1 - Pro-Trump Black American Group’s
Controversial Link to Turkey – Part I
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
2- Schools reopen in Armenia under pandemic protocols
3 - Restaurant Owner from Armenia stranded in Thailand
4- Koming to a Klose: ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’
Ending After 20 Seasons on E!
5- Letters to the Editor
6- John Najarian, pioneering transplant surgeon, dies at 92
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1 - Pro-Trump Black American Group’s
Controversial Link to Turkey – Part I
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
The Salon.com website published on September 4 and 5, 2020, a lengthy
two-part expose of a Black American group that tried to raise funds
from Turkish businesses in support of President Trump’s reelection.
The articles were titled, “How a pro-Trump Black group became an
off-the-books Turkish lobbying campaign: A Salon investigation reveals
a strange tale of Black Trump surrogates who tried to leverage Turkish
billions,” and “The Turkey hustle: How a pro-Trump Black group became
unofficial lobbyists for Erdogan: A sketchy nonprofit linked to the
Trump campaign tried to orchestrate a massive trade deal.” The
articles were written by Roger Sollenberger and Kathleen O’Neill.
Salon.com reported that “In 2018, officials with a controversial
pro-Trump nonprofit called the Urban Revitalization Coalition
(URC)—which recently lost its tax-exempt charity status and made
headlines earlier this year with suspicious cash giveaways to Black
voters—facilitated an off-the-books foreign influence campaign on
behalf of powerful people in Turkey.”
“URC officials Darrell Scott and Kareem Lanier, both prominent Trump
surrogates in the Black community, are said by multiple sources to
have used the organization as a vehicle to ‘solicit donations,’
including from wealthy Turkish nationals. Some of these solicitations
came by way of former MAGA-world star [Turkish writer] Rabia Kazan,”
according to Salon.com.
Furthermore, “an associate of Scott and Lanier named Bruce Levell, a
Trump surrogate, former congressional candidate and Small Business
Association advocate…allegedly shook down Kazan for cash, then asked
her to destroy records after reports of government raids on former
Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s home and offices,” Salon.com reported.
These Black American efforts were intended to shape U.S. policy
expecting a large investment in the United States by Turkish
businessmen. According to Salon.com, “some of these activities,
described in detail below, raise serious legal questions, such as
violations of rules governing tax and lobbying law, experts tell
Salon. Legal experts and people familiar with the URC told Salon that
given these activities, the organization appears to have functioned as
a shell lobbying and fundraising operation, and a go-between that
communicated with both the Trump administration (and Trump campaign)
and Turkish interests close to Erdogan. This is a story about how
peripheral players, including foreign nationals, worked on the legal
margins of lobbying, campaign and foreign agent laws amid the chaotic
free-for-all of the Trump presidency. They blurred official and
unofficial administration posts with other organizational and campaign
roles, and obscured the source and usage of funds from both the public
and government agencies such as the IRS and Federal Elections
Commission.”
It all started in 2018, when “URC officials first curried financial
favors and investments from Turkish business representatives in
connection with an economic initiative launched by the Trump
administration,” according to Salon.com. “Turkish business emissaries
secured meetings in New York and Washington that extended to Trump
officials, Republican members of Congress and campaign surrogates such
as Tom Barrack [billionaire and close friend of Pres. Trump], and Lara
Trump [the president’s daughter-in-law and Trump campaign adviser].”
This multi-billion dollar scheme was intended to open the American
manufacturing market to Turkish companies. “The fact that these
meetings were apparently geared towards influencing official U.S.
policy, experts say, raises questions about whether those involved
should have registered with the Department of Justice as foreign
agents,” Salon.com reported.
“The URC made headlines when it held campaign-tinged events with cash
giveaways for Black voters in poor communities, including a $25,000
raffle last December—something the organization had told the IRS it
wouldn’t do. Politico described the raffles as a nationwide strategy
of holding events ‘in Black communities where they lavish praise on
the president while handing out thousands of dollars in giveaways,’”
according to Salon.com.
“Multiple people familiar with the workings of the URC told Salon that
it was clear that Scott and Lanier established the organization to do
what they had frequently told Rabia Kazan they were prevented from
doing within Michael Cohen’s politically-focused predecessor
organization, the National Diversity Coalition, which was effectively
an arm of the Trump campaign. That is, to take in money. There’s
documentary evidence that the URC sought and received large sums of
money in at least one instance. It received a $238,000 grant from
America First Policies, a pro-Trump dark money organization affiliated
with the super PAC America First Action. The URC received the grant in
2018, a few months after directing Kazan to seek financial
contributions. Because the URC never filed a tax return, however, it
is impossible to know how much money the group took in or how that
money was spent,” Salon.com reported.
