Osama bin Laden, the Dialysis Patient

Shortly after 9/11, there were many reports that bin Laden was on dialysis. Jokes went around about bin Laden receiving dialysis treatments in a cave in Afghanistan. At the time, I didn't pay much attention to this, but for the two years I was a dialysis patient, I sure wondered, "How in the hell can he still be alive? All these many years on dialysis!"

As the majority of American dialysis patients are dead within five years of starting dialysis, it seemed ludicrous to me that a man on the run, subject to extremely challenging conditions and probably often unsanitary conditions could survive for more than a decade on dialysis. That's why when it was recently announced that bin Laden had been killed, I thought, So much bullshit. Is everything the government says a lie?

Here, for example, is an article by the respected British newspaper the Guardian about Osama getting a portable dialysis machine in late 2001. This same article states what has already been reported elsewhere: that Osama was visited by the CIA while hospitalized in July 2001 in Dubai. The New York Times reported that Osama died in December 2001. For extensive links to credible reports of bin Laden's death in 2001, see this site.

Now the American spin doctors--aka American mainstream media--are attempting to cover their tracks, stating that Osama's dialysis is one of the "myths" about him. I love this report from ABC News, which states that there was no evidence of dialysis treatments at the Pakistan compound where Osama was "killed." Well, OK, that could mean one of two things: 1) Osama was not on dialysis, and he was killed a few weeks ago, or 2) Osama may have been on dialysis, but the man who was killed a few weeks ago was not Osama. Guess which one I'm banking on?