Merged Lockerbie bomber alive after 9 months

So was the doctor a crappy doctor, or was he "in on it" in thinking the guy innocent (perhaps at the quiet behest of government officials) so he exaggerated the ill health?
 
crickets...

To my knowledge, three months was said by three people - Drs. Sikora and I think Ibrahim Sherif for the Libyan team (Dr. Waxman I think refused) and Dr. Peter Kay for Scottish Prison Services. All around the beginning of August.

Without info we won't get, it's impossible to say how justified that really seemed at the time. There are natural uncertainties, curves and falloffs, and the obvious issue that they predict for if he stays in prison, whereas survival usually improves in a supportive home environment. That alone has to be part of the picture.

I for one remain open-minded about outside pressure, bribes, etc. It's just that from the vantage point of believing Megrahi is innocent, it's hard to get all worked up about any lapse of ethics. I'm glad he got to go home, and all in all I think the attention and debate that's caused has been good. It's amusingly depressing watching the Senators shoot themselves in the foot over here, pouting like babies to put him back in jail and restore the comfy fantasy scenario of "justice" that was working so well. But it's appropriate as the beginning of the end of this long lie.
 
Seen from the perspective of inside Scotland, and a familiarity with Scottish politics, the idea that there was any sort of connection between the compassionate release and oil or other trade deals is simply laughable.

Seen from the same perspective, if there's any suggestion that the prognosis was massaged down to expedite the compassionate release at the time it happened (and I'm not actually convinced this happened), the blindingly obvious reason is that it was possible to manoeuvre the situation to induce Megrahi to drop the appeal in the process. The appeal that was turning out very very embarrassing for the Scottish justice system by revealing that a the trial at Zeist was a kangaroo court, and leaving them with 279 unsolved murders on their hands. A few months more and it might have been impossible to persuade Megrahi to drop it, as it neared a conclusion. If he hadn't dropped it, the judgement would have been delivered more than six months ago. And it's a racing certainty Megrahi would have been free as of right now.

Rolfe.
 
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Testimony from the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Meeting held today on Megrahi's release can be found here..
I'm very curious to get Rolfe's take on the Dr.'s testimonies re: Megrahi's cancer had not advanced to the "3 months left" stage, and anything else you can add.
~B.
 
It got plenty of coverage on the Scottish national news this evening; I thought it a comparatively balanced piece, pointing out that the fellow hadn't had the decency to turn up his toes after what seems like an unco' long time, but the overall piece made it quite clear that the Senators did seem to be engaging on a bit of pre-election beating of the drum.
 
Well, we've got enough bampot politicians of our own without Menendez coming along too. The sooner the election in the US is over (and he lets it drop) the better.
 
Well, you all know I have some suspicions that the three-month prognosis might have been hurried up a bit to encourage Megrahi to come to the view that he might as well drop the appeal as he wasn't going to live to see it reach a conclusion.

On the other hand, I don't quite know how that might have been arranged, within the legal and medical constraints of the process.

It's quite clear that he didn't receive chemotherapy before he went back to Libya, and the documentation is explicit in recording his request to be granted compassionate release before chemotherapy started so that he would have the support of his family during that process.

The senators are however entirely wrong in assuming that a cancer patient with a prognosis of only three months wouldn't be given chemotherapy as "what would be the point". There would be every point. Chemotherapy is frequently used in palliative care to control pain and indeed to prolong life, Patients still persist in wanting that extra month or so, even if the outcome is inevitable.

So Megrahi went back to Libya, and got the chemotherapy, and responded better than anyone really expected. Might even have stabilised on a plateau that will continue for a bit longer. I note Ronnie Biggs isn't dead yet either, where are the howls of protest about that? At least he did the crime he was convicted for. If not the time that went with it.

I think this is all about that appeal, and the PtB wanting it withdrawn, to keep the dirty linen hidden in that 800-page SCCRC report we're not allowed access to.

Rolfe.
 
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This morning, it took me right back to 2007. I was sound asleep, and my clock radio came on. Someone was presenting the news. Someone was being intervewed. He was saying, it would be far more appropriate to investigate whether Megrahi actually had anything to do with the bombing in the first place.

I remember for a large chunk of 2007 when the SCCRC first released its (edited) conclusions, and then again in 2008 when there was all that hoopla about the PIIC document that nobody was to be allowed to see, not even the defence lawyers, every bloody morning I woke to the same thing. Megrahi hadn't bought those clothes. That timer fragment might not be genuine. It was alleged the clothes said to be in the bomb bag had been mixed up with material from Indian Head. The Golfer was going to reveal all.

