Prabhupada's Surgeon Confirms: Diabetes to Blame

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Prabhupada's Surgeon Confirms: Diabetes to Blame

 

 

Report by David R. Hooper B. Sc. (biochem.)

(Deva Gaura Hari Das)

 

 

After being encouraged to further investigate the allegations of arsenic

poisoning by Nityananda Das and others, it was decided that we should try

and contact the doctor who performed the operation on Srila Prabhupada in

England, just over two months before his passing. As one of the only Western

health professionals to treat Prabhupada in his final year, and the only

doctor who personally performed an operation on His Divine Grace, the

testimony of this doctor would certainly be very important to determine the

validity of the claims of arsenicosis.

 

Although previous efforts to try and find this doctor had proved

unsuccessful, after inquiries with the College of Surgeons we were given the

name of a general surgeon by the name of Andrew McIrvine. Many calls later,

we finally traced the doctor and obtained his mobile phone number. Without

delay we dialed the number and explained our situation. When Doctor McIrvine

heard that we wanted details of an operation he performed 20 years ago, his

immediate reply was that it would be very difficult as he had performed

thousands of operations over the years. However, as soon as we mentioned

Srila Prabhupada's name he immediately remembered the case, saying it was

such a special case that he could never forget it. He spontaneously

remembered how Srila Prabhupada was the Hare Krishna leader, that he was

"amazingly calm and stoical", and also the fact that he visited Prabhupada

at the manor the day after the operation.

 

He agreed to send a statement noting down the important facts that he

remembered from Srila Prabhupada's condition at the time, and this letter is

included in its entirety at the bottom of this page.

 

Before giving his statement, it is pertinent to give a little background to

this topic, and also to discuss the consequences of the doctor's statement

on the medical claims made by Nityananda Das in his book 'Someone Has

Poisoned Me' (SHPM).

 

In our previous papers on the VNN and Chakra web sites, we have focussed on

how the overwhelming mass of scientific and medical evidence supports the

diagnosis that Srila Prabhupada was suffering from advanced diabetes which

led to serious kidney damage, loss of appetite and related systemic

complications.

 

In SHPM (Appendix 7), Nityananda Das tries to discount the diagnosis of

diabetes, in an attempt to attribute all of Srila Prabhupada's symptoms to

his theory of arsenic poisoning. On page 350 he makes the following claims:

 

 

Srila Prabhupada did not have diabetes serious enough to display the

symptoms of diabetes. For example, loss of vision or blindness is sometimes

seen in diabetes. Srila Prabhupada, however, did not exhibit the signs of an

advanced case of diabetes which would produce loss of vision. Further, not

one doctor or kaviraja even mentioned diabetes as a factor in His Divine

Grace's health, nor did he require insulin. Diabetes is thus ruled.

Nityananda Das, SHPM. Page

350.

 

 

As we will see below, Srila Prabhupada did in fact display the symptoms of

diabetes, so much so that the doctor who treated him only 9 weeks before his

passing, immediately diagnosed diabetes as soon as he saw Prabhupada, and

confirmed his diagnosis by blood and urine tests. So much for no symptoms.

As for blindness, Prabhupada's deteriorating eyesight was clearly documented

by Tamal Krishna Goswami in TKG's diary:

 

 

When deteriorating eyesight made it impossible for Prabhupada to translate,

he called for Bhakti Caitanya Swami and Trivikrama Swami, who had been asked

to come to Vrindavana.

June 30, 1977

 

 

When Srila Prabhupada signed the will amendment, his deteriorating eyesight

made it difficult for him to see the document he was signing.

November 9, 1977

 

 

Amazingly, Nityananda Das, after convincing the reader that loss of vision

(as a symptom of diabetes) was not present, explains that loss of vision (as

a symptom of arsenicosis) was present. Not only that, but it now

miraculously appears as a symptom "unique" to arsenic poisoning:

 

 

Symptoms Unique to Arsenic Poisoning And Not to Kidney Diseases.

 

A9 LOSS OF VISION due to brain damage or optic nerve damage

Nityannada Das, SHPM (page

68)

 

 

In 'Nityananda's Diagnosis 1' we stated that the impartial reader should

regard Nityananda Das's claims with caution due to his lack of academic

qualifications and one-sided representation of the scientific literature. In

light of the above example (and others like it), we would now go so far as

to seriously question whether much of his reasoning is even logically

coherent, what to speak of approaching the rigorous standards of a

scientific or medical research text.

 

The claim that Srila Prabhupada did not have diabetes because he didn't

require insulin also shows either accidental or intentional ignorance of the

literature. Prabhupada was clearly suffering from diabetes type 2, which is

also known as non-insulin-dependant diabetes. From Harrison's Principles of

Internal Medicine (p. 2065), which is listed in SHPM's list of references,

we learn that insulin-dependant diabetes (type 1) most commonly begins in

the teenage years and is caused by a complete inability to produce insulin.

Without insulin shots the patient would quickly die. In contrast,

non-insulin-dependant diabetes (type 2) usually begins in middle life or

later, with symptoms appearing gradually. It results not from a lack of

insulin, but rather the body's inability to properly process insulin, and is

often treated by a controlled diet and exercise. Therefore it is patently

untrue to say that Prabhupada couldn't have had diabetes because he didn't

require insulin.

 

As for Nityananda Das's claim that "not one doctor or kaviraja even

mentioned diabetes as a factor in His Divine Grace's health", we will let

Doctor McIrvine's statement speak for itself. After due consideration of the

above points, we will leave it to the reader to decide how much credence we

should put in Nityananda Das's conclusion that, "Diabetes is thus ruled."

 

The statement from Doctor Andrew McIrvine, who performed the operation on

Srila Prabhupada at Watford General Hospital on September 8th, 1977 reads as

follows:

 

 

 

Dear Mr Hooper,

 

Thank you for the message, as I said on the 'phone I do remember the case

well, even though it was a long time ago.

Srila Prabhupada first presented to me in the emergency room of Watford

General Hospital in 1977.

He was in obviously poor health and showed signs of renal failure and was

found to be diabetic. These diagnoses were made on clinical suspicion

confirmed by blood and urine analysis.

His most obvious problem on admission was urinary retention. This was caused

by a most unusual degree of phimosis.

That is a long-standing scarring and thickening of the foreskin such that he

was by the time of his admission virtually unable to pass urine. This

process would have taken many years to develop and during that time could

well have produced back pressure enough to result in renal problems - as

more often happens with prostatic obstruction.

I remember him as an amazingly calm and stoical person. He refused to be

admitted to hospital and I am sure he would not have withstood a general

anaesthetic. Somehow we persuaded him to have a circumcision to relieve the

problem which I carried out in the ER under local anaesthetic. He made a

good recovery from this and was able to pass urine normally following the

procedure. Unfortunately his renal failure was by that time well advanced

and irreversible, caused by a combination of diabetes and phimosis.

I hope this is of some help,

My best wishes,

 

Andrew J McIrvine FRCS

Consultant Surgeon