[A-List] The doctor who diagnosed Mr. Yushchenko?s poisoning admits that he can prove not

["Jim Yarker" <sjy_estrien@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.bhhrg.org/LatestNews.asp?ArticleID=58

The doctor who diagnosed Mr. Yushchenko?s poisoning admits that he can prove
nothing.

Date: 27 January 2005

           During the presidential campaign in Ukraine, the then opposition
candidate (now president), Viktor Yushchenko, famously developed severe
facial disfigurement.  At a press conference held in Vienna on 11th December
2004, his doctors in the private Rudolfinerhaus clinic claimed that they had
obtained proof that he had been deliberately poisoned.  This allegation has
now made its way into the mainstream media as an accepted fact, and
Yushchenko himself has embellished the diagnosis by stating firmly, on
several occasions, that someone was trying to kill him.  In particular, he
has alleged that he fell ill after dining with the head of the Ukrainian
secret police, Igor Smeshko, and the implication is that Smeshko was
involved in the attempted assassination.[1]



           BHHRG authors have already dealt with some aspects of the
poisoning story in other items on the web page,[2] but the group has since
conducted interview with two of the doctors involved in the poisoning
affair.  It turns out that the diagnosis may be faulty, and that its
publication was hotly contested within the Vienna clinic.



           Before Christmas 2004, BHHRG contacted Dr. Lothar Wicke, Medical
Director of the Rudolfinerhaus, and conducted an interview with him by
telephone.  Dr. Wicke resigned his post as medical director following the
press conference on 11th December 2004, at which the head of the clinic, Dr.
Michael Zimpfer, and Mr. Yushchenko?s own doctor, Dr. Nikolai Korpan claimed
to have obtained certain proof that his patient had been poisoned.  Zimpfer
had said there was ?no doubt? that Yushchenko was the victim of dioxin
poisoning, and that the dioxin had been administered by a third party.  He
speculated about ?bioterrorism? and suggested that the poison had been
administered in ?a soup that contains cream?.[3]  This lent credence to the
theory that Yushchenko had been poisoned over dinner, and allowed people
like the former KGB defector to Britain, Oleg Gordievsky [4] , to speculate
that Mr. Yushchenko had eaten Ukrainian borshch with sour cream in it.  But
the dinner is reported to have consisted of boiled fish, meats and salad.[5]



           Few media reported Dr. Wicke?s resignation.[6]  Fewer still had
reported the sharp disagreements which had occurred between Dr. Wicke and
his colleagues at the Rudolfinerhaus clinic in the run-up to the 11th
December press conference.  Those disagreements had started in September,
when Mr. Yushchenko?s facial disfigurement began, and when poisoning was
first mooted.  At that stage, Dr Korpan, a cryosurgeon who rents a surgery
in the clinic but who is not employed by it, issued a statement on the
clinic?s notepaper saying that Yushchenko had been poisoned.  These reports
were immediately carried by pro-Yushchenko media in Ukraine, to whom Dr
Korpan seemed very happy to speak.[7]



           Dr Wicke disagreed with this statement, and with the manner in
which Korpan issued it.  He himself gave an interview, which was quoted by
Le Monde, in which he said, ?If toxic substances had been found, then the
doctors treating Mr. Yushchenko? ? i.e. Korpan and Zimpfer ? ?should have
informed me, and I would have been obliged to inform the prosecutor.  I did
not do so because no such thing was discovered.?[8]  It was because of
Wicke?s intervention that the Rudolfinerhaus clinic carried on its web site,
between 30th September and 11th December, a statement saying, ?We would like
to note decidedly that on the occasion of Mr. Yuschenko?s stay in our
hospital to date no traces of poison were determined.? Despite this
statement, the poisoning story continued to circulate in the media during
this period, even though other possible diagnoses were also reported in the
mainstream European media, including pancreatitis and a herpes virus.



           Although the news reports about Dr. Wicke?s resignation made it
clear that he had formally resigned because of a work overload, they left
their readers in no doubt that the real reason was disagreement over the
Yushchenko issue.  Dr. Wicke confirmed this interpretation when BHHRG?s
rapporteur  telephoned him.  He said that he did not think that a medical
clinic should be used for political purposes, and that Ukraine should chose
its own president without the interference either of the USA or Russia.  He
voiced criticisms of Dr Zimpfer?s television appearances, but was mainly
critical of Dr. Korpan.



