www.justiceforchandra.com

[Rainbow]

I think he has been accused of abusing his position of authority as a government pathologist, because he allegedly had government employees assist him on his private cases.

[gozgals]

2nd Autopsy Inconclusive on Smith's Son
By MICHAEL MELIA


NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) - The examiner who performed a second autopsy Sunday on Anna Nicole Smith's 20-year-old son said he could not yet determine the cause of death.

Cyril Wecht, a forensic pathologist who gained fame as a critic of the government's probe into John F. Kennedy's assassination and as a consultant in Elvis Presley's death, ruled out several potential natural causes including heart disease, stroke or a ``congenital anomaly.''

He also affirmed findings by Bahamas investigators that foul play did not appear to be involved in the young man's death, which was labeled ``suspicious'' by the coroner's office because the cause was still unclear.

He said he has requested Daniel Smith's medical records from the United States and ordered further tests that could take weeks to complete. He said he had sent samples to a lab in the United States for further examination, including toxicology tests.

``I don't find anything that would cause me to believe there is something in terms of some traumatic injury that was inflicted, or somebody having done something to him in some cryptic manner that could not be observed,'' Wecht told reporters outside the morgue where he performed the procedure.

The former Playboy model and reality TV star's son died Sept. 10 in a hospital room where she was recuperating from giving birth three days earlier. Investigators have said they did not find evidence of drugs in the room or obvious signs of a crime.

Reginald Ferguson, assistant commissioner of the Royal Bahamas Police Force, has said that although there were no obvious signs of criminal wrongdoing in the death, it was too early to draw conclusions. An inquest is scheduled to begin Oct. 23.

Bahamian pathologists performed an autopsy Tuesday and ordered further analysis, including a toxicology test to be completed this week.

Wecht was accompanied to the morgue by Michael Scott, Anna Nicole's Bahamian lawyer, who told reporters she had ordered the follow-up autopsy to end ``media speculation surrounding the matter.''

Wecht said he was coordinating his own investigation with local authorities.

``You can have an independent investigation and it doesn't have to be disagreeable,'' he said.

Head Bahamian coroner Linda Virgill said it was not unusual for families to ask for an independent examination.

A hearse took Smith's body to a Nassau funeral home, which was preparing to return the remains to California this week.

Wecht, who holds both law and medical degrees, received international prominence as a critic of the Warren Commission's single-gunman theory of John F. Kennedy's assassination. He has also worked as a consultant on cases such as Presley's death and the slayings of JonBenet Ramsey and Laci Peterson. He is regularly interviewed on television about high-profile cases.

Wecht, 75, is facing trial on charges he used his staff when he was the Allegheny County coroner to do work for his multimillion-dollar private pathology practice. He resigned from office in January and contends he did nothing wrong.

Smith, 38, who came to the Bahamas during her pregnancy to avoid media scrutiny, is free to leave the Caribbean island chain, authorities have said.

Daniel Smith, who appeared several times on the E! reality series ``The Anna Nicole Show,'' was the son of Anna Nicole and Bill Smith, who married in 1985 and divorced two years later.

The identity of the father of her newborn daughter has not been publicly released.

Smith married Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II in 1994, when she was 26 and he was 89. He died the following year and she has since been involved in legal disputes over the estate.

Associated Press writer Jessica Robertson contributed to this report.

Comments:
It's looking like a third one will be done ( I Guess). I would have to go with my first guess, drugs. I'm sure the tox. screen will tell all.

[Rainbow]

Thank you for the very informative article, Gozgals! Isn't it interesting that the Bahamanian coroner's office is confident about the cause of Daniel's death, yet the brilliant Dr. Wecht is still uncertain?

[gozgals]

Hello Rainbow:
Any articles I find, since you are interested, I will go ahead and post. Yes, I take note of your comment on the two different viewpoints of the pathologists. CW may be stalling till the tox. comes back, plus may be waiting till the inquest too.

Just my opinion on where the case may stand. At the present time, the Bahamanian Coroner may already have the tox screen back but cannot shed light on the results to the public.

Have a great day RB.

Goz

[Rainbow]

Hi Goz! I read an article online w/a statement by Howard K. Stern, Anna's attorney-friend, that traces of low doseages of Lexipro and Ambien were found in Daniel's system. According to Stern's citation of Dr. Wecht's report, these amounts were too low to be a cause of death. Daniel also had sleep apnea, per Wecht, and that is also being looked into as a ptential contributor to his sudden death.

[gozgals]

Rainbow:

Pharmacologically speaking, it would have to be a rather high dose of the antidepressant Lexi-pro to kill a person unless of course they were allergic to it, the same being said for the sleeping pill Ambien. (not including the new controversial findings that have come out about this drug causing strange effects). So I do agree with the findings you have stated. Maybe the sleep apnea may have presented a medical situation not yet elaborated on that complicated his situation and caused his death.

The mixture of any drugs can also lead to a toxic bodily reaction where the result may be a coma or death.

Thanks for the updated information.

Goz

[Rainbow]

I just read that Linda Virgil, the Bahamian coroner in charge of the Daniel Smith case, has been removed from the case, because of remarks she made regarding the case. A panel of (judges?) will preside if the inquest goes forward. People involved in other inquests are also accusing Ms. Virgil of favoritism, in that the date for the Smith inquest was set within a relatively short time, while dates have not been set for some other pending cases.

[gozgals]

Hi RB:

I found and read the article. Maybe they won't go ahead with the inquest. Seems like they don't have too many deaths they need to investigate there that this case seems to be dragging on. Anna must be considered a rather Big Star to them.* (PS I lost the article or would have posted it)

Did you read how Anna sold her son's last pics? That seems a tad bit harsh (IMO)....Here is a link.


