Brockovich Becomes Involved In Mysterious "Illness" Twitches Tourettes Affecting Upstate NY Girls

[Selene]

Erin Brockovich, others to probe cause of mystery illness affecting upstate New York girls

15 students at Le Roy High School show symptons

By Benjamin Lesser / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Friday, January 27, 2012, 2:27 PM

Erin Brockovich, environmental activist who was the subject of a film starring Julia Roberts.

Environmentalists, including famed advocate Erin Brockovich, are raising concerns about the potential causes of a mysterious illness afflicting a growing number of girls at an upstate New York high school.

The Rochcester Democrat and Chronicle was the first to report the involvement of the environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, on Friday.

Beginning last fall a dozen girls at Le Roy High School in Genesee County began complaining about twitches and Tourettes-like verbal outbursts.

That number has now grown to 15.

The Associated Press reported that two doctors concluded that 10 of the girls were suffering from a condition called conversion disorder — one that causes symptoms but has no physical cause.

In addition the wire service reported that tests ruled out potential mold or chemical sources for the disorder.

However, the Democrat and Chronicle reports that Brockovich and the other groups are gathering data in hopes of determining if any environmental cause may help explain what has happened to the girls.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/erin-brockovich-probe-mystery-illness-affecting-upstate-york-girls-article-1.1012956#ixzz1kpTJg11h

Twelve of the cases have been confirmed as conversion disorder. Three new cases are suspected.

“Traditionally it’s some kind of stress or multiple stressors that provoke a physical reaction within the body. This is unconscious. It is not done purposefully,” Dr. Jennifer McVige said.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/01/27/mystery-illness-leaves-teens-with-twitches-spasms-at-upstate-n-y-school/

^^

Video in this report

The link below is from Outbreak Watch. This particular girl does no live in the area, but lives some 450 miles away, but she happened to eat dinner in the town last summer right before her life began to get weird.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/01/outbreak-watch-erin-brockovich-investigates-mysterious-student-illness-upstate-new-york/1073/

[william.scherk]

Similar things in schools around the world pop up in the news now and again. The key words I usually look for in news reports are hysteria, conversion disorder, mass psychogenic illness ... but the best descriptor or clinical term to my mind is mass sociogenic illness. If a case of a mystery illness does not consider the possibility or mention such things in initial reports, I usually wait a few weeks. Often the mystery is cleared up (in section F, below the fold).

Not to say that these outbreaks cannot be mould/environmental toxins/gas leaks/Radon poisoning/monoxide poisoning, or whatever. That is what serious public health inquiries can discover.

If there is no discernable physical cause after professional investigation, then the medical/diagnostic concepts of sociogenic illness is put forward, or an ICD or DSM Dx is applied. I rarely find the Dx satisfactory, because by this point the story turns to "Buncha Hysterical Goils" -- and those who have suffered frightening symptoms are not always likely to be probed for the actual individual stresses and strains that left them vulnerable. Thus, of course, the Goils have to suck it up -- so whatever inhumane regimes they live under at school (or home) continues on.

I will have a deeper look, but it would not surprise me if the environment that the girls/sick girls inhabit in this case is extreme in one way or the other. As for Erin B sailing in to find the cause, no comment.

[william.scherk]

From the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle newpaper site.

Brockovich reps, media ordered off Le Roy school grounds

Representatives of environmental crusader Erin Brockovich and an accompanying group of reporters were ordered off the grounds of Le Roy Junior-Senior High School today in an episode connected to a cluster of students there with unusual neurological symptoms.

While school officials didn’t identify who was escorted off school grounds, Democrat and Chronicle news partner WHAM (Channel 13) confirmed with the Brockovich representatives that they had been ordered off the property.

Brockovich earlier had said she would have a representative in the Genesee County town today to collect soil samples.

No one was arrested, a spokesman for the Le Roy Central School District said this afternoon.

But a statement released by the district denounced the sample collection as “grandstanding” and said any samples gathered would have “no scientific value.”

Brockovich told the Democrat and Chronicle in an email several days ago that she would not be coming to Le Roy this weekend but said a representative would be collecting samples. She did not respond to an email sent this evening.

