Another "BEFORE" pic???
Posted on 11/25/2004 5:33:12 AM PST by foolscap
As disputed presidential election results provoke protests in Kiev, a British toxicologist is supporting candidate Viktor Yushchenko's claim that he was poisoned earlier in the campaign.
Yushchenko, the leader of the opposition, was hospitalized with a mystery illness in September and later claimed that he had been poisoned by the government. However, the Austrian doctors who treated him denied having found any evidence of this.
John Henry, a clinical toxicologist at St Mary's Hospital, London, and a consultant for Britain's National Poisons Information Service, points out that current photos of Yushchenko's face show a dramatic transformation compared with a few months ago.
He says that Yushchenko's disfiguring acne is almost certainly 'chloracne', a characteristic symptom of dioxin poisoning.
Dioxin danger
Dioxins are a group of chlorinated organic molecules. They are long-lived and form as a by-product of many industrial processes, such as waste incineration.
Exposure to dioxins is known to increase the risk of cancer and can cause severe reproductive and developmental problems.
The most toxic dioxin is a compound called 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, or TCDD. In 1976, an industrial explosion in Seveso, Italy, released 20 kilograms of dioxins into the atmosphere, causing the highest known exposure of any population to TCDD.
Skin lesions similar to burns appeared on some children a few hours after the accident. Two months later, chloracne broke out on the people most exposed to the cloud.
Snap judgment
Marcello Lotti, an expert in occupational medicine at the University of Padua, Italy, questions the validity of Henry's conclusion. He argues that it is impossible to make such a diagnosis simply by looking at a photo.
Lotti adds that he would be surprised if anyone were to select dioxin as a poison. "Dioxins have only modest toxicity and you would need an extremely high dose to get chloracne," he says. "Only kilos of contaminated food, administered over several days, would give you chloracne."
Henry admits that he does not have any toxicological evidence to back up his claim. "My diagnosis is from the photo and from the medical report of him being normal two months earlier," he says.
"Very few medical conditions give this type of transformation in such a short time," he points out.
Henry also argues that it would be possible to produce the effect seen in Yushchenko's face from a single high dose of dioxin hidden in food.
Is this permanent? His skin color is greenish too.
Wow, what a remarkable change in a short time. and if the 2nd photo shows accurate coloring, he does look seriously ill.
Dang! It's hard to come to any other conclusion, unless he suddently became a fan of acid facials. O_o
Another "BEFORE" pic???
I live in an area where dioxins have long been discharged into the water ways as part of paper making. Since dioxins build up in fish, much like mercury, every couple of years we get a little pamphlet telling us how much fish can "safely" be eaten from each of the major rivers. In some river Pregnant woman are advised to eat none.
I mention this because in the exchance between the candidates over this issue Yushchenko's opponent offered that is was some "bad sushi" that caused Yushchenko's problem.
I love conspiracy theories.
LOL... there is some resemblence
I don't know if it's permanent. One poster said it could last a couple of years. I would imagine it would do a lot of damage to his skin--scaring and such. I'm thinking the odd coloring might be heavy makeup to cover it up. But you are right--it does look greenish. Poor guy. He looks like something out of a Batman movie. One of the pictures on Yahoo showed him standing-disfigured-in front of a campaign poster of himself before the disfigurement. He was very young and decent looking in the poster. Now he looks disfigured and aged. I wonder how old he is.
Another lost cousin?
An interesting thread.
WHOA that amazing
I bet Ukraine they never hear of Proactive that acne medicne you see on TV
As Ukraine's popular pro-Western opposition leader claimed victory in hotly contested presidential elections, the mystery surrounding an appearance-altering condition that twice prompted him to check into a Vienna hospital persisted.
Yushchenko accused the Ukrainian authorities of poisoning him. His detractors suggested he'd eaten some bad sushi. Adding to the intrigue, the Austrian doctors who treated him have asked foreign experts to help determine if his symptoms may have been caused by toxins found in biological weapons.
Medical experts said they may never know what befell Yushchenko. But the condition, it has dramatically changed his appearance since he first sought treatment at Vienna's private Rudolfinerhaus clinic on September 10.
Yushchenko was known for his ruggedly handsome, almost movie-star looks. Now his complexion is pockmarked and a sickly green. His face is haggard, swollen and partially paralysed. One eye often tears up.
