"Kurgan Gringioni" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news
[email protected]...
>
> "Bart" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> > after 5 days with Kivilev's shadow over pro cycling, we can happily return to normal news,
> > such as:
> >
> > " Sport Director Gabriele Di Francesco and rider Massimiliano Mori (Ita) both from Formaggi
> > Pinzolo Fiavé are disqualified from the Tirreno-Adriatico due to the "violation of the UCI
> > doping-rules". (Gazzetta) " (cycling4all.com)
> >
> > somewhere in between , I read the French judiciary showed its earnest again by investigating
> > Kivilev's body on forbidden substances. Haven't heard yet whether they'll bring him to court.
>
>
>
>
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/?id=2003/mar03/mar17news2
>
> Outrage at Kivilev autopsy
>
> The riders in Paris-Nice were outraged at the news that an autopsy was
performed on the body of Andrei Kivilev, who died last week
> as a result of an accident during the race. According to an official
statement, the autopsy had to be carried out because the
> accident occurred on a public road, but some believed that it was because
the French justice department was looking for forbidden
> products.
>
> <snip><end>
>
>
>
> If that's really why they're doing the autopsy, it is the final word on
whether or not the French judiciary has its head up its ass.
>
In France, like the U.S., autopsies are *generally* performed when a death occurs outside the direct
care of a physician to determine the "official" cause of death. Often, the determination of cause of
death is pretty perfunctory especially when the cause of death seems obvious to the lay eye, but
sometimes you want to know if a person died from falling down the stairs or if he fell down the
stairs because he had a heart attack. It's a pretty specialized skill -- not just any physician is
trained in the determination of cause of death, particularly in what are considered "contributing
causes:" you may know that the cause of death was a car accident, but sometimes you check to see if
a contibuting cause was drunkeness. This is often done simply with a blood test -- it needn't be as
gory as was shown each week on The X-Files or CSI. The bottom line is that this may be distasteful,
but it's not at all unusual for either France or the U.S. or most developed countries. If you don't
have to deal with death statistics just don't know or think about it.
