I honestly don't know. I think the best picture can be drawn from the latest reports from the people inside the compound, like his wives. A lot more will be coming out in the near future as well. Especially with the journal, etc, recovered. Before this last event, everyone was speculating on his health. Hell, everyone was speculating on everything. The CIA and Pentagon was over-analyzing every part of the backgrounds from every video and over-analyzing his voice patterns. They were looking at body language and hanging onto sniffles and coughs for any insight. The reality was the guy was so deep underground, no one could have possibly known except his close inner circle. This is a great list of all the news reports. I would say that the first one dated 1999 may have some veracity to it. This kind of starts the rumor of dialysis (at least in this list). He for sure went deep underground in 2001, so I'd say that the early report was partially correct- he was poisoned, but the level of recovery could not be ascertained before he went underground. I also think the "he is dying" trend could be a great political ploy to take everyone's mind off the fact he was hard as hell to find. Thoughts?
A Much more likely senerio is, that each of the "Reports" fed off the speculation of the prior "Reports" and most of the information, if not WRONG, were, and are, speculation, where the actual FACTS are not known. Talking Heads tend to do this a LOT, as do MUCH of the Media. They tend to reenforce what is perceived as the "Prevailing Thought" until someone actually can produce some Documented FACTS. CTs are riff with this kind of BS...... .
For a guy who has been pronounced dead nine times, he sure makes me wonder if he had some feline in him. Osama Bin Laden Pronounced Dead