Intergalactic_Captain
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The LeRoy "mystery illness?"
Being that this is the MSDB, and that the story has been making national news, I'd imagined someone here would have started this topic a long time ago
- Normally, I wouldn't give such a thing a second glance - However, given the fact that I've lived most of my life in the county and am currently
living within spitting distance from the epicenter I feel it's time for someone to post something and see if anyone has any input here...
Here's the abbreviated facts - Sometime, around 8 months or so ago, several unidentified "young girls" in the LeRoy school district were described as
showing "tourette-like" tics. The story was buried as the students were minors and as such unidentified. As time goes on, the families seek
treatment - eventually 12 girls are examined by a neurologist at the Dent Institute in Buffalo. In the past couple of months, the cover of silence
has been removed and it has been revealed that they are all around 17 years of age, and the clinical diagnosis is that they suffer from conversion
disorder...
...Now here's the rub - Put on your conspiracy theory hats; In 1970, a train derailment resulted in the spill of 30-35 thousand pounds of TCE and a
comparitable megashitload of "cyanide" (Na or K? they say they cleaned up that at least) not 3 miles from the high school. And, being the 1970's,
the school did not yet exist - it was a large swamp. Being a dirt-poor community, in the middle of fucking nowhere, the EPA apparently decided that
the best way to deal with the spill was to dig up the contaminated topsoil and dump it into said swamp - Which, drumroll please, the new school was
later built upon... Not entirely certain on the details here, but the EPA's cover story is that they're pretty sure that the mystery illness could be
caused by that contamination, but since they haven't detected it in the water supply, it just can't be the cause...
So, by that logic, it can't be TCE - The next contender is the HPV vaccine, as seven of the twelve girls (which happen to be the seven seen by one of
the two doctors) were 2-3 shots into the full regime at or before the time of showing symptoms. Again, how many adolescent girls are there in the US?
I'm guessing it's far more than seven - Even if you call it a bad batch, the production run was most certainly MUCH larger than that and the
localization of effects is certainly troubling any way you look at it...
The marcellus shale, perhaps? Drive ten miles away and you'll find a group of people suing the EPA for reckless lack of oversight in approving the
use of hydraulic fracturing (long before the current issues), leading to contamination of their wellwater - Local legend has it that the level of
dissolved methane in relatively shallow well-water allows one to light their tap water on fire...
...I don't know... This just seems like one of those things the the community should have jumped upon a while ago - I mean come on, a mystery illness
in the middle of nowhere? Take this one with a grain of salt, but if nobody has any better answers I've got a few crackpot ideas of my own;
...A bad batch of Jell-O - 40 years ago - perhaps they figured foot-in-mouth disease wasn't all that literal?
...Japanese spy satellites - Maybe wearing their tin-foil hats like the rest of us would have prevented this
...The Russian Weather Machine - WNY has had a severely messed up winter thus far - Perhaps seasonal affective disorder is more psychosomatic than we
previously believed?
...And, just for the sake of being serious, think about the fact that 42 years ago, 30,000lbs of TCE was dumped in the middle of nowhere, in an area
where most people did and still do source their water from personal wells. That's plenty enough time for TCE to leach down to the water-table, and
more than enough for it to degrade - IIRC, chloroacetic acid is a teratogen - Since nobody else seems to have a clue where to start, why not give them
some real ideas?
EDIT - The article was trying to pull up finally loaded - Wherever I wrote "pounds," read "gallons" - and the megashitload of cyanide was a ton - a
literal, 2000lb ton - The conspiracy theorists I've heard all say that this is just a smokescreen distracting us from something bigger, but think
about it - That's a lot of fucking carcinogenic, teratogenic, straight-up poison - And nobody has a fucking clue, at least officially...
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=leroy%20train...
[Edited on 2-5-12 by Intergalactic_Captain]
If you see me running, try to keep up.
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bfesser
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MSDB -- ???
TCE -- trichloroethene
EPA -- Environmental Protection Agency
HPV -- human papillomavirus
IIRC -- If I Recall Correctly
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watson.fawkes
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Two things immediately come to mind. The first is corruption in the water table sampling process. It's not necessary to falsify the test results
themselves, but perhaps "they" dropped test results entirely for a single contaminated well. The second is to look at the vapor pressure of the
contaminants and their bacterial metabolites.