The encounter reflects the growing outside attention by environmental and health groups and by national media to the cluster of students exhibiting tics, twitches, verbal outbursts and other symptoms sometimes associated with Tourette’s syndrome.

As many as 15 students have come forward with such symptoms since last summer or fall. The district had indoor air sampling done in December found no evidence that contaminants or mold were present.

The district said in a statement issued Friday that it had hired an environmental consulting firm to review those December tests and advise the school whether additional testing was merited.

Buffalo neurologists who treated a number of the students have said they appear to be suffering from a mass psychological disorder that causes physical symptoms.

Parents of several of the afflicted students have said they don’t believe enough has been done to rule out environmental causes, and a number of environmental and health groups have begun to work with parents and look into the situation themselves.[continue to page 2]

[caroljane]

SStay tuned for the Witch Trial.

[Selene]

SStay tuned for the Witch Trial.

Or serve up some "Witch cakes"...

When Elizabeth Parris and her cousin were accused witchcraft, a neighbor suggested that the girls eat a "witch cake" to see if they were in fact witches. A "witch cake'' was made of rye grain and the accused girls' urine (Woolf, 2000). The rye grain in this cake could have easily been carrying the ergot fungus. According to Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum (1974), authors of Salem Possessed, upon feeding the cake to the dog, if it experienced similar symptoms as the girls, it was assumed the girls were in fact witches. Since ergot poisoning was known to affect farm animals, it could easily affect the dogs as well.

http://voices.yahoo.com/salem-witch-trials-81829.html?cat=70

[BaalChatzaf]

Are you suffering from a mysterious illness. Contact the law firm of Sokolove and Sokolove.

Contact us and we will dive into deep pockets.

I see ads like that every day on t.v.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

Curiouser and curiouser as Alice looks through the looking glass...****

The National Institutes of Health has offered to help solve the puzzle. Dr. Mark Hallett, chief of the NIH Medical Neurology Branch, said the cluster of cases offers a unique research opportunity.

"We have offered our help but have not been asked for yet," said Hallett, adding that he has not yet seen any of the teens. "One of the difficulties in this is that there hasn't been a lot of attention to this problem or very much research into it, which has made it somewhat of a mysterious disorder."

Hallett said conversion disorder is common, affecting as many as two people at his movement disorders clinic each week. But he said it's rare to see a large group of people with the same symptoms.

"We don't understand that aspect of it completely," Hallett said of the potential for conversion disorder to spread through a group, a characteristic that once earned it the name "mass hysteria." "For some reason, the brain mimics things that they know. ... It's just one of the ways the brain reacts to psychological stress. We don't understand why, but it truly is involuntary just as patients say it is."

Lydia Parker, a senior at Le Roy High School, has symptoms so severe she spends most of the day in a wheelchair.

"I can't stand for more than about two minutes," said 17-year-old Parker. "And my vocal and tic and everything gets really bad at night."

Parker said she's glad Brockovich is drawing attention to the disorder, but she doesn't think the answer is in the school's water supply.

"I didn't eat the food, I didn't drink the water. … I brought my own Snapples," she said. "I don't even borrow pencils."

Parker said her younger brother goes to the same school and has no symptoms. "If it was something in the environment, it would have kicked in and a lot more people would have gotten it," she said. But she doesn't think it's stress is the answer, either.

"Conversion disorders are brought on by stress, she said. "Just being a senior isn't that stressful; you just have fun."

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/erin-brockovich-launches-investigation-tic-illness-affecting-ny/story?id=15456672#.Tya8_Mh-eSp

****

[william.scherk]

It is one of those things that just cry out to be exploited and misunderstood. It is such a chance for a lot of people to grandstand, or to 'be on the safe side' (meaning keep looking for physical evidence of bad things generating the illness). Who would want to be told that the illnesses are 'psychogenic' (I am NOT psycho, my daughter is not crazy, they are not doing enough, leave Britney ALONE!).

If eleven or so of the young folks have actually received a diagnosis of conversion disorder (this used to be called hysteria long ago [my daughter is NOT hysterical!]), then I am inclined to go with that, expecially since this would presume a close neurological examination, and good followup.

