Erin Brockovich investigating mystery illness affecting NY teens By Eric Pfeiffer
Famed environmental activist Erin Brockovich has begun a private investigation into a mysterious illness affecting more than a dozen teens in Le Roy, New York. Le Roy was home to a dangerous chemical spill 40 years ago and the children's symptoms--facial tics and verbal outbursts--may be connected, Brockovich tells USA Today. "We don't have all the answers, but we are suspicious," Brockovich said. "They have not ruled everything out yet. The community asked us to help and this is what we do." More from USA Today: She told USA TODAY on Thursday that after families of affected teens and other community members asked her to look into the Le Roy case, she has spent the past week studying federal and state reports of a 1970 train derailment that spilled cyanide and an industrial solvent called trichloroethene [TCE] within 3 miles of the high school attended by the 12 girls who started reporting neurological symptoms last fall. Three other teens, including one boy, are reportedly experiencing similar symptoms. An Environmental Protection Agency report issued in 1999 says that the cyanide crystals were removed after the spill but 35,000 gallons of trichloroethene were absorbed into the ground. A more-detailed description on the New York State Department of Health website describes how TCE spills can affect people: TCE can also enter air and groundwater if it is improperly disposed or leaks into the ground. People can be exposed to TCE if they drink groundwater contaminated with TCE, and if the TCE evaporates from the contaminated drinking water into indoor air during cooking and washing. They may also be exposed if TCE evaporates from the groundwater, enters soil vapor (air spaces between soil particles), and migrates through building foundations into the building's indoor air. This process is called "soil vapor intrusion."...................>>>>.........................>>>>....................http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/si.....teens-154419393.html
The state may have dropped the ball on the TCE spill back in 1970 and doesn't want anyone to find out about it. Whatever the cause I hope they find it before more kids become a victim of this syndrome.
Mystery teen illness grows in upstate NY, more cases reported
A 36-year-old is now experiencing the same odd verbal and motor tics first reported in teenage girls who live in LeRoy, N.Y. NBC's Amy Robach reports.
By Amy Robach, Kevin Monahan and Christina Caron NBC News
LeROY, N.Y. -- The mystery illness now producing Tourette’s-like symptoms in a more than a dozen girls from upstate New York is also affecting a 36-year-old who is experiencing the same tics as the teens.
Nurse practitioner Marge Fitzsimmons, who has spent her whole life in LeRoy, N.Y., lives just a few miles from the school the teens attend.
“It started out with sudden head jerks in the middle of October,” Fitzsimmons told NBC News, the tics occasionally interfering with her ability to talk.
It got so bad she had to leave her job working with developmentally disabled patients until the tics subside.
“The motor tics wouldn't stop, and the vocal tics started, and I went to one of the bosses and said I have to go.”
The mystery illness outbreak that has plagued a number of students in upstate New York appears to be growing, affecting a 36-year-old woman.
The illness, which manifests in tics and other Tourette’s-like symptoms has been seen in 17 upstate New York students, with 14 girls and one boy from Le Roy High School alone. The phenomena has caught national attention and the attention of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which recently offered a second opinion to the diagnosis provided by Dr. Mechtler. Dr. Mechtler has seen nine girls and one boy, diagnosing the teens with Conversion Disorder, which, as a group, is known as mass psychogenic illness.
Two girls from Corinth, located in Saratoga County, are exhibiting similar symptoms, and, one of the girls, Lori Brownwell, did travel to Le Roy High School with her softball team last year. Lori and a teammate, Alycia Nicholson, both suffer from twitching, convulsions, and joint pain.
Initially seemingly only affecting younger women, news recently broke with reports of a teenage boy suffering from the same set of symptoms. Now, 36-year-old nurse practitioner, Marge Fitzsimmons, who has lived her entire life in Le Roy, a few miles from the high school where most of the teens involved attend, is suffering from what appears to be the same disorder, said MSNBC. “It started out with sudden head jerks in the middle of October,” Fitzsimmons told NBC News, the tics occasionally affected her ability to speak, worsening to the point where she was forced to leave her job, said MSNBC. “The motor tics wouldn’t stop, and the vocal tics started, and I went to one of the bosses and said I have to go,” Fitzsimmons said.
Fitzsimmons has not been to work in two months and says that while on a good day the tics are sporadic, they are uncontrollable on bad days, wrote, MSNBC. Having undergone extensive testing, including CAT scan and blood work, neither Fitzsimmons nor the teens have answers.
“When it first started I thought maybe I’m going crazy,” she told MSNBC. “As an adult, I can’t imagine these teenagers going through this and for anyone to think that they’re faking it at all. Try living a day in their shoes.” Fitzsimmons’ doctor suggested she also suffers from mass hysteria. Fitzimmon’s says she accepts the diagnosis “because that’s what gets me out of the bed every day. That is my answer,” wrote MSNBC.
Dr. Laszlo Mechtler, vice president of the Dent Neurological Institute in Buffalo, New York said the disorder “occurs in small groups, especially girls in schools in small towns.” “What happens is that one individual—the so-called index case—may have a neurological disorder,” Dr. Mechtler told NBC previously. “And, then, all of a sudden, several other ladies have similar symptoms.”
The teens began experiencing their symptoms around the same time that Fitzsimmons began experiencing stammer, verbal outbursts, and limb spasms—last fall—according to MSNBC. “I want an answer,” Sanchez told NBC in January. “I’ve had psychological treatment. They say this is stress-induced. My psychological treatment…. That’s all they do is stress me out more.”
Environmental activist, Erin Brockovich, sent a scientific team to Le Roy to collect ground samples and is speaking out about a 1970 train accident that spilled cyanide and TCE (trichloroethene), an industrial solvent, in what has been deemed a SuperFund site. The spill took place about four miles from Le Roy Junior-Senior High School, said MSNBC, which noted that a 1999 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report indicates that some 35,000 gallons of TCE contaminated the area.
The EPA said the derailment site “appears unrelated to the illness” and Dr. Gregory Young of the New York Department of Health told NBC News in January that, “We have conclusively ruled out any form of infection or communicable disease and there’s no evidence of any environmental factor” at the school, not everyone agrees. Fitzsimmons told NBC News she hung out at the derailment site when she was a teenager and wonders if it is Le Roy, not “conversion order” is to blame.
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
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