Turkish businessman Ali Akat, “who met several times with Scott and
Lanier, was supposedly discussing a comprehensive,
multi-billion-dollar investment plan that would open opportunities for
Turkish companies to gain manufacturing and packaging footholds by
investing and building factories in Opportunity Zones,” according to
Salon.com. “The plan would have taken advantage of a loophole in U.S.
tariffs. Akat told Turkish media that Turkish business owners could
evade high duties if they exported unfinished products to the U.S.,
where those products would be assembled and packaged, ideally by
Turkish companies in Opportunity Zones.”
To be continued in the next issue.
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2- Schools reopen in Armenia under pandemic protocols
By Raffi Elliott
YEREVAN (The Armenian Weekly)—Schools and universities across Armenia
are receive their students this week, as the scholastic year started
on September 15. All educational institutions were abruptly shut down
in March as the novel coronavirus first began to spread in the
Caucasus republic. Classes were moved online as the Ministry of
Education coordinated remote learning for the rest of the semester.
Kindergartens were permitted to reopen in late May when the risk of
transmission from children was deemed lower.
The new realities of distance education, however, unveiled significant
challenges and infrastructural shortcomings as older, less tech-savvy
educators and students from more vulnerable families struggled to cope
with technological limitations. Uncertainty over the university
application exams remained a particular point of contention for high
school graduates throughout the summer, but Education Minister Arayik
Harutyunyan did promise a simplified examination process under strict
compliance with pandemic protocols to ensure that students would not
miss out on higher education.
In the week running up to the reopening of schools, testing has ramped
up among students and faculty. Explaining the spike in testing this
week—reaching 3,518 for a 24-hour period—Health Ministry Spokeswoman
Alina Nikoghosyan said, “The increase of the number of tests is due to
the fact that teachers are being tested. They must be tested before
the schools are reopened.” Students and staff are also being advised
to self-quarantine before school. “In order to avoid new restrictions,
please limit interactions of students and schoolchildren between
September 1-14,” Minister Harutyunyan posted on his Facebook page.
According to the latest guidelines for safely reopening educational
institutions issued by the Ministry of Education, classes will be
divided into two smaller groups in socially-distanced classrooms,
while students rotate between the first and second halves of the day.
To make up for the shorter school days, classes will also take place
on Saturdays. Courses which can be taught remotely, will. Masks are
also mandatory in class. According to the Education Minister, this
would make the potential for sporadic outbreaks much more manageable
and would require only those students directly exposed to be
quarantined, reserving school shutdowns for more extreme cases.
The decision to reopen schools has been made in consideration of the
vastly improved epidemiological situation in the country in recent
months. That hasn’t stopped some people from protesting both in favor
and against the reopening of schools. Certain epidemiologists and
health experts initially also raised concerns that many educational
institutions did not have the sanitary equipment to fulfill their
healthcode guidelines, but the Ministry says they have taken these
concerns into account.
Since the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed on March 1, a strict
three-week lockdown managed to slow the spread of the virus enough for
the medical system to keep up, but the number of new cases began to
grow exponentially in the wake of the rollback of restrictions on most
freedom of movement and commerce on May 4. Peaking in late June and
early July at an average rate of 500 new cases per day, the daily new
case rate has experienced a steady and rapid decline over the summer
following the introduction of mandatory masks and stricter enforcement
of social-distancing protocols.
While Armenia has registered a total of 45,969 confirmed cases of
COVID-19 since March, the number of active cases has dropped
considerably as the number of new recoveries greatly outpaces the rate
of new infections. As of September, 3,357 people are recovering from
the virus, while some 41-thousand have already made full recoveries.
At least 919 mostly-elderly people with preexisting health conditions
have died as a result of contracting the virus. Health Minister Arsen
Torosyan has cited projections showing the rate of new infections
remaining at between 100 and 150 per day until a vaccine becomes
widely available given the continued contact and movement between
people despite widespread respect of social distancing rules.