           Dr. Wicke also pointed out to BHHRG that the Rudolfinerhaus
clinic does not have the necessary equipment to test for dioxins.  He added
that no one seemed to know at that stage where the tests had been carried
out.  (This point was clarified only later.)  No one had asked these
elementary questions at the press conference.  Wicke also said that the
statement issued by the clinic itself on 12th December concerning the
diagnosis was self-contradictory.  It said both that the dose of dioxin
found in Mr. Yushchenko?s blood as ?1,000 times higher than is bearable by a
human being? and also that he was fully capable of working normally and well
on the way to recovery.[9]



           Dr. Wicke also told BHHRG about the death threats he had
received following his refusal to accredit Korpan?s diagnosis of poisoning
in September.  He had an anonymous phone call from Ukraine, in which he was
told ?watch out for your life?. The caller spoke English.  Following this
call, Wicke contacted the police and was put under protection.  When BHHRG
spoke to him, it was clear that this Viennese doctor was still living in
fear.  He was reluctant to elaborate too much on the telephone and said, by
way of explanation, ?I have a family.?[10]  Wicke also made the point that
forensic doctors and the police ought to have been involved if there was a
suspicion of poisoning, yet no forensic or prosecuting authorities had been
conducted.  Wicke initially promised BHHRG to say more after Christmas, but
when BHHRG?s representative rang him back in January, he said he wanted to
say no more about the matter.



           In the meantime, BHHRG rang the man who subsequently turned out
to have performed the dioxin tests.  Professor Bram Brouwer of the Free
University of Amsterdam runs a private company called BioDetection Systems.
It specialises in using biological methods (genetically modified cells) to
detect substances in food.[11]  It advertises an especially quick method of
screening food products for dioxins, these substances being more difficult
to detect by other methods.  The company does work for the health and safety
authorities, especially the European Union, and monitors the levels of
dioxins in certain foods.  This is to prevent contaminated food being sold
to humans.  In 1999, for instance, chickens in Belgium became infected with
dioxins as a result of recycling animal fats in their feed.



           Dr Brouwer told BHHRG that he had contacted the Rudolfinerhaus
in November when he saw Mr. Yushchenko on television.  Although he is
essentially a food inspector, his specialisation being in environmental and
not forensic toxicology[12], Brouwer evidently thought that his method of
detecting dioxins should be used.  In fact, his method may be quick at
detecting the presence of dioxin but it is not very precise about
registering quantities..  He told BHHRG that he needed subsequently to send
the samples to two other laboratories (one in the Netherlands, the other in
Germany) to have the precise levels, and the precise kind of dioxin,
properly identified:  his biological method could do neither.



           Dr Brouwer?s intervention may explain why Mr. Yushchenko
cancelled a visit to the United Kingdom for his tests.  BHHRG has
ascertained something that no other media have reported, namely that a
neurologist, two dermatologists and two toxicologists (one of them is one of
the leading toxicologists in Europe) were on standby to examine Yushchenko,
but that he cried off at the last minute.  BHHRG has been told that those
British specialists are now highly sceptical about the dioxin diagnosis.



           Brouwer initially told BHHRG that the dioxin levels were so high
that the only explanation for them was that a third person had administered
them, i.e. that Yushchenko had been deliberately poisoned.  He said, ?I
cannot imagine any other explanation.?  It was this formal claim that Mr.
Yushchenko had been deliberately poisoned which then made its way back to
Vienna, and thence into the world?s press, as an established fact.  But
Brouwer also admitted that it would take 3 ? 4 weeks after contracting the
dioxins for any effects to be produced on the skin, and that the pains
Yushchenko experienced would take about a week to develop.  In other words,
even this diagnosis means that it is impossible that Yushchenko was poisoned
at the dinner with Smeshko on 5th September, because he developed the
symptoms immediately, the following morning.  When asked why he had not
contacted any forensic doctors or  criminal toxicologists, let alone the
prosecuting authorities, Dr Brouwer had no answer.



           Brouwer also confirmed that the levels found in Yushchenko?s
blood could not possibly have killed a human being.  He said, ?In fact, we
do not know what dosage would be necessary to kill someone, because there is
no recorded example of a person ever dying from dioxin poisoning.?  This is
indeed the case:  BHHRG has consulted another medical expert on poisons, who
confirmed that dioxin is probably  among the last things you would ever try
to use to kill someone.  Brouwer confirmed that the dosage in Yushchenko?s
blood was not enough to kill even a rat, let alone a human.  Yet Yushchenko
affirms that he was the victim of an assassination attempt.



