Brockovich, of Los Angeles, says families of affected teens and other community members asked her to look into the case. She’s spent the past week studying federal and state reports about a 1970 train derailment that spilled cyanide and an industrial solvent called trichloroethene (TCE) within three miles of the high school attended by the 12 teen girls who started having these symptoms last fall. Three other teens, including one boy, are reportedly experiencing similar neurological symptoms.
“When I read reports like this — that the New York Department of Health and state agencies were well aware of the spill — and you don’t do water testing or vapor extraction tests, you don’t have an all-clear,” says Brockovich, who gained fame in a movie about her efforts in the early 1990s to expose a coverup involving contaminated water in California that caused residents to become ill.
A statement issued by the school district said “medical and environmental investigations have not uncovered any evidence that would link the neurological symptoms to anything in the environment or of an infectious nature.”
According to a 1999 report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, one ton of cyanide crystals spilled to the ground in the derailment, along with 35,000 gallons of an industrial solvent called trichloroethene.
The cyanide crystals were removed and “neutralizers were spread on the ground to counteract the effects of any remaining cyanide,” the EPA report says.
However, the liquid trichloroethene was absorbed into the ground.
Brockovich says some of the involved families contacted her in December. But she began research in the past week when she received hundreds of e-mails regarding the diagnosis that the girls were suffering from “conversion disorder” or “mass psychogenic illness,” which appear to be stress-related.
“We don’t have all the answers, but we are suspicious,” Brockovich says. “They have not ruled everything out yet. The community asked us to help and this is what we do.”
Three students came forward in the past few days and are “being evaluated by private medical professionals,” said Jeffrey Hammond, a spokesman for the New York Department of Health.
Previously, 12 high school students at Le Roy High, all of them girls, had reported symptoms not unlike those of Tourette’s syndrome. One boy is among the new patients, according to Laszlo Mechtler of the Dent Neurologic Institute in Buffalo.
Mechtler, a neurologist who has treated all but one of the original 12 girls, previously said tests had ruled out medical disorders, diseases and environmental factors.
So far the diagnosis has been a stress-related, possibly neurological condition referred to as conversion disorder. The suggestion is that one student developed symptoms and other students unconsciously followed suit.
The National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., now says any of the students who wish to travel to its facilities can be tested.
“We are very interested in psychogenic movement disorders,” said Mark Hasslett, chief of the NIH Medical Neurology Branch. “When we saw that there were patients that had possible conversion disorder, we wanted to make the doctors aware that we’re interested in making second opinions on these cases.”
The second opinion would include a physical examination and possible neurophysiological testing, Haslett said. Others eligible also could participate in an ongoing conversion disorder research study there.
The cluster of cases in New York apparently dates to sometime last year but wasn’t publicly reported until early November when the number of afflicted students was six. The situation gained national attention when two of the girls appeared last week on NBC’s Today show.
In addition to the three new cases, two teen-age girls in Saratoga County with seemingly similar symptoms also have come forward. Their only apparent connection to Le Roy High School is a claim that they ate lunch there one day in the summer. Hammond said the state health department is not looking into those cases.
Le Roy school superintendent Kim Cox issued a written statement Wednesday acknowledging “a few new possible cases.” She reiterated that earlier testing had ruled out environmental contaminants or infections as a cause.