I don't know the demographics of that little community, or what these young folks look like. Are they high-performing princesses? Are they perhaps poorer than the norm in their school? Were they friends, or associates with each other? Did they have a chance to be together enough (in class or out) for contagion to take place?

Apparently the "Celebrity Intervention' guy, Doctor Drew, is featuring the Mystery Illness tonight. I will watch with one hand over my eyes ... at least he did not call it Mystery Illness Stalking Our Schools. It looks like he may interview some of the folks involved (hopefully not their parents or local "I just know it" crazy people).

My daughter is NOT crazy!

We need an Ayn Rand in the room to cut through all the crazy, I think. If I get a chance to watch Celebrity Intervention Doctor, I will report back.

(very cool that the CDC wants to help. Justify that budget, bitches)

Edited February 1, 2012 by william.scherk

[9thdoctor]

My daughter is NOT crazy!

Well, you know girls of a certain age are very excitable.

[william.scherk]

I defer to the fabulous film-making maniac Ken Russell. This is a scene from The Devils (ostensibly about group demonic possession in a nunnery in Loudon). It looks like what I imagine the neurologists did to the poor possessed gals in the dank suburbs of Rochester.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5SnTm1vBD0

[Selene]

Looks like this is not going away...

Monday, February 6, 2012 9:15 AM EST

Twitches Spread at New York School; Parents Urge More Tests

By Neale Gulley

LE ROY, New York (Reuters) - State health officials have added three more names to a growing list of students in this working-class town who are experiencing mysterious tics and twitching, while authorities on Saturday sought to assure parents the community's high school is safe.

Although the symptoms are typically associated with Tourette Syndrome, that has been ruled out in all but one case, causing fear and confusion among many residents of Le Roy, N.Y., about 50 miles east of Buffalo.

"The building is safe for the community," District Superintendent Kim Cox told several hundred residents gathered in the auditorium of Le Roy Junior-Senior High School on Saturday.

The Le Roy Central School District scrambled to conduct environmental testing for air quality and mold when an initial 12 students developed tics and impulsive verbal outbursts last fall. But state health investigators ruled out environmental factors, latent side-effects from drugs or vaccines like Gardasil, trauma or genetic factors.

Instead, doctors say conversion disorder - once called mass hysteria - is to blame among an expanding list of patients. Three more unconfirmed cases have been added to the original list of students exhibiting the symptoms, and others are being examined.

Air quality and mold surveys at the school have all come back negative, according to district officials and representatives of Leader Professional Services Inc., a company hired to conduct environmental testing at the school after the symptoms first surfaced.

Senior Industrial Hygienist Mary Ellen Holvey on Saturday said air and water tests turned up nothing, and recommended follow-up testing of air inside the school.

She said that would help determine whether a soil review will be conducted - a test demanded by those residents who believe environmental factors are to blame.

One parent, Melissa Cianci, said her daughter no longer wants to attend school in light of the outbreak. She said students should be moved to another location as the investigation continues.

"She doesn't know if it's safe," Cianci said, adding her daughter had perfect attendance prior to the incidents. "I'm done listening to you," she yelled at the panel before storming out, later criticizing the district for being less than candid early in the investigation and demanding that soil tests be conducted of school grounds.

Though there is no evidence of environmental contamination, for some residents environmental concerns were heightened by the district's recent disclosure of six natural gas wells on school property, as well as possible contamination from the nearby site of a 1970 train derailment and chemical spill.

Regarding the wells on school land, William Albert, of the district's law firm Harris Beach, said, "It's not unusual. We're out in the country."

Several representatives of renowned environmentalist Erin Brockovich were barred recently from collecting soil samples near the school by local police.

State health officials note that all of the patients have had significant stress factors, which can worsen the condition. Three of them had pre-existing medical conditions, including one confirmed case of Tourette's Syndrome. Just one of the patients in male.

Congresswoman Kathy Hochul, who represents the district, sent a letter to the environmental Protection Agency on Monday calling for a review of the Superfund site, which the EPA said is regularly monitored, including testing scheduled later this month.

(Editing by Paul Thomasch)

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/293664/20120206/twitches-spread-new-york-school-parents-tests.htm