Prince Frederik of Luxembourg dies from rare disease
He passed away on March 1 in Paris, his family announced on the website of the POLG Foundation, which Frederik started in 2022.
'It is with a very heavy heart that my wife and I would like to inform you of the passing of our son, The POLG Foundation Founder and Creative Director, Frederik,' his father Prince Robert of Luxembourg wrote.
The foundation describes POLG as a 'genetic mitochondrial disorder that robs the body's cells of energy, in turn causing progressive multiple organ dysfunction and failure.'
It said the disease has no treatment or cure.
'Frederik and the POLG Foundation ... are committed to finding therapies and a cure to save other patients from suffering what Frederik and our family have endured,' his father wrote.
Despite his condition he 'found the strength and the courage to say goodbye to each of us in turn – his brother, Alexander; his sister, Charlotte; me; his three cousins, Charly, Louis, and Donall; his brother-in-law, Mansour; and finally, his Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Mark,' Prince Robert wrote.
Frederik was 'disciplined and organized beyond belief,' the statement said.
'On Friday [the day before he died], his Italian Duolingo and exercise alarm went off like any other day.'
Prince Frederik was diagnosed with POLG at 14, which causes such a wide range of symptoms and affects many different organ systems, making it very difficult to diagnose and has no treatments or a cure, the statement said.
'As is the case for 300 million people like Frederik worldwide, these diseases are usually hard to recognize even by physicians, and patients' families may never know what they are suffering from as they may only be identified very late in their progression,' his father wrote.
'One might compare it to having a faulty battery that never fully recharges, is in a constant state of depletion and eventually loses power,' Prince Robert wrote.
Prince Frederik had voiced his gratitude for having his disease over the years. And it was recently found out that he once had told a close friend (unbeknown to Frederik's family until now): 'I am glad that I am the one who was born with this disease. Even though I'll die from it .... and even if my parents do not have the time to save me, I know that they will be able to save other children.'
'Though Prince Frederik always made it very clear that he did not want the dreadful disease to define him, he devoted himself to spreading awareness on the rare disease,' the statement said, including participating in medical trials 'with the goal of finding treatments and, perhaps, ways of repurposing molecules to help patients with his condition.'
'Frederik passed on March 1st 2025, in Paris France, the City of Lights. One light was extinguished, but so many remain.' — CNN
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Saudi Gazette
3 days ago
- Saudi Gazette
Russia's summer offensive is turning into an escalating crisis for Ukraine
POKROVSK, eastern Ukraine — The silent, moonless black is broken only by the whirr above of a Russian drone. Dmytro is yet to receive any patients at his tiny two-bed field hospital near Pokrovsk, and that is not a good outcome any more. Dawn begins to break – the twilight in which evacuation of the wounded from the front lines is safest – but still none arrive, and the enemy drones swirl incessantly above. 'We have a very difficult situation with evacuation,' said Dmytro. 'Many of the injured have to wait days. For Russian drone pilots, it is an honor for them when they kill medics and the injured.' This night, the frontline wounded do not arrive. The saturation of Moscow's drone in the skies above – already palpable at this stabilization point 12 kilometers (7 miles) from the Russians – has likely made it impossible for even armored vehicles to safely extract the injured. Up the road, the fight rages for the key town of Pokrovsk – in the Kremlin's crosshairs for months, but now at risk of encirclement. Across eastern Ukraine, Russia's tiny gains are adding up. It is capitalizing on a series of small advances and throwing significant resources into an emerging summer offensive, one that risks reshaping control over the front lines. Over four days reporting in the villages behind Kostiantynivka and Pokrovsk – two of the most embattled Ukrainian towns in Donetsk region – CNN witnessed the swift change in control of territory. Russian drones were able to penetrate deep into areas Kyiv's forces once relied upon as oases of calm, and troops struggled to find the personnel and resources to halt a persistent enemy advance. The Russian momentum comes as US President Donald Trump radically shortened his deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to make peace from 50 to up to 12 days. Trump expressed said he was 'very disappointed' in Putin and suggested the Kremlin head had already decided not to entertain the ceasefire the US and its European allies have demanded for months. The reduced timeframe was welcomed by Kyiv and may provide a greater sense of urgency in Western capitals over diplomatic or military support for Ukraine. But it seems unlikely to alter Moscow's course, where its superior manpower, tolerance for casualties, and vast military production line is beginning to reap dividends. