Pathologist at Arafat's hospital breaks silence: "Absolutely no way Arafat was poisoned!"

In a report by Anica Pommeray published in the Times of Israel (Nov 13, '12) Dr. Roland Masse, a specialist on radioactivity and professor at Percy military hospital which treated Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, declared that Arafat had been tested for radioactive poisoning, and its symptoms would have been ‘impossible to miss.’.

A leading French doctor who teaches at the Paris hospital where Yasser Arafat died in 2004 has broken the official French medical silence surrounding the case to tell The Times of Israel, based on Arafat’s medical report, that there is “absolutely no way” the Palestinian leader was poisoned. 

Dr. Roland Masse, a member of the prestigious Académie de Médecine who currently teaches radiopathology at Percy Military Training Hospital in the Paris suburb of Clamart, where Arafat was hospitalized two weeks before his death on November 11 eight years ago, spoke to The Times of Israel to scotch the allegations of polonium poisoning two weeks before a group of scientists are set to take samples for testing from Arafat’s body. 

Masse said the symptoms of polonium poisoning would have been “impossible to miss,” noted that Percy had tested Arafat for radiation poisoning, and revealed that the hospital specializes in the related field of radiation detection. “A lethal level of polonium simply cannot go unnoticed,” he said, speaking as workers in Ramallah on Tuesday began the process of preparing Arafat’s grave for exhumation.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat blows a kiss as he leaves a Jordanian military helicopter upon arrival in Amman, Jordan, Friday Oct. 29. 2004. The 75-year-old Arafat walked off the helicopter that had ferried him from the West Bank to a small white French hospital plane that had been waiting on the tarmac in Amman before traveling on to Paris for urgent medical treatment (photo credit: AP Photo/Petra)

Dr. Thierry Revel, the head of the Hematology Department at Percy who signed the medical report on November 14, 2004, has refused to comment on the case. Indeed, medical confidentiality laws prevent doctors in France from divulging any information on their current or past patients. It was Arafat’s family that chose to make public the late Palestinian leader’s medical report; Al Jazeera, a Qatar-based news outlet, said in July that it had received the report from Arafat’s widow Suha. 

In a telephone interview with The Times of Israel, Masse said flatly that “there is absolutely no way the symptoms described in Yasser Arafat’s medical report match those of poisoning by polonium.” Masse elaborated: “When in contact with high levels of polonium, the body suffers from acute radiation which translates into a state of anemia and a severe decrease in white blood cells. And yet Arafat did not present any of those symptoms. 

What did decrease was his platelets, not his white blood cells,” said Masse, who may have been prepared to discuss the case because he does not treat patients at Percy, only teaching there. Noting that radiation detection happens to be one of the areas in which Percy military hospital excels, Masse said that while Arafat’s medical report contains no specific reference to a test for polonium, it does specify that a number of tests were conducted to check if the patient had been subjected to radioactive substances.  Read more: