Dr. Joshua Perper, the Broward Co. Chief Medical examiner has released Anna Nicole Smith’s autopsy report:
From the police chief - No illegal drugs were found - nothing unusual found on hotel security video, nothing on Stern’s computer - accidental overdose with no other criminal elements present.
From Dr. Perper: Anna Nicole was suffering from a stomach flu in the days prior to her death, at the time of the autopsy they didnt know what was wrong. They took many cultures during the beginning of the autopsy process. Microscopic cultures showed no disease that could have caused death. A variety of drugs were found in her system, weight loss drugs, anti depressants and pain medications. She had injected either B12, HGH or another longevity drug into her buttocks. He affirmed the pain in her buttocks and her getting ill in the process of coming to the US - when she got to her destination she had a temperature of 105. She was given Tamiflu for her symptoms, an antibiotic (Cipro) and she refused to go to the doctor. She was given an ice bath, and took sleeping medication and went to sleep, with her temperature never rising again. Her symptoms improved over the next couple of days.
They went back to check for infection a week later - did a dissection of the buttocks and found severe scarring, and abcesses under the skin. They believe that a needle punctured an abcess that was under the skin, and infectious material reached the bloodstream and caused her high fever a few days prior to her death. No bacteria was found in the blood at the time of the autopsy, meaning that the Cipro was controlling the bacteria. At that point, they thought the infection was what killed Anna Nicole. Dr. Perper did not identify the bacteria found.
The 3rd week, they got the toxicology reports back, and found the high levels of chloral hydrate and metabolites, along with many other drugs, but not necessarily toxic levels of any one drug. Final cause of death is an accidental drug overdose, with contributing causes being her infectious abcesses, a viral intestinal infection and possibly the flu. It is not ruled a suicide, not enough of one particular drug was found. Her illnesses could have possibly made her body not be able to handle her over-self-medicating as well as it normally would have.
They have made no statement of what the bacterial infection was, I will update if and when that information is released.
Anna Nicole Smith, autopsy, Florida, infection, joshua perper, MRSA, MRSA in the U.S., overdose, PR & Media .gif)
2 responses so far ↓
deborah sutton // May 2, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Why did they not identify Anna’s type of bacterial infection?? I find this unusual as this I am sure was cultured.
Klebsiella Pneumoniae can affect the lungs, abdominal cavity, also causing abcesses in liver, etc. ultimately in death if untreated. It is usually treated with Ceclor (obviously what she was on), but was it too late??
This is usually detected as easily as a urine culture. (Just as bad as staph infection). I am quite surprised that this was not address by authorities in the medical profession.
Christina Jones // May 3, 2007 at 8:26 pm
I totally agree with you - I sat on the edge of my seat listening for the information, and attempted to reach the coroners office about it as well, but with no luck. I am SO sure this was MRSA, or at the very least regular variety Staph. Maybe I need to see if I can get in touch with the coroner now that the media frenzy has died down…
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