Children in New York Contract Mysterious Illness, Federal Government Preventing Disclosure of Disease
January 14th, 2012Update: Mystery Teen Illness Grows in Upstate NY, More Cases Reported
Via: MSNBC:
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.”
She hasn’t been back to work in two months. On a good day, Fitzsimmons said, the tics are sporadic. On a bad day, she cannot control them. Extensive testing – including a CAT scan and blood work – didn’t provide any answers, the same frustration experienced by the teens.
“When it first started I thought maybe I’m going crazy,” she said. “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.”
—End Update—
Update: More Le Roy Students Struck with ‘Mystery Illness,’ Parents Demand More Tests
Via: Liberty Confidential:
A handful of Le Roy parents gathered Sunday for a face-to-face discussion on whether or not they accept the conversion disorder diagnosis. Other topics included offers to help that had been extended from other health professionals, and whether or not to demand further environmental testing of school grounds.
Another topic for discussion: at least another 2 children have begun exhibiting similar symptoms as the other 12; and it’s possible that as many as 16 children have contracted this ‘mystery illness.’ (For obvious reasons, some parents are seeking to keep their children as far away from the media spotlight as possible.)
…
It was also recently revealed that Erin Brockovich has become interested in this case.
“We’re told Beth Miller has been speaking with her about this and that Erin Brockovich is disturbed by the lack of testing that’s been done at the school,” reported WHEC’s Christine VanTimmeren.
—End Update—
Update: ‘Teen Girls’ Mystery Illness Now Has a Diagnosis: Mass Hysteria’
Tell me another one.
Via: MSNBC:
The day after TODAY reported on the baffling case of 12 teenage girls at one school who mysteriously fell ill with Tourette’s-like symptoms of tics and verbal outbursts, a doctor who is treating some of the girls has come forward to offer an explanation. Dr. Laszlo Mechtler, a neurologist in Amherst, N.Y., says the diagnosis is “conversion disorder,” or mass hysteria.
“It’s happened before, all around the world, in different parts of the world. It’s a rare phenomena. Physicians are intrigued by it,” Mechtler told TODAY on Wednesday. “The bottom line is these teenagers will get better.”
On the show Tuesday, psychologist and TODAY contributor Dr. Gail Saltz noted that just because the girls’ symptoms may be psychological in origin doesn’t make them any less real or painful.
“That’s not faking it. They’re real symptoms,” Saltz continued. “They need a psychiatric or psychological treatment. Treatment does work.’’
Conversion disorder symptoms usually occur after a stress event, although a patient can be more at risk if also suffering from an illness. Symptoms may last for days or weeks and can include blindness, inability to speak, numbness or other neurologic problems.
It’s unclear which of the girls first showed symptoms, or whether any particular event triggered the outbreak. High school cheerleader and art student Thera Sanchez says her tics, stammer and verbal outbursts appeared out of the blue after a nap one day last October.
“I was fine. I was perfectly fine. There was nothing going on, and then I just woke up, and that’s when the stuttering started,” Sanchez told TODAY.
“I’m very angry,’’ Sanchez told TODAY’s Ann Curry during an interview Tuesday. “I’m very frustrated. No one’s giving me answers.’’
The New York State Health Department has been investigating the case for more than three months and says the school building is not to blame. Officials from the LeRoy Junior-Senior High School in upstate New York, where all the girls attended when their symptoms began, have released environmental reports, conducted by an outside agency, showing no substances in any of the school buildings that could cause health problems.
Health officials ruled out carbon monoxide, illegal drugs and other factors as potential causes. Officials say no one at the school is in any danger.
“We have conclusively ruled out any form of infection or communicable disease and there’s no evidence of any environmental factor,’’ Dr. Gregory Young of the New York Department of Health told NBC News.
But some of the girls’ parents say they’re not satisfied with the explanations so far.
“Obviously we are all not just accepting that this is a stress thing,” Jim Dupont, father of one of the affected girls, told TODAY on Wednesday. “It’s heart wrenching, you fear your daughter’s not going to have a normal life.”
—End Update—
They’re saying that the cause isn’t Gardasil:
NYS Health Department spokesman Jeff Hammond also says vaccines such as Gardasil were investigated as a cause and ruled out. (WGRZ)
Did these girls receive Gardasil vaccinations?
