Friday, October 19, 2007

Berg's Big Lie

If anyone needs proof that Fritz Berg is a charlatan, look no further than this thread which he started on the RODOH forum. In his introductory post, Berg cited a study by Risser and Bjonsch which he claimed "completely supports my view that the vast majority of Reinhardt Camp victims would have appeared RED if they had been killed with carbon monoxide from either diesel exhaust or from gasoline engine exhaust".

Read more!

Anyone who reads Risser and Bjonsch's abstract, cited in that first post, can see quite clearly that this is a lie. The first sentence of the abstract states that:
The aim of this retrospective survey of unintentional carbon monoxide-related deaths in Vienna was to determine whether the cherry-pink coloring of livor mortis is a reliable finding for the coroner to suspect a carbon monoxide-related death immediately at the death scene.
Risser and Bjonsch were therefore studying the ability of coroners to detect the cherry-pink colour associated with livor mortis. A simple internet search reveals that livor mortis is a condition that takes hours to produce the full cherry-pink coloration. For example, as this medical expert explains:
...the color of death, or liver mortis, starts coming on in about two hours and gets more and more intense for about eight to ten hours and then just remains there
It is therefore dishonest to apply this study's finding to a critique of the Reinhardt eyewitness testimony, because the latter is describing corpses immediately after death.

Defenders of Berg may claim that this is an honest error. He's an old man and maybe his failing eyesight did not pick out the words 'livor mortis' in the text, despite it being in the first sentence of the abstract. If this were the case, however, one would expect Berg to stop using the source as soon as the error was pointed out to him. However, a quick visit to the CODOH forum, hosted by the dim-witted faker Jonnie 'Hannover' Hargis, reveals that the 'error' was exposed before Berg started his RODOH thread. On Tuesday September 18th, 2007, 'jnovitz' posted this information:
A distinction should be drawn between liver mortis, which is blood leaking out of the vessels and infusing the tissue - a process that happens several hours after death and the distinctive cherry pink of carbon monoxide poisoning, shown in the top photo.
Berg read this post because he responded in part to it, so he must have known that a study of livor mortis could not be applied to Reinhardt eyewitness testimony, in which the corpses were being described immediately after being gassed. Despite this knowledge, however, Berg started his RODOH thread on Saturday October 13th, 2007, 25 days after his central claim had been debunked on CODOH.

Is it a tribute to the rank stupidity of Hargis that he allowed this clear evidence of Berg's dishonesty to remain on the CODOH forum for us all to discover? Or was he hanging Berg out to dry, bearing in mind that Hargis and Bradley Smith were very critical of Berg here?

3 comments:

space monkey said...

This is not in defence of holocaust deniers. But carbon monoxide toxicity always leaves the corpse pink and healthy looking. It is not liver mortis, but carboxyhaemoglobin that leaves the classic cherry red lip symptoms of the carbon monoxide death. It is apparant for at least two hours after death ( from personal experience as a nurse ) but I am unsure how long long this it lasts.

Roberto Muehlenkamp said...

space monkey,

The article is about Berg having dishonestly used a source that doesn't support his conjectures. If he had used a source referring not to the color of livor mortis but to discoloration right after death, this blog post wouldn't have been written.

Now, your experience sounds with "pink and healthy looking" bodies having "cherry-red" lips sounds interesting. Could you please tell us something more about it on the RODOH thread where this issue is being discussed? Thanks!

Jonathan Harrison said...

space monkey,

Thanks for your reply. However, there are several studies that we have cited on RODOH that dispute whether the 'classic cherry red' symptoms are always visible. To give just one example:
http://www.rodoh.us/arts/arts1/brooks/brooks2002.pdf

Note also that death camp victims were severely malnourished, so Berg's attempt to compare these to previously healthy victims of CO poisoning is another piece of dishonesty on his part.

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