Mystery Illness Hits Girls in Small South American Town
September 1st, 2014Mass hysteria. That’s the ticket.
Via: AP:
A mystery illness has overwhelmed a small town in northern Colombia as scores of teenage girls have been hospitalized with symptoms that parents fear could be an adverse reaction to a popular vaccine against cervical cancer.
Authorities say they still don’t know what caused more than 200 girls in El Carmen de Bolivar to come down with symptoms ranging from fainting to numbness in the hands and headaches. Some have hinted that the town of 95,000 near Colombia’s Caribbean coast could be experiencing a rare case of mass hysteria.
Parents are on edge, however, because all the girls, ranging in ages from 9 to 16, were injected in recent months with the vaccine Gardasil. On Wednesday, residents marched peacefully to demand a thorough investigation.
