Yasser Arafat had itp

First reports of Arafat's treatment by his doctors, for what his spokesman said was 'flu' came on October 25, 2004 after he vomited during a meeting. His condition deteriorated in the following days and he became unconscious for 10 minutes on October 17. Following visits by other doctors, including teams from Tunisia, Jordan, and Egypt, and agreement by Israel not to block his return, Arafat was taken on October 29 aboard a French government jet to the Percy training hospital of the Armies near Paris. According to one of his doctors, Arafat was suffering from Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), an immunologically-mediated decrease in the number of circulating platelets to abnormally low levels. On November 3 he lapsed into a gradually deepening coma. In the insuing days. Arafat's health was the subject of wild speculation. Various sources speculated that Arafat was comatose, in a "vegetative state", or dead. Palestinian authorities and Arafat's Jordanian doctor denied reports that Arafat was brain dead and had been kept on life support.

A controversy erupted between officials of the Palestinian Authority and Suha Arafat, Yasser Arafat's wife. On November 8, officials of the Palestinian Authority travelled to France to see Yasser Arafat. Suha Arafat stated "They are trying to bury Abu Ammar alive". Palestinian officials were reported to regret that the news about Yasser Arafat was "filtered" by his wife.[19] French law forbids physicians from discussing the condition of their patients with anybody with the exception, in case of grave prognosis, of close relatives. (Code of Public Health, L1110-4) Accordingly, all communications concerning Yasser Arafat's health had to be authorized by Arafat's wife.

On November 9, at 10 AM, chief surgeon Estripeau of Percy reported that Arafat's condition had worsened, and that he had fallen into a deeper coma. On November 10, a "high religious dignitary" visited Arafat and declared that it was out of the question to disconnect Arafat from life support machines, since, according to him, such an action would be prohibited by Islam.

Arafat was pronounced dead at 02:30 UTC on November 11]at age 75. The exact cause of his illness is unknown and controversial. Sheikh Taissir Tamimi, who held a vigil at his bedside described the scene, "It was a very painful scene. There was blood everywhere on his face. The blood was coming from every possible place. My first reaction when I saw the scene was that I didn't understand what was going on. I closed my eyes, and I started reading from the Koran..." When his death was announced, the Palestinian people went into a state of mourning, with Qur'anic mourning prayers emitted from loudspeakers from mosques, and tires burning in the street as a sign of mourning.

Sorry, we're not ignoring you. Most of us have heard this before. It's also been said that Julia Roberts had ITP. We've been unable to confirm any of it.

Also, not sure I'd assume even if he had ITP, that's what he died of. The symptoms he had do not sound like any symptom an ITP patient would experience. He might have had an infection and this causes ITP, not that he had chronic ITP. When you hear reports o blood coming out of everywhere, from all over, generally that is not what patients with chronic ITP experience.

And if Yasser Arafat really did have ITP it doesn't change a thing for me or you or anyone else

It doesn't change anything, but i think Cindy found that bit of news interesting and wanted to share it with us, in case some people weren't aware, no harm in that is there??

Absolutely not....just don't want to totally freak out new people right off the bat. So, maybe we just wanted to make sure they knew it was unconfirmed ITP and ITP doesn't generally cause death.

This reminds me of right before I was diagnosed. I was obssessed with books and stories about ebola and read about it all the time. After diagnosis, I stopped.