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Article; What Killed Dr. Atkins (N.Y. Times)
What Killed Dr. Atkins, and What Keeps the Issue Alive?
By N. R. KLEINFIELD Published: February 11, 2004 Was he fat or svelte or maybe a tad chubby? Was it really a slip on the ice or could it have been something else - even, dare it be said, something he ate? Now there are confidential documents passed to the news media, and still more dueling authorities, not to mention the ticklish matter of the mayor and the doctor's widow and the promised steak dinner. Oh the mess goes on and on like a seven-course meal. Dr. Robert Atkins, the diet doctor who popularized the notion that dieters could eat fat and lose weight, has been dead for nearly a year, after he fell on some ice and hit his head last April, yet indecorous questions about his health and, yes, his weight persist, and the mayor, who hasn't even been on the diet, can't seem to stay out of it all. The latest twist is the publication in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday of details from Dr. Atkins's confidential medical report. The report concludes that Dr. Atkins, 72, had a history of heart attack and congestive heart failure and notes that he weighed 258 pounds at death. The release of the report by New York City officials outraged the Atkins people. It also annoyed Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, already on delicate ground in Atkins matters. "What happened is we made a mistake," said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the city medical examiner's office. Late last year, the office received a request for Dr. Atkins's medical report from Dr. Richard Fleming of the Fleming Heart and Health Institute in Omaha, Neb. On Dec. 22, a member of the records staff mistakenly mailed it out. While cause and manner of death are public information, medical reports are not. They are to be shared only with the next of kin or anyone authorized by the next of kin, physicians or medical facilities that treated the deceased, or state or federal facilities that legitimately need it. So it was fine to tell the world that the cause of death was "blunt impact injury of head with epidural hematoma" because Dr. Atkins "fell from upright position," but that's it. Dr. Fleming was not a treating physician, and, according to Ms. Borakove, did not say he was. A critic of the Atkins diet, he passed the report on to a group he was acquainted with, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which promotes a vegetarian diet and denounces the Atkins plan. The Physicians Committee gave the report to The Journal. Ms. Borakove said that a television station in New York apparently also has a copy, because it called her last week. (The Physicians Committee furnished a copy yesterday to The Times.) The report, based on an external examination of the body and some hospital information, said Dr. Atkins had a history of heart attack, congestive heart failure and hypertension. His wife objected to an autopsy, Ms. Borakove said, so none was performed. Responses to the report's release came quickly from Atkins quarters. Dr. Stuart Trager, chairman of the Atkins Physicians Council, a group of physicians who work as consultants to the Atkins organization, said the Journal article "was based on incomplete personal medical records that were illegally delivered to the newspaper in violation of federal law." He said Dr. Atkins did not have a history of heart attack, nor was he obese. He said that Dr. Atkins weighed 195 pounds the day after he entered the hospital following his fall, and that he gained 63 pounds from fluid retention during the nine days he was in a coma before he died. Dr. Trager said Dr. Atkins did have cardiomyopathy, a heart muscle disease that was probably caused by a virus, not by what he ate. While Dr. Atkins had an episode of cardiac arrest the year before his death, Dr. Trager said, he was unaware that he had had any history of heart attack. "Old age was not particularly kind to him," he said. "This cardiomyopathy was a real bugger. But the physicians who were treating him had no reason to think it was diet related." Veronica Atkins, Dr. Atkins's widow, issued a statement yesterday expressing her horror at "unscrupulous individuals" who "continue to twist and pervert the truth." She added, "I have been assured by my husband's physicians that my husband's health problems late in life were completely unrelated to his diet or any diet." -- Diva ***** The Best Man for the Job May Be A Woman |
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