[This is the headline over a report in today's edition of the Daily Mail. It reads in part:]
Freed from his life sentence, the Lockerbie bomber was sent home by the Scots on compassionate grounds because he had 'just three months' to live. (...)
Yesterday, his elderly father even held out the prospect of him beating the prostate cancer that doctors said would kill him by last Christmas.
Mr Ali al-Megrahi believes that good genes, 'positive thinking' and alternative medicines could explain his son's remarkable survival.
Megrahi, 57, no longer receives hospital treatment after ending a course of chemotherapy.
Last night, the British cancer specialist who gave the three-month prognosis was forced to defend his prediction. (...)
His father, who is in his early 80s and keeps a vigil at his son's side in the family's plush villa in the capital Tripoli, still believes a 'miracle' could happen.
He said: 'A close relative was diagnosed with a similar disease and he was treated and recovered completely. We hope that Abdelbaset recovers his health as well.
'I think that the sick are not just cured by medicine, but also by having a high morale and a sense of freedom, and these were not available to Abdelbaset in prison.'
Megrahi receives 24-hour nursing care and, though often heavily sedated, receives well-wishers.
The relaxed, peaceful atmosphere has enabled him to more than double his original survival prognosis, and he says he is 'inspired and feeling very positive' thanks to the support of family and friends. (...)
Last July, the Libyan government paid for Megrahi to be examined by three cancer specialists, among them British expert Professor Karol Sikora. It was their prognosis that won his freedom.
Professor Sikora told the Mail: 'I am very surprised that he is still alive. He is not receiving any active treatment. The latest information I have from Tripoli is that he is not a well man, and I suspect he will be dead within a month or so.'
Professor Sikora said he suspected Megrahi was hanging on because he had received a ' psychological' boost from being reunited with his family and countrymen.
Indeed the former Libyan secret service agent and his wife and five adult children are treated like royalty in Libya.
Frank Duggan, president of the Victims of Pan Am 103, which represents U.S. relatives, said: 'His people tried to have us believe he had one foot in the grave.
'Then to hear that he is doing quite well medically and is living in a luxury villa makes them all the more frustrated.'
That the word of an 80 year father with no apparent oncological knowledge is trotted out as fact and something to be taken as authoritative is amazing.
ReplyDeleteThe piece is from the Daily Mail, a newspaper known for its dishonesty, belief in alternative "medicine", homoeopathy, scaremongering and downright falsehoods where medical stories are concerned.
That the notorious Mr. Frank Duggan makes an appearance is not surprising. He is a known US Government placeman who though having nothing to do with Pan Am 103 has got himself an important position with the VPAF103 organisation, and he has emailed me about my views saying that if I don't believe that Mr Megrahi is guilty, I am tantamount to being a Holocaust denier, and when I have pointed out that there was rather more evidence for the Holocaust than of Mr Megrahi's guilt, I naturally got no reply.
The amount of disinformation in these stories is utterly astonishing. And their writers appear to be without any shame whatsoever.
Oooh, if he stops being about to die, that could get awkward.
ReplyDeleteOh, come on!
ReplyDeleteMr Ali al-Megrahi believes that good genes, 'positive thinking' and alternative medicines could explain his son's remarkable survival.
As a fully-paid-up member of the anti-homoeopathy illuminati, I have to tell you I have heard all that before. Megrahi's dad's a woo. And the Daily Mail likes to stir it.
In other news, the Pope is still a Catholic.