It went on for months, pretty continuously. And the bottom line of it all was, that conviction is extraordinarily shaky and is going to be overturned.

These journalists, they forget so soon. This morning's offering was just a little throwback, because now it's just all about "the Lockerbie bomber", and why hasn't he had the decency to croak yet, the bastard.

For now, anyway.

Rolfe.
 
Today's Herald has pointed out the Senator's errors regarding chemo and the like. There's also a nice letter from Jim Swire, which of course said Senator will deftly conspire to ignore.
 
Menendez is becoming increasingly offensive. He wouldn't address the government of an independent, friendly nation like that. He's only doing it because he knows Scotland's stuck with the devolution settlement and can't act autonomously, and that she will get no support from Westminster.

So much for the Union Dividend.

Rolfe.
 
I would love to regale that retard doctor about things my mother did in the last three months of her life as she died of cancer. About the chemo they attempted during that time. About the return to her job interview she drove to and passed during that time.

Menendez would just get a slap in the coupon.
 
I would love to get anyone's (with medical or other knowledgable background on prostate cancer) take on the statements made by James L. Mohler, MD at the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearings last week. Following are excerpts from his testimony, which can be found here:

According to the medical report released by Scottish authorities, Mr. al-Megrahi was diagnosed September 2008 with poorly differentiated (Gleason grade 4+5=9 on a scale of 2 [best] to 10 [worst]), bone metastatic prostate cancer and he had a PSA of 363 ng/ml (normal < 2.5 ng/ml). In layman’s terms, this means he was diagnosed with an incurable prostate cancer that was so advanced it had spread to his bones.

Mr. al-Megrahi had an initial response to this treatment, and his PSA dropped to 12.0 ng/ml. In other words, he responded but the failure of his PSA to fall to normal (<2.5 ng/ml) or undetectable (<0.2 ng/ml) predicted a remission that would be shorter than average .

Unfortunately for Mr. al-Megrahi, his cancer recurred in spite of hormone treatment in April 2009 when his PSA rose to 22.1 ng/ml and then 45.1 ng/ml. In short, the hormone treatment was failing and his PSA continued to rise, eventually reaching 208.8 July 2009. This sequence of PSA test values follows a PSA doubling time of approximately 2 months, which is consistent with a very rapidly growing prostate cancer. Up until this point, Mr. al-Megrahi’s treatment was standard care.

Mr. al-Megrahi was released August 20, 2009 based on a medical prognosis that was determined on or before August 10, 2009. We know this because that was the date of the medical report, prepared by a Scottish physician named Dr. Andrew Fraser, which was the medical basis for Mr. al-Megrahi’s release. Scottish officials based his compassionate release on the fact that, according to this report, he was believed to have three months or less to live. In my 23 years of experience caring for more than 2000 prostate cancer patients and reading clinical studies that evaluated thousands of patients in similar conditions, there is no conceivable way a cancer specialist or anyone familiar with the treatment of prostate cancer could have given a three month prognosis based on the clinical situation and treatment described above. Let me explain why:

• A patient with prostate cancer with an accurate three month prognosis would have to be almost bedridden. Dr. Fraser noted in his final medical report that Mr. al-Megrahi’s cancer “did not restrict or remove (his) ability to carry out any particular tasks.” That is not the definition of a patient with prostate cancer who will die within three months. Also, as could be seen by the footage of his reception in Libya, he was ambulatory upon his arrival in Libya.

• We know that Scottish Government authorities, doctors, and Mr. al-Megrahi himself all claimed that Mr. al-Megrahi planned on taking courses of chemotherapy. However, a patient with prostate cancer with an accurate three month prognosis would have to be so ill that he would have been unable to receive a regimen of chemotherapy. A patient with prostate cancer with an accurate three month prognosis would instead be given palliative or end-of-life care focused on pain management and making the patient as comfortable as possible.

• Building on the two previous points, a prognosis of three months survival cannot be made until either all standard treatment options like chemotherapy have been attempted and evaluated or the patient has clear symptoms – like an inability to walk – that make it medically unreasonable to explore further treatment. In Mr. al-Megrahi’s case, they hadn’t even begun chemotherapy but intended to do so, which clearly indicates that he was physically able to undergo the next course of treatment and was not within three months of dying.
Click to expand...