The diagnosis, which is apparently known by the government, is being kept from the girls and their families.
Here’s a question for any of the several medical doctors who regularly read Cryptogon:
Have you ever heard of doctors treating patients without telling them (or their families) what they’re being treated for?
Response
Here’s a response from Dr. H in the U.S. I have edited this slightly to maintain Dr. H’s privacy:
Kevin, I’m an MD in [a state in the U.S.]. I’ve been in private practice since completing my residency in 2002.
The idea that the govt would not permit a doctor to tell a patient (or a peds patient’s parents/guardians) a diagnosis is insane. No physician I know would agree to that.
The sacred doctor-patient bond is more important than any edicts out of Washington. They might be able to issue gag orders to the courts, but they can’t gag me or my colleagues.
The one circumstance where it might make sense not to tell a patient a diagnosis would be if there were more harm from revealing the diagnosis–maybe Munchausen’s by proxy if the child were not physically there, abuse by the parent was suspected, and telling the parent that “we know you’ve been hurting your child for attention” might result in more harm to the kid before the child could be taken away from an abusive situation. What you wrote about doesn’t fit with that scenario, of course.
Saying “I know but won’t tell you what I know” is malpractice. Any atty will have tons of cash rolling in through torts if a doctor really said that.
You can use this email, but please don’t disclose my name.
-h
Via: Liberty Confidential:
Late last year, 12 girls in New York were hit with strange symptoms that included spasms, and tics. Some children were so bad, and for so long, that they had to be pulled out of school and tutored at home. One who couldn’t return to school had seizures.
Parents have been demanding answers since late 2011.
An investigation was launched into why these children — all girls who attend the same school, Le Roy, in New York — have come down with this mysterious illness.
Visits to psychologists, medical doctors, MRIs, and more, have been conducted over the past months. Nothing has been revealed.
The story took an unsettling turn this week when a government health official told parents not to worry, that they know what’s been making the children suffer these symptoms; but that the government will not permit the disclosure of details, not even to the parents.
The official, from the state health department, called it a “federal issue.”
German Priest Admits 280 Counts of Sexual Abuse, Thought He Was Doing No Harm
January 14th, 2012Via: BBC:
A German Catholic priest has admitted 280 counts of sexual abuse involving three boys in the past decade, saying he did not think he was doing harm.
Named only as Andreas L, the priest told a court in Braunschweig that he had first abused the nine-year-old son of a widowed woman parishioner.
After being banned by his diocese from making further contact with the boy, he abused two brothers, aged nine and 13.
…
Sexual assaults were made on the three boys in various settings: at the priest’s house, on skiing holidays, in a parental home, on a trip to Disneyland Paris and at a church shortly before Mass.
Value Afghan Opium Yield Rose 133 Percent from 2010
January 14th, 2012Via: AFP:
Production of opium and the illicit crop’s value soared in Afghanistan last year, the United Nations said in a report released Thursday.
According to the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime, farmer income derived from Afghanistan’s opium crop in 2011 was $1.4 billion (1.09 billion euros), representing nine percent of GDP.
“Opium is therefore a significant part of the Afghan economy and provides considerable funding to the insurgency and fuels corruption,” Yury Fedotov, executive director of the UN office, said in a statement.
Afghanistan grows about 90 percent of the world’s opium. The UN said poppy-crop cultivation covered more than 131,000 hectares in 2011, up seven per cent from the previous year.
The overall opium crop increased by 61 per cent, from 3,600 metric tons in 2010 to 5,800 metric tons in 2011.
The value of the opium yield rose 133 percent from 2010, when plant diseases killed much of the Afghan crop.
Mossad Operatives Posed as CIA Operatives
January 14th, 2012Via: AFP:
Agents with Israel’s Mossad agency posed as American CIA agents in operations to recruit members of the Pakistani militant group Jundallah, a report in Foreign Policy magazine said Friday.
Using American dollars and US passports, the agents passed themselves off as members of the Central Intelligence Agency in the operations, notably in London, according to memos from 2007 and 2008, said the report.
Jundallah (Soldiers of God) says it is fighting for the interests of the southeastern province’s large ethnic Baluch community, whose members, unlike most Iranians, mainly follow the Sunni branch of Islam.
