Pseudo-Tourettes Outbreak in NY State

[Jay Reynolds]

This has been getting some press lately. It has many hallmarks of mass hysteria in some cases and will probably spread by viewing youtube.

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A mysterious disorder which exhibits symptoms similar to Tourette's has affected more students at the same high school.
Earlier this month, it was reported that 12 female students, who all attend Le Roy High School, in New York, had been diagnosed and were being treated for the unexplained illness.

That number has now risen to 15 teenagers and they are all reportedly suffering from verbal outbursts and involuntary twitches.
Bizarrely, two students from a school 250 miles away have also reported similar symptoms.

I don't think Erin Brokovitch's idea about a 40 year old spill will help
I don't think the girl's mom making this video will help, either.
This is much like the way morgellons started.

[Mick]

Fascinating stuff, mass hysteria. Also very related is Culture Bound Syndrome.

Interesting data point: in countries where there is no social or legal tradition for getting punitive settlements for physical distrees after a car accident, the incidence of chronic whiplash injuries is almost zero.

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The team interviewed 202 people who'd been rear-ended, and 202 more people -- same ages, same town -- who had not. They expected some of those who'd been struck to suffer lingering effects. What they finally did find was astonishing: no one in the study reported after-effects that were disabling -- or even persistent.

There's a vast amount of symtoms and conditions that actually ARE "all in their minds", but because of the huge social stigma attached to this, it very difficult for people to accept.

[Steve]

You know the chemtrail believers are going to make claims for this, blame it on the the heavy stratospheric spraying program going on daily above our heads.

[Jay Reynolds]

A 36 year old school nurse is showing the symptoms.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1252514.html

Further testing is slated after a raucous ublic meeting with school board officials:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...ery/52961882/1

According to this patient, now a nurse, conversion disorders can last for months:
http://allnurses.com/health-stress-m...on-520197.html

[Mick]

Of course you can't really tell. But I'd put money on that being somatic as well.

[Jay Reynolds]

The idea that Facebook and Youtube can help spread mass psychogenic illness through unconscious mimicry is mentioned by a doctor who has treated the girls in Leroy, NY.

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But David Lichter, professor of neurology at the University of Buffalo, who has treated several of the patients, said he might now understand how it has affected so many people.

He told MSNBC: ‘It's remarkable to see how one individual posts something, and then the next person who posts something not only are the movements bizarre and not consistent with known movement disorders, but it's the same kind of movements.‘

This mimicry goes on with Facebook or YouTube exposure. This is the modern way that symptomology could be spread.’

[Jay Reynolds]

Dr. Lichter interviewed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr8CQG70Okc



What a fascinating thesis for a PhD. to study this hypothesis. Morgellons definitely comes to mind, and chemtrails not far behind. Mass Psychogenic Illness is one manifestation that used to require close personal contact,but as far back as Orson Welles "War of The Worlds" broadcast, we have seen masses of people deluded through technology as simple as radio.

[Mick]

Very good report. It's unfortunate the role the media plays in spreading such things.

I'm reading "You are not so smart" at the moment. It's a great account of the way the brain works to trick you. It explains how people will totally reject the idea that any component of their illness is "in their mind", when really it's highly plausible that it is.

People who believe in chemtrails will often tell you how intelligent they are, and what unusually great memory and observational skills they have. I wonder if they would benefit at all from reading "You are not so smart", which is subtitled in part "Why your memory is mostly fiction".

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You are a story you tell yourself. You engage in introspection, and with great confidence you see the history of your life with all the characters and settings—and you at the center as protagonist in the tale of who you are. This is all a great, beautiful confabulation without which you could not function.

As you move through your day, you imagine a wide range of potential futures, potential situations outside your senses. When you read news articles and nonfiction books, you create fantasy worlds for situations that actually did happen. When you recall your past, you create it on the spot—a daydream part true and part fantasy that you believe down to the last detail.