The government has also passed new legislation enabling authorities to
temporarily keep enforcing the use of masks and anti-epidemic measures
in order to avoid extending the State of Emergency (SOE) situation
again. The SOE, which has been maintained since March 16—albeit with
the majority of constitutional restrictions being lifted—is set to
expire on September 12. Foreign passport holders have been permitted
to enter the country and avoid the mandatory 14-day quarantine upon
the submission of negative test results. Several airlines have already
resumed flights to Zvartnots International Airport and still more have
announced new scheduled connections, including Belavia, Ural airline,
Fly Dubai, Air France, Qatar Airways, MEA and Ryanair.
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3 - Restaurant Owner from Armenia stranded in Thailand
By Armine Avetisyan
Varda Avetisyan, 38—a well-known restaurant owner in Armenia—and her
partner were on their way to Koh Samu Island for a vacation in
Thailand on January 28. They could not even imagine that their 2-month
vacation would turn into a long-term business project. The borders
closing between the countries because of the coronavirus took Varda’s
life in a new direction.
“January was coming to an end when my boyfriend and I went on
vacation. We had not had time off for quite a long time, and planned
to stay in Thailand for 2 months. We bought the return ticket for
April 2. I was three months pregnant at that time. We had planned to
do yoga, to relax. In short, I went for a fine vacation, which,
however, became something entirely different,” Varda says.
Already in early March, the couple realised that their plans would
change. In March, international flights began to be delayed one by
one. “Then everybody’s visas were automatically extended for three
months, so that the Migration Service would not be crowded for that
purpose. Just from that moment we realised that we would stay here for
a long time and there would be challenges, and we started looking for
a solution”, Varda recalls.
Varda was born in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, but lived in the
United States for part of her life. She applied for a US exchange
programme and was accepted. She went to study in America and lived
there for 13 years.
She started to work in a restaurant—first she washed dishes, then
waited tables, then became a manager. She likes to enter a restaurant
and write a new menu, recruit new staff, and enjoy the local cuisine.
Years later, she did the same in Armenia. She has set up several small
restaurants in Armenia, with colourful, delicious cuisine.
She says she is very at ease in this business. “We needed money to
keep living on the island. We needed to work. We had no money left, we
had spent everything we had. And we were not the only ones in this
situation. I decided that I should earn money with the business that
was closest to my heart, cuisine. I created the “Vegan Villa” group on
the Internet, posted videos and photos of my dishes, wrote the prices,
and waited for further developments. After a very short time the
orders came, we sold out and the work started…”
Varda’s friends, who had come from Russia and the United States to
join them for leisure, helped her out. They all rented a big house,
left the hotel, and started developing the business.
“Everyone had different jobs, but they quickly got into the part. It
was not a bad experience. It was also a profitable business, we were
able to earn enough money to cover all the costs. It was also very
interesting to create dishes with the island’s goods, I was fascinated
by the endless range of colors”.
Varda recalls that a curfew was set on the island, so they worked at
the permitted hours, delivering food to tourists stranded on the
island like them.
“There is nothing impossible in life. This is another proof that it is
possible to start a business from scratch and not go hungry. I’m
thankful for this further opportunity.” Then Varda’s online restaurant
was closed: flights reopened, tourists returned to their countries.
Varda and her partner stayed a bit longer. First their flight was
delayed, and then she was in the last month of pregnancy and could not
fly. The baby could be born any moment, and it would have been too
risky.
Returning to Armenia, however, was very important for Varda, and she
made it home one month after the baby was born. Many things awaited
her. Her restaurants in Dilijan, one of the most beautiful tourist
cities in Armenia, had to close because of coronavirus. The rent was
too high. But she has two more, one of which was also closed, but has
already reopened, with visitors especially on weekends.
“My restaurants are small, colorful. I am an optimist. I hope
everything will be fine”, concludes Varda.
This article appeared in Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa on
August 27, 2020.
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4- Koming to a Klose: ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’
Ending After 20 Seasons on E!
After 20 seasons, “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” will be coming to
an end with the final season airing in early 2021.
The decision to end the show was made by the Kardashian-Jenner family
and announced on Tuesday, September 8.
“It is with heavy hearts that we say goodbye to ‘Keeping Up with the
Kardashians,’” the famous family said in a joint statement, signed by
Kris Jenner, Kourtney Kardashian, Kim Kardashian West, Khloé
Kardashian, Rob Kardashian, Kendall Jenner, Kylie Jenner and Scott
Disick.
