Friday, August 27, 2010

LETTER REGARDING CO-PROXAMOL

This letter, from a retired anaesthetist - published in the Daily Telegraph on 24th August -speaks of the inconclusive nature of one of the secondary averred causes of Dr Kelly's death: co-proxamol poisoning.


'the fact that the blood level of Dp was so low as to be below that necessary for cardio-respiratory dpression suggests that not many tablets ever arrived in the stomach.'

Sir

If David Kelly (Letters, August 23) did not die from ulnar artery blood loss, then can we be sure that death was even due to cardio-respiratory depression after ingesting co-proxamol?

The drug contains dextropropoxyphene (Dp) and paracetemol. Paracetemol overdose can cause death but only in excess of three days after ingestion. Dp can cause death within one hour but usually within a mean of five hours.

As a retired anaesthetist with training in pharmacology, I noted that the stomach was empty of capsules, which indicates the Dp was totally absorbed. But the fact that the blood level of Dp was so low as to be below that necessary for cardio-respiratory depression suggests that not many tablets ever arrived in the stomach. An empty blister pack is not proof of ingestion.

Wrting as a citizen of this country, I feel that there are enough untidy ends in this sad saga to justify a coroner's inquest in which scene-of-crime officers and specialists in pharmacokinetics, forensic pathology, toxicology and vascular surgery can explain inconsistencies.

Dr David Rutter
Romsey, Hampshire

7 comments:

Ulf Jonasson said...

Dear Sirs,

We have studies the substance dextropropoxyphene since 1993 and we wrote two doctorial dissertations.
Please go to

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q92lL4kM-JE

Kind regards Ulf Jonasson

Dr in public Health

ulf.jonasson@telia,com

brian in the tamar valley said...

A very interesting letter from Dr Rutter although, to be strictly accurate, I think that just one fifth of a tablet was found in David Kelly's stomach rather than none.

As I've commented before I think that it's very important to maintain our focus on the coproxamol tablets as well as the ulnar artery. It is noticeable isn't it that people like Tom Mangold are for ever talking about Kelly having swallowed 29 tablets whilst the post mortem most certainly doesn't prove that number of these tablets entered his body.

If Dr Kelly hadn't swallowed that particular number of tablets then the suicide theory is pretty well shot to pieces I would have thought. So for Mangold, a so called "investigative journalist", it's definitely all 29 of the missing tablets or the suicide explanation falls by the wayside. In other words he has ensured that the "facts" fit the theory. This is yet one more nail in the coffin regarding his credibility.

On a slightly different tack there is another matter about which I think the majority of people are unaware and that is the way that Nicholas Gardiner reconvened the inquest with very little fanfare whilst the Hutton Inquiry was under way and in fact issued a full death certificate. Norman Baker relates how Harriet Harman skated around the issue. For me it was a very serious abuse of the coroner's position because clearly Gardiner had not amassed the amount of evidence needed to prove suicide beyond "all reasonable doubt".

Peter Simplex said...

Some interesting comments about the competence of Nicholas Hunt and the taking of David Kelly's rectal temperature here on this otherwise dreadful, sloppy Guardian article.

Anonymous said...

Of course there are doubts about what Dr Kelly actually died from, and the sensible, lawful and proper way to investigate the cause is through an inquest.

But a friend and colleague has come out and said it would be outrageous for there to be an inquest without new evidence. He said the call for an inquest is politically motivated.

The friend Professor Christian Seelos is an Austrian working in an Opus Dei educational institute in Spain.

I only mention Opus Dei because it seems only two groups of people don't want an inquest held into Dr Kelly's death, they are members and supporters of the British Establishment and members and supporters of Opus Dei.

Both these groups have ambitions of forming a New World Order governed by benign dictatorship, initially implementing their desires through a federalised Europe.

To achieve this goal, the citizens will have to comply to strict rules and become completely obedient and undemanding of explanations from an all powerful government.

If it is revealed from a court case that the British state had Dr Kelly killed and used the police to cover up the facts, then the "project" will be put back decades, possibly forever.

And it is the Opus Dei followers who are most vociferous at the moment demanding that Dr Kelly's death has no further investigation.

Franco had 11 ministers that were members of Opus Dei!

This for me is the most important reason that Dr Kelly's death has to have a full and proper inquest.

Yes Prof Seelos, the decision as to whether Dr Kelly should have an inquest is enormously political but not one that should be interfered with by outsiders with links to a politicised sect of the Catholic Church

Anonymous said...

Of course there are doubts about what Dr Kelly actually died from, and the sensible, lawful and proper way to investigate the cause is through an inquest.

But a friend and colleague has come out and said it would be outrageous for there to be an inquest without new evidence. He said the call for an inquest is politically motivated.

The friend Professor Christian Seelos is an Austrian working in an Opus Dei educational institute in Spain.

I only mention Opus Dei because it seems only two groups of people don't want an inquest held into Dr Kelly's death, they are members and supporters of the British Establishment and members and supporters of Opus Dei.

Both these groups have ambitions of forming a New World Order governed by benign dictatorship, initially implementing their desires through a federalised Europe.

To achieve this goal, the citizens will have to comply to strict rules and become completely obedient and undemanding of explanations from an all powerful government.

If it is revealed from a court case that the British state had Dr Kelly killed and used the police to cover up the facts, then the "project" will be put back decades, possibly forever.

And it is the Opus Dei followers who are most vociferous at the moment demanding that Dr Kelly's death has no further investigation.

Franco had 11 ministers that were members of Opus Dei!

This for me is the most important reason that Dr Kelly's death has to have a full and proper inquest.

Yes Prof Seelos, the decision as to whether Dr Kelly should have an inquest is enormously political but not one that should be interfered with by outsiders with links to a politicised sect of the Catholic Church

Joanne Ahrendt said...

I was very suspicious of David Kelly's death from the start as it came at such an opportune time for the government, I have little time and a healthy disregard for most conspiracy theories but the fact remains that many questions in this case were overlooked and in many cases completely ignored,I have read Norman Baker's book and although I don't agree with the end conclusion he has opened up a pandoras box and he states his case for not believing this was suicide accurately, in my opinion there is absolutely no doubt at all that Dr David Kelly was murdered and that the cover-up that ensued was pretty shoddy and un-convincing and for the present government not to re-investigate this is criminal and also shows them in a not too good light

june said...

All I know is that the timing of the onset of publication of medical papers which resulted in the MHRA withdrawing the licence for Coproxamol came around the same time as Dr. Kelly's ALLEGED suicide from overdose of Coproxamol ! Is it a coincidence that both the Coroner's investigation & the research originated from Oxford ? Anyway, as a consequence, I & thousands of elderly & disabled folk in chronic pain who were taking it safely now no longer have an effective pain relief alternative without intolerable side effects, despite the evidence that very few, if any, suicides/accidental deaths from Coproxamol were of people over the age of 60. The plot not only thickens but spreads !