.

My point is this... surely with the doctors this guy is seeing have more access to "uncommon" (but not unheard of) symptoms of various things, than my small town general physicians or even gastroenterologists. Have there ever been cases when someone with alcoholic pancreatitis looking like this?

Of course I'm not saying it's impossible just because it's never happened before - but it would go a long way for me seeing your point if there was some indication he wouldn't be completely unique.

(By the way, thanks for this, because I really didn't realize that there was any question about it. And I don't subscribe to the notion that anyone who questions the poisoning must be politically motivated by the guy's opponent.)

TallDave

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=5&u=/ap/20041215/ap_on_re_eu/yushchenko_s_poison

Tests Reveal Yushchenko's Dioxin Level

Remember: small, unmarked bills.

:)

Jeremy

CCB I think you've done a good job of putting out your reasoning. You initial alcoholic pancreatitis seems to fit. Of course, we now apparently have the dioxin levels as public record...so we know it's dioxin, but there would be no reason to initially assume that.

Compare:

"Yushchcenko was in satisfactory condition and his dioxin levels have returned to normal, Dr. Michael Zimpfer, director of Vienna's private Rudolfinerhaus clinic, said at a news conference." Dec 11, 2004

with

"New tests reveal Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko's blood contains the second-highest level of dioxin poisoning ever recorded in a human — more than 6,000 times the normal concentration, according to the expert analyzing the samples." December 15, 2004.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Pastor M

PCBs? Maybe hes been eating too much Milk and lettuce imported from the US...

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,65884,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_4

But seriously this seems like bullshit. Not to good to admit you drink too much during an election; Better to turn it into an advantage by demonizing the opposition. Rove would be proud (assuming it wasn't his idea.)

dan

Should anyone looking for information accidentaly link their way towards this page, i am compelled to add that yushchenko is known for not drinking any alcohol---hence yanukovich's xenophobic suggestion that the disfigurement was the result of bad sushi. i should also add that a person who suspects they may have been poisoned by agents within their country's government would probably not be inclined to visit a hospital in that country. also, having been in a ukrainian hospital myself i would not hesitate to go to a western one if i were having serious health concerns. your president clinton analogy was rather far-fetched for this reason and suggests a general lack of information on ukraine. its seems like you have choosen to pick up on a recently emerging piece of news and learned the facts only to have the chance to debunk them.

Medical Billing Services

I'm going to the Ukraine in June. I can't wait to see the changes the new gov't has made.

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