“After what will be 14 years, 20 seasons, hundreds of episodes and
several spin-off shows, we’ve decided as a family to end this very
special journey. We are beyond grateful to all of you who’ve watched
us for all of these years — through the good times, the bad times, the
happiness, the tears, and the many relationships and children. We’ll
forever cherish the wonderful memories and countless people we’ve met
along the way.”
The family thanked E!, the production team at Bunim/Murray and Ryan
Seacrest, who has been an executive producer on the show since the
beginning.
E! released an official statement to Variety, regarding the ending of
the monumental show that helped define the network as a destination
beyond entertainment news. Over the years, with “KUWTK” as their
flagship unscripted series, E! transformed into a cabler for hit
reality programming, and in more recent years, delved into scripted
content, as well.
“E! has been the home and extended family to the Kardashian-Jenners
for what will be 14 years, featuring the lives of this empowering
family,” the network’s statement reads. “Along with all of you, we
have enjoyed following the intimate moments the family so bravely
shared by letting us into their daily lives. While it has been an
absolute privilege and we will miss them wholeheartedly, we respect
the family’s decision to live their lives without our cameras.”
“KUWTK” has been a massive hit globally for the network, which airs
repeats of the franchise constantly — and pays a pretty penny for
those rights. In 2017, E! inked a mega-deal with the family for a
three-year extension, taking the show through 2020, valued at nine
figures. At the time, insiders told Variety that the renewal deal was
worth “below $100 million,” though other reports stated the deal was
worth up to $150 million.
The show premiered in 2007, and turned the Kardashian-Jenner family
into international superstars with a multimedia empire complete with
clothing lines, cosmetics companies, apps and never-ending tabloid
interest in their every move. When the show debuted, Kris Jenner, now
known as one of the savviest businesswomen in the industry, was known
to the public as the ex-wife of O.J. Simpson attorney Robert
Kardashian. Her former spouse Caitlyn Jenner also ended up starring in
her own E! spinoff, “I Am Cait,” which documented her transition into
a transgender woman.
When the show hit the air, the family was best known for
Kardashian-West’s sex tape, which brought worldwide attention to the
socialite who was previously Paris Hilton’s sidekick. Today,
Kardashian-West is one of the most recognizable faces on the planet,
and has taken her power to the White House with her passion for
criminal justice reform. Meanwhile, Kendall and Kylie Jenner were just
kids when the show first started airing, and now are two of the most
powerful — and lucrative — influencers in the world.
At the time of the series’ 10-year anniversary in 2017, Kris Jenner
spoke to Variety about the show’s milestones and futures. In that
interview, she spoke about when the time may come to end the show,
saying, “I used to just joke and say it’ll be when Kylie gets married
in 20 years, and here we are 10 years later. Who thought a decade
later we would still be going as strong as we are.”
In 2015 the return of season 10 set the stage for Kim and Khloé’s
eight-day trip to Armenia, filmed that April, along with Kim’s husband
Kanye West and daughter North. Cousins Kourtni and Kara joined them
when they landed.
They visited Armenia’s capital city of Yerevan, where they toured
around with relatives, and paid their respects at the centennial
commemoration of the Armenian Genocide.
The family returned in 2019 when Kim Kardashian West had Psalm,
Chicago and Saint West baptized.
Kourtney Kardashian also made the trip with her kids, Mason, Penelope and Reign.
Kim and husband Kanye West traveled abroad to have their firstborn,
North, baptized in Jerusalem. According to The Jerusalem Post, North’s
2015 baptism took place at the Cathedral of St. James in the historic
Armenian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, which goes back to the
4th century A.D.
“Thank you Armenia for hosting my family and me in such a memorable
trip,” she captioned the post. “So blessed to have been baptized along
with my babies at Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Armenia’s main
cathedral which is sometimes referred to as the Vatican of the
Armenian Apostolic Church. This church was built in 303 AD.”
Kanye West, 42, was not along for the trip.
The famous family members posted about the show ending on their social
media accounts, which reach hundreds of millions of fans.
Kardashian-West posted to her 188 million followers: “Without ‘Keeping
Up with The Kardashians,’ I wouldn’t be where I am today. I am so
incredibly grateful to everyone who has watched and supported me and
my family these past 14 incredible years,” she wrote. “This show made
us who we are and I will be forever in debt to everyone who played a
role in shaping our careers and changing our lives forever.”
This article appeared in Variety on September 9, 2020.
