  The observed strong suppression of heavy flavored hadrons produced with high
$p_T$, is caused by final state interactions with the created dense medium.
Vacuum radiation of high-pT heavy quarks ceases at a short time scale, as is
confirmed by pQCD calculations and by LEP measurements of the fragmentation
functions of heavy quarks. Production of a heavy flavored hadrons in a dense
medium is considerably delayed due to prompt breakup of the hadrons by the
medium. This causes a strong suppression of the heavy quark yield because of
the specific shape of the fragmentation function. The parameter-free
description is in a good accord with available data.