MSDB = typo for SmDB, Sciencemadness Discussion Board
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IrC
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Trichlor is going to cause higher cancer statistics. Cyanide could reduce this effect if some of the research about cancer and cyanide I have seen out
there is true. Any chemical spill should increase the likelihood of birth defects. Any of this would be a long term statistical problem. What you have
here is several girls from one location all at once coming down with the problem. Then a boy their age, next an older woman. Her connection was as
health care worker. This really suggests contagion of some sort, from something only a small percentile seems to be susceptible to. Improbable but
there it is, the facts are there that something is going on which seems to act like a virus or bacteria infecting the brain. From the lack of
published information that high fevers are prevalent in this group I would err on the virus rather than bacterial side. Assuming it is a virus I would
wonder if the chemicals in the ground are responsible for creating the conditions this possible virus could thrive in. Or possibly a genetic defect
which makes a small group more likely to contract the disease. The older health care worker would most likely have been exposed to something from one
in the group. Seems unlikely to me this condition is chemically induced but it also seems possible this chemical contamination played a role in some
form.
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" Richard Feynman
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Pulverulescent
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I've no idea what the mystery condition might be, but as for TCE, I once worked in a plant that used boiling TCE extensively as a degreaser!
And people cutting the 'empty' 45 gallon drums with an OA torch was a fairly regular occurrence!
The old days, needless to say . . .
P
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones"
A Einstein
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phlogiston
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The sudden onset of the disease in several victims simultaneously and the fact that all victims are girls strongly suggest it has little to with a
slow cyanide (or TCE, or ...) poisoning that took place over several decades.
My money is on mass hysteria.
-----
"If a rocket goes up, who cares where it comes down, that's not my concern said Wernher von Braun" - Tom Lehrer |
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Pulverulescent
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| Quote: | | My money is on mass hysteria. |
Ditto!
It happens; and often involves adolescent females . . .
P
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones"
A Einstein
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IrC
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While anything is possible I have to wonder how this theory fits with the male and the older woman, an experienced health care worker.
If we hear reports that all in the group ate at a 'Jack in the Box' we will have the answer.
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" Richard Feynman
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AndersHoveland
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My guess is the bacteria in the swamp may have converted the TCE into some longer lived metabolite, which could cause neurological symptoms through
chronic exposure to developing children.
There does not exist any good studies on the anaerobic metabolites of TCE, but one of the speculated metabolites is vinyl chloride. Chronic exposure
to vinyl chloride can cause permanent parkinsons-like symptoms.
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.mi.45.1...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2279728
http://holisticremediesnews.com/2060/le-roy-mystery-disease-...
Workers with workstations adjacent to the source of trichloroethylene and who were subjected to chronic inhalation and dermal exposure from handling
trichloroethylene-soaked metal parts all had Parkinson's disease. Lesser chronic respiratory exposure to trichloroethylene led to many features of
Parkinsonism, including significant motor slowing.
Led by Don M. Gash and John T Slevin, of the University of Kentucky in Lexington, KY, researchers conducting a clinical trial of 10 Parkinson’s
disease patients came across a patient who described long-term exposure to TCE, which he suspected to be a risk factor in his disease.
The patient noted that some of his co-workers had also developed Parkinson’s disease, which led to the current study of this patient and two of his
co-workers diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease who underwent neurological evaluations to assess motor function. All of these individuals had at least
a 25 year history of occupational exposure to TCE, which included both inhalation and exposure to it from submerging their unprotected arms and
forearms in a TCE vat or touching parts that had been cleaned in it.
In addition, questionnaires about experiencing signs of Parkinson’s disease, such as slowness of voluntary movement, stooped posture and trouble
with balance, were mailed to 134 former workers. The researchers also conducted studies in rats to determine how TCE affects the brain.
The results showed that 14 former employees who reported three or more parkinsonian signs worked close to the TCE source, were found to exhibit signs
of parkinsonism when they were examined and were significantly (up to 250 percent) slower in fine motor hand movements than age-matched controls.
Clinical exams of 13 patients who reported no signs of parkinsonism revealed that they worked in the same areas as the symptomatic workers or further
from the TCE vat, they exhibited some mild features of the condition and their fine motor movements were also significantly slower than controls,
although they were faster than the group with symptoms.
The rat studies showed that TCE exposure inhibited mitochondrial function (which in humans is associated with a wide range of degenerative diseases)
in the substantia nigra, an area in the brain that produces dopamine and whose destruction is associated with Parkinson’s disease. Specifically,
Complex 1, an enzyme important in energy production, was significantly reduced in the substantia nigra. Dopamine neurons in this area also showed
degenerative changes following TCE administration. This is not surprising because fluoroethanol and fluoroacetic acid are both known to be very potent
poisons, shutting down the mitochondrial energy cycle. Developing children would be especially vulnerable.
Unfortunately, all too often in medicine when the cause of a problem is not known, there is a tendancy to blame it on psychlogical problems or "mass
hysteria". This is an injustice to the people suffering.
[Edited on 21-2-2012 by AndersHoveland]
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