|
Post by Admin on Jun 14, 2017 18:18:28 GMT
An American college student imprisoned by North Korea and in a coma for more than a year returned to his home state of Ohio Tuesday night. Otto Warmbier, 22, a University of Virginia student, was serving a 15-year sentence for alleged anti-state acts. North Korean officials reportedly suggested that Warmbier came down with a case of botulism and fell into a coma after being given a sleeping pill, multiple media outlets reported. Botulism is a potent neurotoxin produced by the bacterium, Clostridium botulinum. It causes the nerves not to function properly and basically, leads to paralysis in some muscles, according to Orlando Health physician Jamin Brahmbhatt. It's typically associated with foods that were not properly processed or stored. "Botulism ... can lead to relaxation of all the muscles in your body and the muscles that are around your lungs, which can cause trouble breathing, and that’s when you get into major trouble," he said. He notes Botox, which is used to treat everything from wrinkles to migraines, is a diluted form of the same toxin that causes botulism.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jun 16, 2017 18:12:32 GMT
Doctors caring for released North Korea detainee Otto Warmbier said he has not spoken or moved on his own since he arrived in the United States on Tuesday, a condition they described as "unresponsive wakefulness" or persistent vegetative state. The 22-year-old has suffered extensive loss of brain tissue in all regions of the brain, doctors at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center said in a news conference Thursday. The doctors said they had no information about the care he received in North Korea. Though they could not say with certainty what caused his injuries, they found no evidence to support the botulism claim. But an analysis of images from North Korea of Warmbier's brain dated April 2016 suggests the injury occurred in the preceding weeks. "We have no certifiable knowledge of the cause or circumstances of his neurological injuries," Kanter said. "This pattern of brain injury is usually seen as result of cardiopulmonary arrest where blood supply to (the) brain is inadequate for a period of time, resulting in the death of brain tissue."
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jun 26, 2017 18:29:03 GMT
North Korea has accused the US of conducting a smear campaign against the regime over Otto Warmbier, the American student who was sent home in a coma after 17 months in prison. The 22-year-old, who died on 19 June – just over a week after being flown home to Ohio – had spent a year suffering from a severe brain injury that North Korean doctors claimed had been caused by a heart attack and taking a pill for botulism. In North Korea’s first public comment on Warmbier’s death, a spokesman for the foreign ministry said claims that Warmbier was beaten and tortured in captivity were “groundless”. “The fact that Warmbier died suddenly less than a week after his return to the US in his normal state of health … is a mystery to us as well,” the spokesman said, according to the KCNA state news agency.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jul 22, 2017 18:37:27 GMT
U.S. citizens have long been able to visit North Korea as tourists, but that will soon change. On Friday, the Trump administration announced that it was planning to bar U.S. tourists from traveling to North Korea next month. The move coincides with increasing tension between the Trump administration and Pyongyang about North Korea's nuclear weapons program. It also comes after Otto Warmbier, an American student, was detained while on a trip to North Korea and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. The decision to ban travel by U.S. citizens to a foreign country marks an unusual policy shift for the State Department, harking back to restrictions on travel not widely used since the Cold War era.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Nov 20, 2017 18:34:03 GMT
President Trump on Monday announced that his administration has re-designated North Korea as a state sponsor of terror, a move aimed at increasing pressure on Pyongyang nearly a decade after the George W. Bush administration removed the rogue nation from the list.
Trump made his decision public during a brief photo op at a Cabinet meeting, calling it "a very critical step" that "should've happened a long time ago." The president cited assassinations by dictator Kim Jong Un's regime carried out on foreign soil, as well as the treatment of American college student Otto Warmbier, who died in June days after he was released in a coma by the North after spending 17 months in captivity.
|
|