New York Girls Experience “Mystery Illness”
“Movement disorder experts assert that a psychogenic disorder is to blame for a cluster of more than a dozen adolescent girls at an upstate New York school experiencing Tourette’s-like tics, twitches, stuttering, and spasms, but the diagnosis has plenty of skeptics, ranging from famed activist Erin Brockovich to some of the girls’ own parents.
Authorities in LeRoy, New York, tested the quality of the air and water and conducted other tests at LeRoy High School after the girls started exhibiting the tics and involuntary movements that the media dubbed a “mystery illness” last fall. The test results reportedly ruled out mold, water, or other chemicals as factors causing the symptoms.
Brockovich and other environmentalists, however, say the school’s assurances do not address the issue of a train derailment in 1970 that resulted in a massive toxic chemical spill only about 4 miles from the school.
According to a US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Web site, the spill involved as much as a ton of cyanide crystals and 30,000 gallons of trichloroethylene (TCE), which studies have linked to Parkinson’s disease.
Despite initial clean-up efforts, a sampling of private wells between 1990 and 1994 detected TCE in approximately 50 wells located near the derailment, according to the agency. The site was added to the EPA’s Superfund National Priorities List in January, 1999, after soil and ground water samples continued to show contamination with hazardous chemicals.”
