Was the Icelandic doctor Hjalti Már Björnsson’s curious downplaying of my poisoning in Iceland politically motivated? He has written for the hard-Left Icelandic publication Stundin. Does the Hippocratic Oath’s promise to heal not apply to those who are defamed by the Southern Poverty Law Center?
“Robert Spencer files charges against physician at the hospital’s emergency department,” translated from “Robert Spencer kærir lækni á bráðamóttöku Landspítalans,” by Hjálmar Friðriksson, DV, August 17, 2017:
Robert Spencer, editor of Jihad Watch and lecturer, has filed charges against Hjalti Már Björnsson, Emergency doctor at Landspítalinn Emergency Department, to the Ethical Committee of the Medical Association of Iceland and to the Director of Health. Spencer held a very controversial lecture on Islam in May in Iceland, and he was also given poison at the club BarAnanas in Reykjavík.
The investigation of the case has been completed and has been transferred to the police’s Prosecution Division. This means that the police considers the case to be solved, but it is now being decided whether an indictment will be issued.
DV is in possession of Spencer’s charge to the Ethics Committee, which states that he believes that Hjalti Már did not provide him with the correct information when he sought medical treatment at the emergency room. Spencer also believes that political motivations might explain the doctors conduct.
The background to the charge is that shortly after Spencer had been given the poison, he felt a rapid heartbeat, was trembling and vomited. He then went to the emergency hospital where he stayed all night. In Spencer’s charge he states that he felt that Hjalti was quite unfriendly towards him.
“He told me only that I had Ritalin in my bloodstream, and seemed skeptical when I told him that I never took Ritalin. Hjalti Már told me he thought the medical lab tests were mistaken – without explaining to me what the test had revealed – and told me that I had simply had a panic attack,” said Spencer to the Ethics Committee.
Spencer says he does not think that analysis was convincing, because he did not get anxious when Islamic warriors attacked in 2015 at the Curtis Culwell Center in Texas, where he spoke. “The jihadists were armed with two Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles, and the police searched for explosives in the area. I was one of their primary targets. Why didn’t I have a panic attack in midst of all this?,” asks Spencer in his complaint.
Said he was not informed about MDMA
Spencer believes that Hjalti’s analysis was based on politics and not medical science. “Hjalti Már also went on about the stress I was under, urging me to stop doing what I do, without having any evidence that I have ever found it particularly stressful. In retrospect, once I found out he had not told me what the full results of the tests were, his intent seemed to be to get me to believe that I had not been drugged, and that the panic attack I had supposedly had was a sign that I should stop speaking out against jihad terror,” said the appellant.
He said that Hjalti did not inform him that MDMA had been detected in the urine test. “I only saw it when I arrived back at the hotel after leaving Landspítalinn and looked at his written report. I didn’t know what MDMA was, so I googled it and, finding that it was Ecstasy, began to make sense of what really happened. A panic attack is actually a symptom of MDMA overdose. Knowing that, my puzzlement over the episode reduced considerably,” said Spencer, asking why Hjalti had spoken of alleged stress when he knew the outcome of the toxin analysis.
DV has previously published a copy of a medical report signed by Hjalti Már, but Spencer criticizes the report. “It has been brought to my attention by an Icelandic physician and an American physician that the Medical Report that Hjalti Már Björnsson signed is misleading in light of the hospital lab findings. Hjalti Már seems to be downplaying the real issue of what happened. He uses ‘hyponatremia’ as the main diagnoses, when it is actually among the ‘subsidiary diagnoses’ (hliðargreining). He attributed it to my having drunk a good deal of water at the hotel before I went to the emergency room, in order to get the drugs out of my system, before going to the hospital. He did not inform of the fact I discovered later, that hyponatremia is another symptom of MDMA overdose,” said Spencer.
He also claimed that both of these doctors considered it inappropriate to report that there were no signs of serious poisoning. “Not serious for whom? How much poison must one be given for the poisoning to be ‘serious’? I had most of the symptoms of MDMA overdose. That’s serious enough for me. And even worse, I wasn’t even told the facts of the matter by the physician who attended me during my visit to the emergency room at Landspítalinn,” said the complaint, which is dated August 8 of this year.
DV also examined Spencer’s email communications with Kjartan Ólafsson, a police prosecutor in the capital, and Grímur Grímsson, a policeman. They state that several persons have been questioned, including potential culprits. Police also have filmed evidence, such as video recordings. As mentioned earlier, a decision will be made on whether a charge will be issued soon.