Dan Abel wrote:

> In article >, Michel Boucher
> > wrote:
>
>>http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/02/10....ap/index.html
>
> We've been going round and round on this in another newsgroup. An extreme
> vegetarian group has been spreading this untrue story. Atkins died from a
> fall. His organs failed, causing fluid retention. His excess weight was
> all due to fluid.
>
> Perhaps others have a different idea what "obese" means, but someone who
> puts on 60 pounds in a week is not obese, they are deadly sick.

Some pretty shabby stuff going on with all that "news" coverage.

"The late Dr. Robert Atkins is being smeared for his alleged obesity
at the time of his death, by a phony doctors organization that has
been exposed as a front group for People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals (PETA) and has been censured by the American Medical
Association (AMA)."
<http://www.consumerfreedom.com/release_detail.cfm?PR_ID=48>

Atkins's cardiac problem had no medical or physiological correlation
with his (or any) diet.

From <http://atkins.com/Archive/2002/4/25-466719.html>

"We have been treating this condition, cardiomyopathy, for almost two
years," explains Patrick Fratellone MD, Dr. Atkins' personal physician
and cardiologist, "and during the course of diagnosis, we discovered
that Dr. Atkins' coronary arteries were normal as diagnosed by an
angiogram performed at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital on the upper
west side of New York City in April of 2001. Clearly, his own
nutritional protocols have left him, at the age of 71, with an
extraordinarily healthy cardiovascular system. Unfortunately, the
infection-related cardiomyopathy is totally another matter."

From Gannett <http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=106&sid=169199>

"Millions of people who follow Atkins' low-carb, meat-lovers' diet
were caught off guard by a report Tuesday in The Wall Street Journal
that the cardiologist weighed 258 at the time of his death and had
heart disease. The new document shows that the 6-foot-tall Atkins
weighed 195 on admission to the hospital after a fall on April 8,
2003. He went into a coma and died April 17 at age 72."

Pastorio