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5- Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor:
There have been several recent articles in The California Courier
about Armenian cemeteries being desecrated in Turkey by so-called
treasure hunters.
Attention, Citizens of Turkey engaged in desecrating Armenian
cemeteries on quests for hidden treasure. You need to look in your own
back yards, gardens, roads and buildings under construction. There you
will perhaps find a treasure trove of Armenian skeletons with gold
fillings and maybe gold rings and bracelets, too. Here’s a location
for you, treasure hunters: Mush, where in 1915, forty ox wagons with
women and children aboard were burned to death by Turkish soldiers
(from the personal diary of Bodil Biorn, born in Norway, who later was
a missionary to Turkey). And while you are at it, don’t forget the
western Marmara region either, treasure hunters, where in my father’s
village of Keramet (according to Hurriyet Daily News on November 2,
2013) officials dug up tons of dirt underneath a home to locate buried
gold. Too late, treasure hunters, as the Kerametzis had removed the
gold crosses and chalices from St. Minas church and transported all to
Bulgaria (see book: “Deli Sarkis: The Scars He Carried”).
What a heartbreaking turn of events for the citizens of Turkey
continuing the 105-year desecration of Armenian cemeteries, and
foundations of Medieval Armenian churches looking for wealth. It makes
one want to weep for all the hard working Turkish Treasure Hunters.
Ellen Sarkisian Chesnut
Alameda, Calif.
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6- John Najarian, pioneering transplant surgeon, dies at 92
By Emily Langer
John Najarian, a celebrated transplant surgeon who, by dint of his
skill on the operating table and with an anti-rejection drug that
landed him on trial in federal court, expanded the lifesaving
potential of organ transplants beyond what was once thought to be
possible, died Aug. 31 at a nursing home in Stillwater, Minn. He was
92.
He had heart ailments, said his son David Najarian.
Historians of medicine place Dr. Najarian in the pantheon of surgeons
who developed organ transplantation in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, in
the process overcoming the skepticism of critics who regarded the
procedure as an impossibility, something drawn from science fiction.
“This was the thing that drove me the most,” Dr. Najarian once said,
according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, “to find a way that we could
in fact transplant organs from one individual to another. Wouldn’t
this be wonderful if we could do it?”
The most noted early pioneers in the field include the Nobel laureate
Joseph E. Murray, who in 1954 performed the first successful human
organ transplant — a kidney transplant between identical twins; Thomas
E. Starzl, who in 1967 performed the first successful human liver
transplant; and Christiaan N. Barnard, who performed the first human
heart transplant, also in 1967.
Collectively, these surgeons and others of their generation
transformed organ transplants from “experimental treatment into
reality,” said Joshua D. Mezrich, a professor of surgery at the
University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and the
author of the book “When Death Becomes Life: Notes From a Transplant
Surgeon.”
Dr. Najarian spent most of his career at the University of Minnesota’s
medical school, where he built an internationally known transplant
program — and cut an unusual profile in hospital corridors.
He stood 6-foot-3, weighed 250 pounds and wore size 15 shoes,
according to his son. A former college football star, he was a tackle
for the California Golden Bears, played in the 1949 Rose Bowl and
declined a chance to join the Chicago Bears in favor of studying
medicine.
But in the operating room, he performed devilishly complex surgeries
with the precision of a miniaturist. In 1970, Dr. Najarian stitched a
new kidney into a 6-week-old baby, using magnification to view the
child’s minuscule veins. At a time when few other surgeons would
perform transplants on children so young, Dr. Najarian would review
their cases and declare: “I can do it.”
Perhaps his most famous transplant patient was 11-month-old Jamie
Fiske, who was born with biliary atresia, a rare condition of the
liver and bile ducts. In 1982, after her father made national news
with his plea for a new liver for his daughter, Dr. Najarian
transplanted the liver of a boy killed in an automobile accident. The
case was credited with spurring the National Organ Transplant Act of
1984, which formalized a national organ matching network.
Dr. Najarian specialized in the transplantation of abdominal organs —
kidneys, livers and pancreases. Beyond his pediatric cases, he took on
patients many other physicians would have considered too old or sick
to be considered for transplants, given the techniques and drugs
available at the time. In 1968, according to the University of
Minnesota, Dr. Najarian and his team performed the first kidney
transplant in a patient with diabetes.
The same year he operated on the 6-week-old baby, he operated on a
woman of 62, at the time an advanced age for a transplant patient.
