atkins autopsy report.

[Guest guest]

FEBRUARY 10--In case you thought the rumble over the merits of the Atkins

diet would have cooled following last year's death of Dr. Atkins, guess

again, bub. The below report from the New York City medical examiner--which was

inadvertently provided to a Nebraska doctor who is vehemently anti-Atkins--shows

that the 72-year-old physician had suffered from a heart attack, congestive

heart failure, and hypertension. According to his death

certificate<http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/bloombergatkins1.html>, the

" immediate cause " of Atkins's death last April was " blunt impact injury of head

with epidural hematoma. " He was critically injured when he struck his head in a

fall on an icy Manhattan street. The references to Atkins's medical history are

contained in handwritten

notations<http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/atkinsmed4.html> on one page of

the ME's document-- " MI " for myocardial infarction, " CHF " for congestive heart

failure, and " HTN " for hypertension. The document, first reported on by The Wall

Street Journal, also lists Atkins weight as 258 pounds. However, an Atkins

representative, Dr. Stuart Trager, today attacked the Journal for reporting that

the physician was obese, contending that after Atkins lapsed into a coma and lay

in the hospital for two weeks prior to his death, his 6' frame became severely

bloated--by 60 pounds--due to liquid retention. Trager also criticized the

dissemination of the document to the Journal by the Physicians Committee for

Responsible Medicine, which Trager described as a " group of Vegan and animal

rights extremists. " The Washington, D.C.-based organization, which is allied

with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, was provided the medical

examiner's report by Fleming, an Omaha, Nebraska doctor and Atkins diet

critic. Fleming obtained the confidential report in late December after he

simply sent a letter to the New York City

ME<http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/flemingrequest1.html> asking for records

on Atkins. In his letter, Fleming did not represent himself as having ever

treated Atkins. Ellen Borakove, an ME's spokesman, told TSG that the document's

release to Fleming was a " mistake. " She added that New York officials today sent

a letter to Nebraska's Health and Human Services System, which disciplines

doctors, to make them aware of Fleming's recent actions. (4 pages)

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