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week Russian forces were 'not advancing,' but acknowledged the circumstances across the frontline were 'tough.' The sense of an evolving crisis was most acute around the town of Pokrovsk, unsuccessfully assaulted by Moscow for months at great cost in Russian life. One Ukrainian commander serving near the town described 'a very bad scenario,' in which troops in the adjoining town to Pokrovsk, Myrnohrad, risked 'being surrounded.' The officer added Russians had already moved into the nearby village of Rodynske, and were on the edges of Biletske, endangering the supply line for Ukrainian troops inside Pokrovsk – assessments confirmed by a Ukrainian police officer and another Ukrainian soldier to CNN Tuesday. The commander, who like many officials spoke on condition of anonymity discussing a sensitive topic, said they feared a siege was likely, similar to Avdiivka and Vuhledar last year, where 'we held out to the last and lost both cities and people as a result.' Viktor Tregubov, a spokesman for the Khortytsia group of forces active in the area, told state television on Tuesday there 'is constant pressure all along the entire eastern front. Right now, it's absolutely everywhere.' He said Russian troops assaulted mostly on foot. 'If someone is killed, others immediately follow.' While Moscow's forces have made only incremental gains over recent months – seizing small settlements to little strategic avail – the pace of their advance has accelerated, according to open-source mapping by DeepState. More perilously for Kyiv, recent progress has been strategically advantageous, making the encirclement of Pokrovsk, Kostiantynivka, and Kupiansk to the north, a palpable threat in the weeks ahead. The fall of these three towns would create three separate crises for Kyiv. Firstly, they are the urban areas from which Ukraine defends the remainders of the Donetsk region it controls, without which its troops lack hubs for shelter and resupply. Secondly, their loss to Moscow would free up a significant number of Russian forces to push hard onto Kramatorsk and Sloviansk – the largest Donetsk towns still under Ukrainian control. Thirdly, this loss would leave Kyiv's forces exposed, defending the mostly open agricultural land – with few towns in the way – between the Donetsk region and its key city of Dnipro. The pace of Moscow's advance – or at least the growing penetration of their attack drones into civilian areas – was witnessed by CNN in the eastern town of Dobropilia on Tuesday. The town came under sustained attack by Russian drones two weeks ago, hitting multiple civilian targets. Locals, fearfully awaiting police evacuation in the town, looked anxiously up to the sky, and said the threat from drones had quickly grown in the last few days. A police official expressed surprise at the swift unravelling of Ukrainian control, and told CNN the civilian bus service to the city abruptly ended Monday, because of the security situation, leaving locals able to leave in armored police vans, or their own vehicles. On Saturday, local officials advised parents to evacuate their children themselves. But by Tuesday, they were ferrying out children and residents by the dozen. One elderly resident of the village of Biletske, evacuated on Tuesday, said his house had been set on fire by a drone attack on Monday, and then again on Tuesday. Kyiv also faces an acute challenge in the town of Kostiantynivka, where its forces saw swift Russian advances in the past week to the south east and south west. Russian FPV attack drones can easily target vehicles inside the town, and killed the driver of a civilian van on Sunday, despite the explosive on the device not detonating. Vasyl, a commander with the 93rd Mechanized brigade, said he had not been sent new personnel for eight months, and was forced to resupply frontline positions of only two men with drones, airlifting in food, water and ammunition. 'No one wants to fight', he said. 'The old personnel are left, they are tired and want to be replaced, but no one is replacing them.' He blamed Ukrainian officers for giving inaccurate reports of the front line to their superiors. 'A lot of things are not communicated and are hidden,' he said. 'We don't communicate a lot of things to our state. Our state doesn't communicate a lot of things to the people.' Further north, near Kupiansk, about 60 miles east of Ukraine's second city Kharkiv, Russian troops have raced over the town's north, threatening a key supply road for Ukrainian forces to its West, taking the village of Radkivka. A Ukrainian source in the city described the situation as 'very fast moving,' and Russian analysts have said their forces are in the town's outskirts. The accumulative effect of a Ukrainian manpower crisis, the turbulence of Kyiv's relationship with the Trump White House, and uncertain supplies of weaponry, are a perfect storm that has broken in the face of the vigor and persistence of a Russian summer offensive, whose progress is no longer incremental but is reshaping the conflict and bringing Putin closer to some of his goals fast. — CNN
Saudi Gazette
21-07-2025
- Saudi Gazette
Man dies after being pulled into an MRI by a metal chain he wore, police say
WASHINGTON — A man died last week after being pulled into an MRI machine by a 'large metallic chain' police said he was wearing around his neck – highlighting the importance of checking for any metallic objects before going near the powerful magnets used in the medical imaging machines. The 61-year-old died Thursday, a day after Nassau County police said he was pulled into the MRI machine at Nassau Open MRI in Westbury, New York, on Long Island. The victim was wearing 'a large metallic chain around his neck causing him to be drawn into the machine,' prompting an unspecified 'medical episode,' police said in a news release. The man's entry to the room 'while the scan was in progress' was not authorized, police said. He was taken to a hospital in critical condition before he was declared dead the following day. The investigation is ongoing, police said. Police have not identified the victim, but CNN affiliate News 12 Long Island reported his name was Keith McAllister, according to his wife, Adrienne Jones-McAllister. She told the station she was the one undergoing the MRI. 