Page 37 - July 2015 Issue
P. 37
Was the Illness in LeRoy, NY a Wake Up Call
By Chris Stevenson
Photo Courtesy of Chris Stevenson
Remember the news about those twelve girls in the small town of Le Roy NY coming down with the same
illness? The symptom of the illness reportedly caused jerky movements, tics, convulsions, verbal outbursts, and
even paralysis. My opinion was that except for the verbal outbursts (Reality TV can safely be blamed for that
nowadays) this was highly unusual behavior for some girls who were all students of a high school in Upstate
New York.
This wave attracted some pretty important people to travel to Le Roy and look into it; people like
Environmental Activist Erin Brockovich… Of course in California Brockovich linked a cluster of cancer
cases to contaminated drinking water from chemicals (Chromium-6) leaked into the groundwater of Hinkley
by Paciic Gas & Electric (PG&E). What would she make of this Le Roy-itis as I called it? The reasons given
for the sudden sickness were/are as varied as the background of the people investigating it. “Time” magazine
thinks the behavior is caused by PANDAS; pediatric, autoimmune, neuropsychiatric, disorders associated with
streptococcal infections. The symptoms or behaviors manifest come seemingly overnight. Others think this all
started with a freight-train derailment way back on 12/6/70 when a “portion of a freight train operated by the
Lehigh Valley Railroad Company (LVRR) derailed at the intersection on Gulf Road. Reportedly two tank cars
containing trichloroethene (TCE), a common industrial solvent; ruptured and spilled approximately 30,000
gallons of its contents onto the ground at the Gulf Road intersection,” according to a March ’08 EPA report. A
3rd car containing cyanide was reported to have spilled one ton.
Quiet as it’s kept LVRR hired a irm called Unicorn Management Consultants (UMC) out of Danbury CT to
conduct environmental tests under the supervision of the EPA; surface-soil sampling, surface-water and creek-
sediment sampling within the mud, spring and Oatka Creeks, indoor quality sampling, groundwater sampling
etc. Since then this has become a Superfund cleanup site. Not being a doctor or environmentalist I assume any
illness that affects 12 girls from the same school (18 patients from the Western NY-Central NY area overall)
to be based more on something they themselves did, kids are kids after all. Was there a party, slumber-party,
a gathering? Otherwise why only the girls? Where did they go? What did they do? What did they eat, drink,
swallow or inject? Or even more unexpected, what were they watching? One doctor from the University of
Buffalo even blamed the illness on Facebook, YouTube and other social media the girls were participating in.
Strange-but true that while Brockovich was working on Le Roy’s
37
By Chris Stevenson
Photo Courtesy of Chris Stevenson
Remember the news about those twelve girls in the small town of Le Roy NY coming down with the same
illness? The symptom of the illness reportedly caused jerky movements, tics, convulsions, verbal outbursts, and
even paralysis. My opinion was that except for the verbal outbursts (Reality TV can safely be blamed for that
nowadays) this was highly unusual behavior for some girls who were all students of a high school in Upstate
New York.
This wave attracted some pretty important people to travel to Le Roy and look into it; people like
Environmental Activist Erin Brockovich… Of course in California Brockovich linked a cluster of cancer
cases to contaminated drinking water from chemicals (Chromium-6) leaked into the groundwater of Hinkley
by Paciic Gas & Electric (PG&E). What would she make of this Le Roy-itis as I called it? The reasons given
for the sudden sickness were/are as varied as the background of the people investigating it. “Time” magazine
thinks the behavior is caused by PANDAS; pediatric, autoimmune, neuropsychiatric, disorders associated with
streptococcal infections. The symptoms or behaviors manifest come seemingly overnight. Others think this all
started with a freight-train derailment way back on 12/6/70 when a “portion of a freight train operated by the
Lehigh Valley Railroad Company (LVRR) derailed at the intersection on Gulf Road. Reportedly two tank cars
containing trichloroethene (TCE), a common industrial solvent; ruptured and spilled approximately 30,000
gallons of its contents onto the ground at the Gulf Road intersection,” according to a March ’08 EPA report. A
3rd car containing cyanide was reported to have spilled one ton.
Quiet as it’s kept LVRR hired a irm called Unicorn Management Consultants (UMC) out of Danbury CT to
conduct environmental tests under the supervision of the EPA; surface-soil sampling, surface-water and creek-
sediment sampling within the mud, spring and Oatka Creeks, indoor quality sampling, groundwater sampling
etc. Since then this has become a Superfund cleanup site. Not being a doctor or environmentalist I assume any
illness that affects 12 girls from the same school (18 patients from the Western NY-Central NY area overall)
to be based more on something they themselves did, kids are kids after all. Was there a party, slumber-party,
a gathering? Otherwise why only the girls? Where did they go? What did they do? What did they eat, drink,
swallow or inject? Or even more unexpected, what were they watching? One doctor from the University of
Buffalo even blamed the illness on Facebook, YouTube and other social media the girls were participating in.
Strange-but true that while Brockovich was working on Le Roy’s
37
