MRS. SPATKINS

By STEFAN C. FRIEDMAN

February 15, 2004 -- Less than a month after publicly lambasting Mayor Bloomberg for tarnishing her husband's legacy, the widow of Dr. Robert Atkins already has a new target in her sights - people who don't eat meat.
"They're like the Taliban. They're the vegetarian Taliban," Veronica Atkins fumes in an interview with "Dateline NBC" set to air Friday in conjunction with the last American TV interview with Dr. Atkins before his death.

"They're nasty. I've seen them. I've been to conventions, and everything else. They are nasty, nasty people," Mrs. Atkins continues.

Mrs. Atkins was infuriated when the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine - a group that promotes a vegetarian diet - obtained the diet guru's medical records that showed that he weighed a beefy 258 pounds when he died.

Mrs. Atkins contends the group then leaked the medical records to the Wall Street Journal in an attempt to prove that Dr. Atkins' low-carb, protein-rich diet was responsible for his massive girth.

"If they had obtained them, [that's] one thing," she said. "But they send them around to everybody. As a physician, is that honorable? Is that honest? Have they forgotten . . . their oath?"

The president of PCRM says the Atkins people brought this on themselves by using Dr. Atkins himself as a spokesman for the diet.

"Dr. Atkins used details of his own heart health in a completely inappropriate way for the sole purpose of promoting his diet," said Dr. Neal Barnard.

"This absurd claim that Atkins was in great heart health has gone forward, and it has been simply untrue."

Atkins supporters claim he gained an astounding 63 pounds from attempts to save his life - including being fed intravenous fluids - during the eight days he spent in the hospital prior to his death.

Several doctors told The Post that a brain-injured patient on life support can easily gain 20 to 30 pounds of fluid in a week, but they called a 63-pound weight gain implausible, even ridiculous.

Many who saw Dr. Atkins in his last years noticed he was a little heavy around the middle.

While not calling him fat, some say the controversial diet guru was pear-shaped and had a flabby gut. "He wasn't Dom DeLuise, but he wasn't thin," said radio host Mark Simone, who saw Atkins several times.

"He didn't look like a guy who you'd ask, 'You look great. What diet are you on?' "

As for Mrs. Atkins' feud with Bloomberg, who called Dr. Atkins "fat" and suggested he actually died from health problems and not a slip on icy pavement, Mrs. Atkins says the hatchet is officially buried.

The mayor "created quite a storm," she says, laughing. "But I don't think he really meant harm."

Source: http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/17928.htm