McRaney, David (2011-10-27). You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself (Kindle Locations 396-400). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

[Jay Reynolds]

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You are a story you tell yourself. You engage in introspection, and with great confidence you see the history of your life with all the characters and settings—and you at the center as protagonist in the tale of who you are. This is all a great, beautiful confabulation without which you could not function.

As you move through your day, you imagine a wide range of potential futures, potential situations outside your senses. When you read news articles and nonfiction books, you create fantasy worlds for situations that actually did happen. When you recall your past, you create it on the spot—a daydream part true and part fantasy that you believe down to the last detail.

Oh, yes, I've heard other people describe situations I have been in, speaking about me specifically. I heard the guy blow the story up all out of proportion. If course, none of that ever takes place in my mind.

Or maybe I've just been living a delusion?

Really, the book sounds great, and the trailer makes me want to read it:

[Jay Reynolds]

an update on the girls in NY state, fairly extensive, from the New York Times. They are getting better.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/ma...ewanted=1&_r=1

[Mick]

Related, I was looking through the Wikileaks, and saw this non-public DHS document:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...x9sbaE8OoaoYbg

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A case of mass psychogenic illness in Chechnya in 2005 and a similarincident in California in 2003 highlight an additional factor to consider in the response
to terrorist attacks, particularly those involving chemical, biological, or radiological
(CBR) weapons. The number of those suffering psychogenic illness could far exceed
the number of actual casualties in a CBR event.

Mass Psychogenic Illness:
A phenomenon in which social trauma or anxiety combines with a suspicious event to produce
psychosomatic symptoms, such as nausea, difficulty breathing, and paralysis. If many individuals
come to believe that the psychosomatic outbreak is connected to the cause of the trauma or anxiety,
these symptoms can spread rapidly throughout a population.

Basically they are concerned that the number of people who imagine they have symptoms will be far greater than the number of people actually affected by the incident.

This also reminds me of something William Cohen was talking about in his infamous "eco-type of terrorism" discussion in 1997:
http://metabunk.org/threads/159-Debu...terrorism-quot

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Well, it points out the nature of the threat. It turned out to be a false threat under the circumstances. But as we've learned in the intelligence community, we had something called -- and we have James Woolsey here to perhaps even address this question about phantom moles. The mere fear that there is a mole within an agency can set off a chain reaction and a hunt for that particular mole which can paralyze the agency for weeks and months and years even, in a search. The same thing is true about just the false scare of a threat of using some kind of a chemical weapon or a biological one.

And it also reminded me of chemtrails, where so many of the believers imagine they feel ill as soon as they see a contrail, and a significant segment part of the general conspiracy culture is interested in alternative medicine for which may well be simply the general aches and pains of getting old.

It's pretty much to convince anyone of this though.

[George B]

So how do you know you are not suffering from debunkinitis . . . a chronic disorder associated with the need to question anything presented on YouTube . . . Hmmmm. . . you might need to join debunkers anonymous . . . it is a twelve step process designed to allow you to believe in conspiracies, the tooth fairy, and the Easter Bunny . . .

[Jazzy]

people will totally reject the idea that any component of their illness is "in their mind"

It's everyone's problem.

"Reality" is itself simulated in one's mind. The real stuff always happens the other side of the sensory interface, and problems of interpretation happen this side of it. This may give rise to infinite drama. And usually does...

[Oxymoron]

So how do you know you are not suffering from debunkinitis . . . a chronic disorder associated with the need to question anything presented on YouTube . . . Hmmmm. . . you might need to join debunkers anonymous . . . it is a twelve step process designed to allow you to believe in conspiracies, the tooth fairy, and the Easter Bunny . . .

LOL At least Mick did concede it was likely "somatic as well" so perhaps there is some hope here.

But seriously, without the ability to share information on the internet, maybe these people would still be suffering but simply in isolation, without the support and simply less people would know about it therefore it wouldn't be being debunked.