The Baluch straddle the border with neighboring Pakistan and Afghanistan and Jundallah militants have taken advantage of the unrest in the region to find safe haven in the border region.
In July it claimed responsibility for attacking the Grand Mosque in the provincial capital Zahedan, reportedly targeting members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Corps, killing 28 people.
“It’s amazing what the Israelis thought they could get away with,” a US intelligence officer told Foreign Policy.
“Their recruitment activities were nearly in the open. They apparently didn’t give a damn what we thought,” said the official.
Related: Foreign Policy: False Flag
S&P Cuts Credit Ratings for France, Italy, Spain
January 14th, 2012Via: Los Angeles Times:
Standard & Poor’s swept the debt-ridden European continent with punishing credit downgrades Friday, stripping France of its coveted AAA status and dropping Italy even lower. Germany retained its top-notch rating, but Portugal’s debt was consigned to junk.
In all, S&P, which took away the United States’ AAA rating last summer, lowered the ratings of nine countries, complicating Europe’s efforts to find a way out of a debt crisis that still threatens to cause worldwide economic harm.
Austria also lost its AAA status, Italy and Spain fell by two notches, and S&P also cut ratings on Malta, Cyprus, Slovakia and Slovenia.
Disclosure: I’m Long Natural Gas (UNG)
January 13th, 2012Warning: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.
Update: Stopped Out, No Position in UNG
—End Update—
I bought a small amount of UNG near the lows this morning. Tight stop on this one. Up or out.
Haiti: Two Years After the Earthquake, Where Did the Money Go?
January 13th, 2012Via: Global Post:
Where those billions went following the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that left a government-estimated figure of 220,000 people dead — and at least 1.6 million more homeless — remains a confounding mystery.
…
“In the end,” says Robert Fatton Jr., professor of government and foreign affairs at the University of Virginia and a son of and authority on contemporary Haiti, “if you read the reports — the UN Report and so on — you’ll see that actual Haitians got less than 1 percent of all the American money pledged.”
In other words, Fatton explained, “99 percent of [the US money spent] went back to the US military, the State Department, NGOs and contractors. The money was clearly intended for Haiti, but it ended up returning to the same place it came from.”
Research Credit: roaches
QE3?
January 13th, 2012Via: CNBC:
Federal Reserve officials are seriously considering giving the US economy—and especially the housing market—an added jolt with more quantitative easing.
Radioactive Metal Tissue Box Holders Pulled from NY Stores
January 13th, 2012Via: NBC:
Health officials said they’ve removed a dozen metal box tissue holders containing small amounts of radioactive material from four Bed, Bath and Beyond stores in New York.
None of the boxes were sold to the public, said the company.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission notified state health officials Tuesday that a shipment of metal box tissue holders to four Bed, Bath and Beyond stores were found to contain low levels of Cobalt-60.
Cobalt-60, a man-made product using cobalt, has been used to sterilize medical equipment and in radiation therapy for cancer patients.
The level of radiation exposure from holding the tissue box against the body for one hour would be equivalent to a chest X-ray, said state health officials.
The NRC said scrap metal containing Cobalt-60 could have inadvertently been incorporated into the product during smelting. The products arrived in a shipment from India on Dec. 27, and 220 were distributed to Bed Bath and Beyond stores nationwide.
U.S. Marines Urinating on Afghan Corpses
January 13th, 2012Via: Washington Post:
Top U.S. officials moved swiftly Thursday to try to prevent diplomatic damage and contain public disgust from the release of a video that appeared to show Marines urinating on three Afghan corpses — images that spread quickly around the globe.
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said he had viewed the video and considered it “utterly deplorable.” He telephoned Afghan President Hamid Karzai and pledged a full investigation.
Prior to the call, Karzai described the video as “completely inhumane and condemnable in the strongest possible terms.” His administration called on the U.S. military to “apply the most severe punishment to anyone found guilty in this crime.”
The video, which runs for less than a minute, depicts four Marines in combat gear laughing and joking as they urinate on three male bodies. The caption refers to the corpses as “dead Talibans,” but it is unclear whether the men were civilians or fighters killed after a battle.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed “total dismay” at the behavior depicted in the recording, and said the “vast, vast” majority of American military personnel would not engage in such actions.