“I think we have shown that almost no one is either too young or too
old for a kidney transplant,” he said at the time, according to the
Minneapolis Star Tribune.
One of the most confounding complications of transplant procedures was
organ rejection, in which the recipient’s immune system identifies the
new organ as an invader and attacks it. The condition was often fatal,
and Dr. Najarian “was working in an era when there wasn’t much to give
patients to prevent rejection,” Mezrich said.
Dr. Najarian distinguished himself in the laboratory as well as in the
operating room, refining an anti-rejection drug known as
anti-lymphocyte globulin (ALG). His purification and application of
the drug “revolutionized outcomes in transplants,” Mezrich said, but
also sparked a high-profile legal battle that threatened to derail Dr.
Najarian’s career.
Over more than 20 years, the University of Minnesota distributed ALG
to medical facilities around the world, reaching a reported $79
million in sales. But in 1992, the Food and Drug Administration
ordered an end to the program, saying that official approval for mass
production had never been granted.
The next year, Dr. Najarian stepped down as chairman of surgery, and
in 1995 he resigned from the medical school, although he continued
seeing patients. He was later indicted on 21 charges including
flouting drug safety regulations, obstructing a federal investigation,
embezzling $75,000 from the University of Minnesota by double billing
for travel expenses and falsifying income tax forms to conceal income.
At trial in 1996, a judge dismissed six of the charges, and a jury
acquitted him on the other 15. In an unusual statement from the bench,
the judge credited the drug with saving lives and said that
prosecuting Dr. Najarian for the manner in which ALG was produced and
marketed crossed “the bounds of common sense.”
In 1998, the University of Minnesota agreed to pay the federal
government $32 million in a settlement resolving a lawsuit over sales
of ALG. Nine years later, around the time that Dr. Najarian retired
from performing surgery, the school announced the establishment of an
endowed chair in his honor.
ALG is no longer in use, according to Mezrich, but it was replaced by
other drugs similar in concept.
John Sarkis Najarian was born in Oakland, Calif., on Dec. 22, 1927.
His father, a rug salesman who was born in Armenia, died when Dr.
Najarian was 12 of complications of pneumonia resulting from the flu.
After his death, Dr. Najarian’s mother, who was from Turkey, supported
her three sons with savvy investments.
In his youth, Dr. Najarian nearly died of a ruptured appendix, an
experience that helped fuel his interest in medicine.
“During that period of time, the people that I admired the most were
the doctors and the nurses who took care of me,” he said in an oral
history for the University of Minnesota. “I was going to do everything
I could, if I made it through this, to find out how I could become one
of them.”
After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley in
1948, he received a medical degree from the University of California
at San Francisco in 1952 and was an Air Force surgeon before joining
the UCSF faculty in 1963.
Dr. Najarian established a transplantation service at UCSF and
embarked on his research on tissue rejection before moving to the
University of Minnesota, where he was recruited to lead the surgery
department, in 1967.
At the time, according to Thomas Schlich, a historian of medicine at
McGill University in Montreal, the school was a “hotbed of innovative
surgery” under the leadership chief of surgery Owen H. Wangensteen.
Dr. Najarian built a noted transplant program at the university, where
he “institutionalized this whole principle of transplants,” Schlich
said.
Dr. Najarian’s wife of 67 years, the former Mignette Anderson, died in
2019, and their son Paul Najarian died in 2014. Survivors include
three other sons, Peter Najarian of Mahtomedi, Minn., Jon Najarian of
Chicago and David Najarian of Stillwater; 12 grandchildren; and four
great-grandchildren.
The parents of children Dr. Najarian treated regarded him with veneration.
Jamie Fiske today is 38 and lives in a nursing facility in Raleigh,
N.C., after suffering a brain aneurysm last year unrelated to her
liver condition.
Her father, Charlie Fiske, recalled in an interview that when Dr.
Najarian emerged from the operating room after the liver transplant,
he said that without the procedure Jamie was unlikely to have lived
more than another day or two.
“You know, Doctor, you probably shouldn’t have operated on her,” Fiske
recalled saying. Dr. Najarian replied by asking, “What other option
did I have?”
“We brought to him a dying patient, and he could have easily said,
‘Oh, my God, this is too much risk,’ ” Fiske said. “He gambled on his
ability, along with his great medical team there, to give Jamie a
second chance at living. There was no place else we could have gone.”
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