The Palestinian parliament decided Wednesday to appoint a committee of lawmakers to investigate what killed longtime leader Yasser Arafat, alleging Israel involvement.| After all, who better than lawmakers to investigate a complex medical condition. |
Since Arafat's death, rumors have swirled throughout the Middle East that Arafat died from either AIDS or poisoning. Many Palestinian officials insist that Israeli agents somehow poisoned him, a charge Israel denies. Arafat's medical records, obtained recently by two Israeli journalists who shared them with The Associated Press, cast doubt on these conspiracy theories. French doctors who treated Arafat at Percy Military Hospital concluded he died of a "massive brain hemorrhage" after suffering intestinal inflammation, jaundice and a blood condition known as disseminated intravascular coagulation, or DIC.
| DIC is when your body's blood clotting mechanisms are activated throughout the body instead of being localized to an area of injury. Small blood clots form throughout the body, and eventually the blood clotting factors are used up and not available to form clots at sites of real tissue injury. Clot dissolving mechanisms are also increased. This disorder has variable effects, and can result in either clotting symptoms or, more often, bleeding. Bleeding can be severe. DIC may be stimulated by many factors. These include infection in the blood by bacteria or fungus, severe tissue injury (as in burns and head injury), cancer, reactions to blood transfusions, zionist death rays and obstetrical complications. |
But the records are inconclusive about what brought about DIC, which has numerous causes ranging from infections to colitis to liver disease. The hospital's director, Dr. Jean-Paul Burlaton, refused at the time to discuss Arafat's medical records