Doctors at Rudolfinerhaus declined to comment Tuesday.
"It's becoming a puzzle," said Dr Marc Siegel, an associate professor at New York University's School of Medicine who has studied the case.
"For it to have been food poisoning at this juncture seems unlikely because of the amount of time that has passed.
"Most forms of food poisoning are self-limiting. The longer it goes on, the less I think of food poisoning."
By the time Yushchenko checked out of the clinic last month after returning for followup treatment, physicians said they could neither prove nor rule out poisoning.
Dr Nikolai Korpan, who oversaw Yushchenko's treatment in Vienna, said the cause remained "totally open".
Doctors were unable to confirm suspicions because Yushchenko first checked into the clinic four days after the symptoms appeared - too late for tests to show if poisoning had occurred, Korpan said.
At Rudolfinerhaus, Yushchenko underwent a week of intensive treatment for acute pancreatitis as well as a viral skin disease and nerve paralysis on the left side of his face, Korpan said.
Clinic director Michael Zimpfer said doctors were unable to explain some of Yushchenko's symptoms, particularly his strong backaches. He said they could not rule out stress or a viral infection.
Yushchenko's doctors in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, said they had determined that "chemicals not of a food origin" had triggered the symptoms.
Zimpfer and the clinic's chief physician, Dr Lothar Wicke - who requested police protection after receiving an anonymous threat while treating Yushchenko - later asked for outside help from "a specialist in military operations and biological weapons," the Austria Press Agency reported.
Yushchenko's medical files since have been sealed and turned over to Austrian prosecutors, local media reported. Authorities have not said whether they planned to investigate further or merely turn over their findings to Ukraine.
Earlier this month, Volodymyr Syvkovych, the head of a 15-member Ukrainian parliamentary commission that investigated the mysterious illness, said a forensic medical examination found no traces of "any biological weapons" in Yushchenko's blood, nails, hair or urine.
Siegel said he doubts that Yushchenko was poisoned with ricin, as some have suggested, because his symptoms "weren't super-acute enough - there were not enough pulmonary and gastrointestinal manifestations."
His theory: Yushchenko has been suffering from an unknown virus.
"A viral illness can be something you never definitively find," Siegel said, but added: "If it's a virus, I'd expect it to get better."
John Henry, a toxicologist at Imperial College, London University, said photographs indicate Yushchenko may have a condition known as chloracne - a type of adult acne caused by exposure to toxic chemicals.
"There aren't really very many other explanations. You don't just get this horrible acne-like illness out of the blue in a middle aged man," Henry said.
Steroid treatment, or mercury poisoning could cause similar looking acne, he said, but the greenish tinge of Yushchenko's face is more suggestive of dioxin poisoning.
Dioxin is a name given to a class of toxic chemicals. They are a normal contaminant in many foods, but a single high dose, usually in food, can trigger illness, Henry said. If it were dioxin poisoning, tests would have been able to pick it up long after the exposure.
Yushchenko, meanwhile, has ridiculed the notion circulated by his political opponents in Ukraine that he simply ate a bad plate of sushi washed down with too much cognac.
"It was certainly no spoiled food," he said last month.
AP
Just amazing.
marking
Looks like the transformation that King Theoden went through in The Two Towers.
BTTT
Thanks for the ping.
One thing about dioxin poisoning, is that I don't remember ever seeing a greenish cast to a chloracne rash. In photographs--I've never seen one in person--these rashes are reddish and cause a thick, bumpy appearance in the skin. Furthermore, dioxin (the most toxic 2,3,7,8-TCDD type) has a half-life in the human body of 7 years, so if Mr. Yushchenko has been poisoned with the stuff, it will still be detectable. The same goes for other chemicals that cause the same symptoms.
As for the greenish tint, I am stumped.
Some of Mr. Yushchenko's other symptoms are not consistent with dioxin poisoning.
I certainly hope Mr. Yushchenko finds an answer to his illness! It must be so terrible to not know what is going on!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1373064,00.html
This article says that a dioxin can cause chloracne which has the green tinge.
Re the previous article:
"The Austria Press Agency reported that the clinic had called in outside help from "a specialist in military operations and biological weapons" and his medical files had been sealed and turned over to Austrian prosecutors."
This sounds like they think he was poisoned.
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