Mohler then goes on to comment about the alleged statement by George Burgess about Megrahi having received chemo while still in Scotland. I think that’s a whole other can of worms, so for the sake of sticking to one point at a time, I’ll post that in another comment for further discussion later.

[…]Mr. al-Megrahi’s failure of hormone treatment meant that his cancer was particularly aggressive and therefore his prognosis was worse than others who responded more favorably to hormone treatment. That is true; many men have long remissions from hormone treatment but he didn’t. However, his prostate cancer’s rapid growth rate during hormone treatment paradoxically made a response to chemotherapy all the more likely, since chemotherapy works best against rapidly dividing cells. In short, patients with aggressive prostate cancer like Mr. al-Megrahi respond to chemotherapy than those patients with a less aggressive prostate cancer.
Therefore, I am not at all surprised that he may be alive more than 14 months after beginning chemotherapy and/or other treatments (such as abiraterone) for his rapidly growing, recurrent prostate cancer. I also believe that any physician with training and experience in prostate cancer would find a three month prognosis for a patient in Mr. al- Megrahi’s condition difficult to believe and possibly even ridiculous.
Click to expand...

~B.
 
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Bunntamas said:
I would love to get anyone's (with medical or other knowledgable background on prostate cancer) take on the statements made by James L. Mohler, MD at the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearings last week. Following are excerpts from his testimony, which can be found here:


Mohler then goes on to comment about the alleged statement by George Burgess about Megrahi having received chemo while still in Scotland. I think that’s a whole other can of worms, so for the sake of sticking to one point at a time, I’ll post that in another comment for further discussion later.



~B.
Click to expand...

His statement is bunk. See my earlier post about my mother.
 
• A patient with prostate cancer with an accurate three month prognosis would have to be almost bedridden. Dr. Fraser noted in his final medical report that Mr. al-Megrahi’s cancer “did not restrict or remove (his) ability to carry out any particular tasks.” That is not the definition of a patient with prostate cancer who will die within three months. Also, as could be seen by the footage of his reception in Libya, he was ambulatory upon his arrival in Libya.
Click to expand...

Hmmm.

While personal anecdote proves nothing, I can tell you that my own father was certainly 'ambulatory' and, indeed, living at home up until the last three weeks of his life. One ended by prostate cancer. He walked into that place, but when he entered the care home his condition deteriorated dramatically.
 
My cousin's husband died of prostate cancer. I can't remember the exact timescale, but he was weak and lethargic (but ambulatory) as I remember him. I don't recall him being bedridden, even near the end.

I have my own reasons for feeling a bit suspicious of the timing of the compassionate release, but that medical report is frankly nonsense. It has all the hallmarks of a "hired gun" testimony, just like Karol Sikora. Figure out what the guys paying me want me to say, and say it.

However, my other point is, the three months thing is only a guideline. Prisoners released under the same provisions have exceeded that time period by quite a bit on other occasions, and nobody has become particularly upset. Bear in mind that Ronnie Biggs was released a few weeks before Megrahi was, without even a diagnosis of a terminal disease, and he's still alive too.

Rolfe.
 
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The thing to bear in mind is that to anyone with any knowledge at all of Scottish politics and the events leading up to the compassionate release, the idea that BP or oil deals had anything to do with it is frankly ludicrous. The people who actually released Megrahi would rather have their fingernails pulled out one at a time than do anything to suit the agenda of Tony Blair and Jack Straw.

Everybody knew the "Deal in the Desert" of 2007 was all about a BP oil deal. That's a given. And the first thing the SNP government said was, no way, get knotted Tony. The other thing I'd like to know is, why would BP be so aerated about getting Megrahi released in August 2009? There was no obvious reason for such urgency on that score. Why not wait till the three-month prognosis was plausible, if it wasn't at that point?

And quite frankly, he would probably have been released free and clear by the spring of 2010 without any cancer, or prisoner transfers, or oil deals.

I also have a fair bit of trouble seeing how the medical reports could have been "doctored". There were quite a few different specialists contributing to the overall report submitted, and it would have been quite difficult to nobble the lot of them. So although I think Kenny was practically pushing Megrahi out the door in 2009, I'm still quite hazy on how he could have got the medical report to suit him if it wasn't plausible.

But mainly, it wasn't about BP or oil. The senators are barking up the completely wrong tree. So if the medical reports did indeed give a massively over-pessimistic prognosis, one has to ask, why?

Rolfe.
 
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