Number of students with Tourette symptoms grows

[Matt]

Let the shotgun spending begin!

LeRoy, N.Y. -- The LeRoy School Board approved air and soil testing at its Tuesday night meeting.

It's another effort to explore a possible cause of the Tourette's-like illness affecting at least 12 students.

Pittsford-based Leader Professional Services will start testing air quality later this week.

Testing will take place both when students are in school and out of school. Air samples will be collected first to check things such as mercury, methane and fungi. Soil samples will follow.

The board commissioned the tests in response to concerns from the community that something in the environment may be causing the tics. The board and Leader say they want to leave the community with no doubts that the school is safe.

The testing will take about seven weeks to complete. It will cost the district $70,000 to $75,000.

The board has reached out to Rep. Kathy Hochul and Lt. Governor Bob Duffy to see if state funds are available to help pay for the tests.

http://www.13wham.com/news/local/story/ ... ak3LQ.cspx

[ApproachingLight]

Let the shotgun spending begin!

LOL!

[Matt]

Based on the sole "evidence" that girls of the same age happen to attend the only school in the town for girls that age, because of parents that won't stop bitching, the school is just going to start testing things just because people are AFRAID of its "evilness" and at the cost of $10/per every citizen of the town.

I don't mind testing to see if something is the culprit, but get some solid evidence.

[Matt]

an update:
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/art ... |text|Home

[ApproachingLight]

Thanks for the update. I had heard (maybe 1080 WHAM?) that some were concerned that Erin's showing up would stir up things unnecessarily. Evidently the tourettes symptoms had very much died down. But it also sounds like there are serious environmental problems there.

[Matt]

Two more Le Roy students diagnosed with tic-like symptoms

Two students at Le Roy’s junior-senior high school have been diagnosed with tic-like symptoms, paralleling a situation in the last school year that garnered national attention.

A physician who’s treated one of the two students blamed the new symptoms on recent publicity about the earlier outbreak in Le Roy.

More than a dozen students in the Genesee County junior-senior high school building reported unusual neurological symptoms beginning about a year ago. Publicity reached a crescendo in early 2012 when various outside advocates and media outlets descended on Le Roy.

Many health experts said it appeared the symptoms were a contagion of conversion disorder, in which psychological trauma or upset causes uncontrollable physical symptoms.

more here:
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/art ... ext|Home|p

[tapcity]

Vast quantities (30,000 gal.) of trichloroethene (TCE), a chemical that is scheduled to be banned from commercial use in residential areas by 2020, entered the ground water near the school in 1970. TCE doesn't necessarily degrade in ground water. Heavier than water, it can remain at bedrock level or at the bottom of wells as a dense non-aqueous phase liquid (DNAPL). Certain bacteria, light or heat are needed for its degradation. The fracking well spill or spills of a year or so ago may have put TCE back into the food chain; certainly, other chemicals were introduced, and other environmental variables were created.

Some of the questions that need to be answered are: From where were the great quantities of water needed to frack obtained? What is the condition of the flora in the swamp/pond at the school? Has the pond become anaerobic or methanated? What is the exact strain of the rust fungus present on the school fields? (Historically rust fungi were known to produce respiratory problems and/or fainting in grain field workers; they are not as innocuous as alleged by local officials.) What other chemicals were released in the spill(s)?

TCE can accumulate in fatty tissues; it, or its by-products can presumably be absorbed at low levels into the fatty structure of fungal spores. TCE attacks myelin, the protein sheath of nerves. Absorbed even in minute amounts by liposomes from broken spores- directly into skin (by sitting or walking barefoot on rust infected grass) it could cause symptoms other than those observed in cases of inhalation or ingestion.

The PANDAS explanation put forward near the beginning of this problem, though problematic, need not be entirely discounted. Streptococcus is a pervasive microbe. Why it effects different people differently or not at all is unknown; environmental factors may be the determinants.

These issues are not imponderables. Though some cases may well be conversion disorder, in which victims may show sympathetic symptoms, a thorough study of conditions at the school would obtain answers. Locals must ask themselves why this has not been done.

At the very least, the vicinity of the pond and wells should be fenced off; until an alternate explanation is found, all direct (bare skin) contact with the rust infected grass needs to be avoided at all costs. Officials need to show profound concern in order to prevent further outbreaks, whether these be conversion illnesses or cases of poisoning.

http://umbbd.ethz.ch/tce/tce_map.html
http://democrats.energycommerce.house.g ... .18.11.pdf

[George]

Thank you for sharing your creative environmental science fantasy with this forum on your first post. I've read it over several times now, and I hope that I understand it correctly. You are suggesting that a solvent spill that occurred 40 years ago and 3 miles away from the school, of a chemical that is known to sink when it is released into the environment, was somehow brought back to the ground surface and put back into the food chain by chemicals injected about 2,000 feet underground? And these chemicals are now causing health symptoms that have never before been seen in the half century or more that people have been exposed to them at much higher levels? Where do I begin…

First off, it is highly improbable that the plume of TCE in bedrock intersects the zone that was drilled and fracked. They are just too far apart horizontally and vertically. And if it was, how would the TCE get to the surface? And the fact is that TCE causes exactly the opposite health effects of what is being seen in Leroy - it depresses neurological function in the central nervous system and causes numbness and loss of dexterity in peripheral nerves. People get dizzy and lose feeling in their extremities, and only at much higher levels than these children will ever experience. You will expose them to higher levels by bringing your dry cleaning home than they will ever get from a 40 year old spill.

Or is it the fracking chemicals themselves? Let's say for the sake of argument that some of these were spilled at the surface near the school. Drillers have been working closely with these chemicals for more than a decade – do we see any Tourette-like symptoms in them? Do they jerk their shot glasses around and blurt out "Drill Baby Drill" when they're kicking back after hours? Or is it that these young women are so sensitive to these chemicals that their exposure at a tiny fraction of the levels of industrial workers is causing these previously unknown health effects?

Or maybe it's that a common fungus found everywhere in the Northeast that causes breathing problems when it is inhaled is now causing totally unrelated neurological problems in only this little corner of the world. Or an equally common bacteria that has evolved specifically to create Tourette's in adolescent girls?

The sad fact is that this wild and unfounded speculation, armed with a couple of internet search technical terms, is what is making these poor young women sick. So if you want to investigate the cause, just follow these steps:

1. Get up from your kitchen table
2. Walk down the hall to your bathroom
3. Turn on the light
4. Look in the mirror.

Because by shouting from the top of Bullshit Mountain, you are fueling the hysteria that contributes to the conversion disorder that is causing these symptoms. And the last thing that should be done is fencing off the pond, because OMG we went out there for biology class last year and I think I touched a rust-colored piece of grass and OMG did you see my hand just twitch and OMG this is exactly what happened to Joanie, OMG!!!!

So if you really want to make them well, consider doing the following:
[spoiler]Climb down off Bullshit Mountain and STF up[/spoiler]

And I look forward to seeing your waterfall pics.