shovelingstuff

The pattern of brain injury they're referring to is probably "anoxic brain injury." Botulism itself doesn't cause that, but it certainly can cause respiratory failure (by paralyzing the phrenic nerve), which can then cause anoxic brain injury. There's no reliable way to tell at this point whether botulism was the cause in Warmbier's case (there's no test to find out after the fact). I'm an MD.

Of course the NK story is very suspect. We need more information, but it seems unlikely that we'll get it.