 PARIS - Sources close to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, hospitalized near Paris, on early Friday denied he was "brain dead" and breathing only thanks to artificial life support systems, as a French medical official had said after conflicting reports as to whether he was alive or dead.
"President Arafat is not in a coma, his state of health inspires confidence in us, he has not lost consciousness, partially or totally, and his vital organs are working normally," said Mohammed Rashid, a member of the 75-year-old leader's delegation here.
| "Yeah! He always looks like that!" |
He told journalists: "He does not need help from any reanimation machine and we hope that his general condition will improve in the next few hours."
| "Bring out the Zionist Reanimation Machine!" |
Arafat's closest adviser Nabil Abu Rudeina also denied that the Palestinian leader was brain dead. Earlier, the French official had told AFP on condition of confidentiality that in strictly technical terms, Arafat was "not dead," but he had slipped into an irreversible coma and could only be maintained in his vegetative state through ventilation machines.
| As a pulmonary/critical care doc, I can tell you that just based on the news reports, the likelihood of the old buzzard surviving to discharge (a standard measure) is about 1%. Coma, mechanical ventilation and a low platelet count move you nice and high on the APACHE critical illness score. |
| "He's not 'dead,' y'see. He's just not... ummm... alive." |
The information followed a short statement by a senior French military official who said "Mr Arafat is not dead".
| "Not technically, anyway." |
The Palestinian Authority president's condition was "complex," General Christian Estripeau, spokesman for the French defence forces' medical service, told reporters outside the military hospital tending to Arafat. "The patient's condition needs appropriate treatment which required his being transferred to a unit suited to his pathology on the afternoon of Wednesday November 3," he said. He refused to take questions, but said his statement had been prepared according to the wishes of Arafat's wife, Suha.
| "He's been moved to a room that's closer to the morgue." |
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei told reporters at his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah that Arafat "is not in a coma". | "Nonsense. Comas are un-Islamic." |
"There have been examinations and results are positive," he said without elaborating. "It is wrong. If the president was dead, the whole world would know," Palestinian communications minister Azzam al-Ahmed told AFP. "But it is true that he is a very critical condition," he added, nervously fixing his tie.
| I think the boatman has his hand out for the coin. |
French medical sources said Arafat's health suddenly and dramatically evaporated deteriorated Wednesday while he was undergoing tests to give the docs more time to figure out how to avoid giving a diagnosis determine the cause of an illness which prompted his medical evacuation to France. A French medical source said an EEG was carried out on Arafat Thursday -- itself "a sign of extreme gravity" -- and that there was no reading of any cerebral activity.
| If that's true, it's over. There are very, very few reports of anyone with no cerebral activity on an EEG, intubated in an ICU, coming back to survive to discharge. Keep in mind that lower brain function (e.g., pons, medulla, brain stem) could have activity, but it won't matter. |
Arafat was said to have been well enough Wednesday to welcome Bush's winning a second term, and, according to one of his aides, said he hoped for a jumpstart to the moribund Middle East peace process.
| Right after which he yelled for his pills. |
UPDATE: From Arabic News - Vagueness still overwhelms the fate of the Palestinian President Yasser Arafat who has been in coma, according to the French medical sources which treat him at Percy military hospital in Paris. The sources explained that the state of "Brain death" precedes the death of any person that can be kept alive with the help of medical instrument in the intensive care room. One of the medical team member said that Arafat is in a deep coma of level 4. This means that he is totally unconscious, the halt of any brain activity and spontaneous breathing. |