'He went limp in my arms,' Jones-McAllister said through tears. A person who answered the phone at Nassau Open MRI on Sunday said it had no comment. Used often for disease detection and diagnosis, MRI stands for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, according to the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. The technology relies in part on powerful magnets to stimulate protons within a patient, who is placed inside the machine, allowing doctors to capture detailed images of the patient's anatomy. That strong magnetic field, however, emanates beyond the MRI machine, posing a threat to those who might be wearing metallic objects or have them implanted. The magnets exert 'very powerful forces on objects of iron, some steels, and other magnetizable objects,' the scientific institute notes, with enough strength 'to fling a wheelchair across the room.' Jones-McAllister was getting an MRI on her knee, she told News 12, and needed help getting up afterwards. She said she asked the MRI technician to retrieve her husband for assistance. 'I yelled out Keith's name, 'Keith, Keith, come help me up,'' Jones-McAllister said. According to News 12, Jones-McAllister said her husband was wearing around his neck a 20-pound chain with a large lock he used for weight training. 'At that instant, the machine switched him around, pulled him in, and he hit the MRI,' Jones-McAllister said. She said she and the technician tried to pry her husband away from the machine. 'I'm saying, 'Could you turn off the machine? Call 911. Do something. Turn this damn thing off!'' Because of the risks posed by an MRI machine's magnetic field, patients are urged to notify their doctors about any medical implants prior to an MRI, in case they contain any metallic materials. Pacemakers, insulin pumps and cochlear implants are all examples of implants that the NIBIB says should under no circumstances enter an MRI machine. But items outside the machine pose risks as well, as last week's tragedy in Westbury demonstrated. Anything magnetic – from something as small as keys, to something as large (or larger) than an oxygen tank – can become a projectile, threatening the safety of anyone nearby. 'Metal in a room that has the magnet will fly across the room to the scanner, to this large magnet, and will really hit anything in its way,' Dr. Rebecca Smith-Bindman, a radiologist, told CNN in 2011. 'So within radiology training, one learns very early that that's not OK, that you can't have external metal in the room, and you can't have metal in the patient,' she said. 'That could lead to a problem.' These accidents have happened in the past: In 2001, a 6-year-old boy was killed during an MRI at a hospital in Valhalla, New York, after a metal oxygen tank flew across the room when the machine's electromagnet turned on. The magnetized tank struck the child, who died of blunt force trauma injuries. These events are rare, according to the US Food and Drug Administration. Still, '(c)areful screening of people and objects entering the MR environment is critical to ensure nothing enters the magnet area that may become a projectile,' the agency says. — CNN
Asharq Al-Awsat
17-07-2025
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Trump Says Coca-Cola to Switch to Cane Sugar in US
Beverage giant Coca-Cola has agreed to use real cane sugar in its US production, President Donald Trump announced Wednesday on social media. The company currently uses high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in its domestic beverages -- a sweetener that has long drawn criticism from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his Make America Healthy Again movement, AFP said. "I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. "I'd like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola. This will be a very good move by them -- You'll see. It's just better!" The US president did not explain what motivated his push for the change, which would not impact his well-known favorite beverage, Diet Coke. Since his return to the White House, Trump has re-installed a special button in the Oval Office which summons a helping of the sugar-free carbonated drink. Coca-Cola did not immediately confirm the ingredient shift. "We appreciate President Trump's enthusiasm for our iconic Coca‑Cola brand. More details on new innovative offerings within our Coca‑Cola product range will be shared soon," the company said in a short statement. HFCS became popular in the 1970s, with its use skyrocketing thanks to government subsidies for corn growers and high import tariffs on cane sugar. Any shift away from corn is likely to draw backlash in the Corn Belt, a Midwestern region that has been a stronghold of support for Trump. Both HFCS and sucrose (cane sugar) are composed of fructose and glucose. However, they differ structurally: HFCS contains free (unbonded) fructose and glucose in varying ratios -- 55/45 in soft drinks -- while sucrose consists of the two sugars chemically bonded together. These structural differences, however, don't appear to significantly affect health outcomes. A 2022 review of clinical studies found no meaningful differences between HFCS and sucrose in terms of weight gain or heart health. The only notable distinction was an increase in a marker of inflammation in people consuming HFCS. Overall, both sweeteners appear similarly impactful when consumed at equal calorie levels. Despite this, Mexican Coke -- which is made with cane sugar -- is often sold at a premium in US stores and prized for its more "natural" flavor. Trump's prized Diet Coke is sweetened with aspartame -- a compound classified as a "possible carcinogen" by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