           Dr. Brouwer then told BHHRG that the Yushchenko case was almost
identical to an incident which occurred in 1998, when two Austrian women had
suffered from an similar outbreak of chloracne.  Indeed, the Yushchenko case
is only the second recorded case of dioxin poisoning at this level.  He
said, ?It was exactly the same pure compound of dioxin, which you never find
in food poisoning, and the dioxin levels in the blood were similar.  In
fact, the levels in one of the women?s blood were slightly higher than in
Yushchenko?s case.?  The definitive medical article on the case describes
the symptoms as follows:  ?Patient 1, who had the highest TCDD level ever
recorded in an individual (144,000 pg/g blood fat), developed severe
generalized chloracne, whereas in the second patient, despite heavy
intoxication (26,000 pg/g blood fat), only mild facial acne lesions
occurred. Both patients initially experienced non-specific gastrointestinal
symptoms.?[13]  Brouwer told BHHRG that the women were believed to have
contracted the dioxin from working in a textile factory where the material
was contaminated.  And when BHHRG asked how he could therefore say with
certainty that Yushchenko had been deliberately poisoned, when the only
known precedent for a similar dioxin contamination was believed to have been
caused by an industrial accident, Dr Brouwer had to admit that, in fact, he
could not say that Yushchenko has definitely been deliberately poisoned.  He
told BHHRG, ?I cannot say how the dioxins got there.?   In other words, the
deliberate poisoning thesis, so confidently proclaimed in December, and so
instrumental in painting Mr. Yushchenko as the victim of a criminal regime,
is not even insisted on by the man who himself made it.

















[1] According to C. J. Chivers of the New York Times, General Smeshko was in
fact working behind the scenes to facilitate the Orange Revolution, not
trying to kill the candidate.  See ?Back Channels:  A Crackdown Averted.
How Top Spies in Ukraine Changed the Nation?s Path,? New York Times, 17th
January 2005.

[2] ?Booze, Salo and Mare's Milk...Did Yuschenko poison himself?? by Chad
Nagle, 20th December 2004,

http://www.oscewatch.org/LatestNews.asp?ArticleID=55

[3] See for instance Radio Free Europe Newsline, 13th December 2004

[4] On CNN International, 17th December 2004

[5] See ?A Dinner in Ukraine Made for Agatha Christie,? C. J. Chivers, New
York Times, 20th December 2004

[6] The Austrian papers mentioned it:  ?Rudolfinerhaus: Ärztlicher Leiter
geht? by Helmar Dumbs and Regina Pöll, Die Presse, 11th December 2004;
?Rudolfinerhaus: Viele Gerüchte, eine Demission
Ärztlicher Leiter Wicke zurückgetreten?, Der Standard, 12th December 2004;
see also ?The Yushchenko poison plot fraud? by Justin Raimondo, 15th
December 2004, http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=4164

[7] For instance, Korpan gave an interview to Ukrainska Pravda on 10th
October 2004, in which he suggested that Yushchenko had been poisoned with a
?chemical or biological agent?.

[8] ?En Ukraine, le chef de file de l'opposition se plaint d'avoir été
empoisonné?, by Joëlle Stolz, Le Monde,  13th October 2004

[9] At the time of writing (27th January 2005) the September and the two
December statements are still on the web site of the Rudolfinerhaus,
http://www.rudolfinerhaus.at/.  (Click on ?Über uns? and then ?Aktuelles?.)

[10] The intimidation practised against Wicke was also discussed in a long
report in Le Figaro, ?La ténébreuse hospitalisation viennoise de
Iouchtchenko? by Maurin Picard, 10th December 2004.  Picard claims that
Korpan is being pursued by the Austrian medical authorities for practising
without the requisite qualifications:  his diploma from Uzhgorod in Ukraine
has never been validated in Austria.

[11] http://www.biodetectionsystems.com/

[12] See his c.v. on the university?s web page:
http://www.falw.vu.nl/Onderzoeksinstituten/index.cfm?home_page.cfm?fileid=0839F610-3807-440B-AB8723A79B27C07E&pageid=368A258C-B80A-4827-B611AD302B24B11D&subsectionid=1283CFA1-03D3-4BA3-9F21CDD13625FE25



[13] Environmental Health Perspectives, Vol 109, No. 8, August 2001 by
Alexandra Geusau et. al.
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2001/109p865-869geusau/abstract.html