over a dozen teen girls in and around leroy, new york have reported experiencing the same tourette’s-like symptoms of twtiching, tics, and uncontrollable verbal outbursts. With the case now generating a great deal of media attention and public interest, some of the teens affected have been posting videos on youtube, facebook and other social networking channels showing their symptoms.
parents gathered at a meeting last weekend to demand answers about whether the leroy high school is safe. After extensive testing, the school district found no environmental cause for the symptoms. Results of the testing have all come back negative. A team of environmentalists, including erin brockovich, are testing soil samples to see if the illness could be related to a chemical spill from a train wreck near the school years earlier.
the adorable and pneumatic erin brockovich is an environmentalist once portrayed by julia roberts in an eponymous movie. she is trying to figure out if the leroy troubles are related to an environmental spill which occurred near the town in 1970.
but some psychiatrists have been suggesting a simpler solution. they’re calling it conversion disorder (formerly known as “mass hysteria”), which is the physical expression of psychological stress. stop texting, videoing, facebooking, sharing, twittering, youtubing, and then i wondered. .. . if facebook makes everybody just four degrees of separation* away from everyone else, am i at risk?Ā am i at risk of spreading a disease? am i contagious????
*http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/technology/between-you-and-me-4-74-degrees.html
arlynnpresser 
March 10th, 2012 at 11:01 pm
LOL!!! oops, I usually don’t do that! Or that! Now I’m infected!
March 10th, 2012 at 11:19 pm
yup, now you’ve got it!
March 10th, 2012 at 11:24 pm
Memes are the typical internet infection and you are a carrier. The movie Pay It Forward described the result of a boy’s idea to infuse the world with a geometrically increasing tidal wave of charity. This chapter of your life may be the story of a woman that floods the world with a tide of courage and healing, where mitzvah triggers mitzvah in a cascade.
March 10th, 2012 at 11:27 pm
wow, i sure like that idea! except the ending of pay it forward. . . .
March 11th, 2012 at 1:00 am
This is the problem with the high rate’s are brains are working at. If you are growing up in all the digital stuff you think so fast that it could do permenent damge. I have always thought Tuerrets sometimes called the Jewish syndrom which I have was caused by some sort of expermentation in the late 1800’s? Slow down, take a walk, play, dream, watch, learn. You don’t need it 10 seconds ago.
March 11th, 2012 at 3:48 am
I saw a video from one of these girls about a month ago… would you believe I was just thinking about checking up on this story earlier today? I do hope they figure it out.
March 11th, 2012 at 3:42 pm
absolutely strange story! and i find it hard to believe it’s being transmitted by social media but who knows? stranger things have happened. . . .
March 11th, 2012 at 8:25 pm
With the barrage of health info that is out nowadays and the younger ones (and some older ones)can be easily influenced. It’s like meeting with a friend and the friend says that they have had a stuffy knose for days. Usually the friend after thinking about it agrees and says, I have too.
However, I wonder if the idea is being touted so that there won’t be people looking into the train wreck. I think of the nuclear disaster sites over the years and the sheer mass of people that struggled because of that disaster or testing site and I wonder. If the train wreck was found to be involved, how much money would they be sued for? Maybe I’m cynical but I think that plays into it as well.
March 11th, 2012 at 10:08 pm
THAT is such an interesting possibility!!!
March 11th, 2012 at 8:27 pm
A knose knows…”nose.” sorry for the mistype. š
March 11th, 2012 at 8:36 pm
no comment ā¤
March 13th, 2012 at 12:21 am
Love it! Hahaha… So brave of you to put your video out there! I wish I was as brave! š Love the blog post! š As always š