<Snip>

Anna Nicole Smith sells photos to pay for funeral


21/09/2006 - 12:21:44

Distraught former Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith was forced to sell photos of her son Daniel taken the night before he died in order to pay for his funeral expenses.

The family portraits were taken in a hospital room in the Bahamas two days after the birth of the actress' daughter and hours before her 20-year-old son was found dead.
<Snip>



http://breakingnews.iol.ie/entertainment/story.asp?j=196065378&p=y96x66x84


Goz

[peripeteia]

How tragic. There are individuals who cannot take sedation or antidepressant medication because they prolong the QT interval of your heart beat, cause the heart to rest longer than it normally would, and while the heart is resting this extended length of time, a new beat is issued from the sinus node of the heart, and this electrical pulse runs through a heart that is resting and not ready to refract, for the muscle to contract, this sends the heart into fribrillation, ventricular fribrillation. Many cough syrups, antihistimines, antibiotic erythromycin. This sounds as if this may've happened.

The combination of the antidepessant and ambien may have cause the prolongation of the QT interval of the heart. Some people are more prone to this than others, a genetic sensitivity of the heart muscle to certain medications.
_________________
A vision sent me on the path of seeking justice for Chandra, nothing I've seen in print to date has diminished the vividness but only served to reaffirm the validity of this vision.

[jane]

I did something really dumb when one of my sons was about 15 months old - I had run out of children's Triminic and gave him a small dose of another cough medicine. Quite a few hours later he had tachycardia (fast heart rate). He had to be hospitalized and given digoxin intravenously. It took quite awhile for the heart rate to come down. I think the cough medicine revealed a problem with his heart, as off and on over the years his heart rate occasionally gets fast (but he's never had to use medication for it again - it always comes back down on its own.) Fortunately it hasn't been much of a problem - he can do sports etc. It doesn't happen very frequently and he just sits still until it returns to normal (would seek medical help if it persisted.)

[Rainbow]

I just read another article on AOL Celebrity News (I believe), regarding the proposed Daniel Smith inquest. The article contains more comments from Ms. Virgill, the Bahamanian coroner who performed the original autopsy on Daniel. She stands up for the "call" she made regarding the "inquest". She said that it "doesn't take a rocket-scientist" to make a call like that. She also mentioned that it's something that the police were normally in charge of, so it wasn't really necesary to have all of the pathologist reports in, before calling for an inquest. All very odd, indeed.
I also get the feeling from thie AOL article and others I've read that the Bahamanian officials are worried about the "Natalie Holloway" effect, e.g. a tourism embargo, if elements of the case and the way it is handled cast a negative light on the Bahamas.
Something doesn't pass the smell test here. . .

[Rainbow]

Peripetria, Thank you so much for the biological explanation you gave. Sounds plausible to me.

[gozgals]

RB:


Thanks for the information Rainbow. I do not think this case will cause the same alarms that the Holloway case did though. That situation is an outright disgrace and still is in the process of being left in the cold with an enormous amount of citizens in an uproar. I think they will find Daniel's outcome to be one that is simplistic when all the reports are made public.

As to the inquest, it is probably standard procedure of the Bahamas, but it may not be necessary.

Kate, thanks for the medical rundown on the drug interactions and Jane, I am known to get tachycardia from cough medication too, but usually it is a result of the "drine" type additives that are put in the product. I now get them free of them.

Have a good weekend all.

Goz

[peripeteia]

Jane:

Phenergan used to be used in cough medications, this drug is also known to cause QT elongation, and all the cough medicines with ephedrine included cause tachycardia, sounds like your son Jane, has a propensity to PAT, Proxisimal atrial tachycardia, a sudden fast transient heart beat,
which can be drug induced, or stress, caffeine, alcohol, and numerous other unknown reasons. There is also wolfe/parkinson/white re entry trachycardia, this can be corrected these days by abalation with Lasers or surgically, to correct the pathway in the electrical sinus node of the heart that is the route of the problem. These sometimes can be controlled by taking antiarrythmic medications. Atrial prolapse can sometimes cause the same symptoms, although the etiology of the ailment differs from other tachycardias.

Any medications for people who have such tachycardias from medicine, or elongation of their QT interval by drugs, need to be very cautious when taking medication and should avoid all over the counter drugs, taking cold and sinus remedies especially, as well as sleeping and sedative medications, street drugs are a definate no with this type of heart dysfunction/sensitivity, such as methamphedimine, crack cocaine
and ritalin or any adrenaline producing drugs.

For some unexplained reasons these heart problems usually show up in teenage, early twenties years, and are often times brought on under conditions of fatigue, illness and or the taking of medications without directions of a physican, alone or a combination thereof..

Sometimes these problems are not evident on autopsy, and normally when you diagnose this type of problem, drugs are given to induce tachycardi for diagnostic purposes, and this is not possible on autopsy. Therefore, it is often hard to nail down such a cause of death, other than if there is sufficent drugs present in toxicology reports to have caused a arrhythmia and arrest.

It is possible as already stated, the antidepressant and ambien is enough in some people to cause them heart problems.
_________________
A vision sent me on the path of seeking justice for Chandra, nothing I've seen in print to date has diminished the vividness but only served to reaffirm the validity of this vision.

[Rainbow]

I am attempting to include a link (or something similar) to one of the CBS online news articles which includes Anna Nicole's attorney, Howard K. Stern's ,remarks on Daniel's death investigation, as well as some of the Bahamanian officials' comments, as well. The comments from both parties could almost be taken as having been expressed to color viewers, listeners and readers opinions regarding the possible causes of Daniel's sudden death.