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ERIN BROCKOVICH
POSTED BY EIZ ON THURSDAY, 19 JANUARY, 2012, 7:14 AM
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By Vincent Iannelli, MD, About.com Guide January 28, 2012 That Erin Brockovich is investigating
the mysterious symptoms that are affecting 15 teens in a small town in western New York is
getting a lot of attention shouldn't be surprising.
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ERIN BROCKOVICH
POSTED BY EIZ ON THURSDAY, 19 JANUARY, 2012, 7:14 AM
Discuss in my forumErin Brockovich
Tackles Mass Hysteria CaseBy Vincent
Iannelli, M.D., About.com Guide January
2 8 , 2 0 1 2 M y
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on:FacebookTwitterSee More About:
www.chemicalinfo.comThat Erin
Brockovich is getting a lot of media
attention for investigating the mysterious
symptoms that are affecting 15 teens in a
small town in western New York shouldn't
be surprising. It is an interesting case.
Most of the teens have been experiencing motor and verbal tics since October without an answer
that is satisfying to all of the parents.
No one likes a medical mystery (unless it has already been solved) and the area seems to have a
chemical history, including a company that made rat poison and a train derailment that led to a
chemical spill 41 years ago.
Could chemicals that contaminated local well water have caused the mysterious symptoms? It
sounds reasonable, but why wouldn't they have caused symptoms in people who actually drank
the well water before carbon treatment units were installed in 1971 and again in 1991?
Interestingly, the drinking water for Le Roy comes from the Monroe County Water Authority, which
tests for, but hasn't found any trichloroethene, the industrial solvent that contaminated groundwater
in the area near the train accident.
The teens were diagnosed with conversion disorder - which is typically a diagnosis of exclusion,
made after you have eliminated all of the other likely possibilities. Did the doctors at the private
clinic, which seems mostly geared towards treating adult patients, meet the criteria for making a
diagnosis of conversion disorder?
So is a diagnosis of conversion disorder or mass hysteria that far fetched? Most people will be
surprised to learn that a group of 10 students at a small high school in North Carolina were
diagnosed with mass hysteria (another name for conversion disorder) at the start of the 2002
school year. Twelve students, 11 girls and 1 boy, were originally evaluated after developing