2011 Le Roy, New York illness outbreak

none Between October 2011 and June 2012,Gulley Neale June 23, 2012 School's end clears up New York students' mystery twitching https://www.reuters.com/article/us-students-twitcnew-york-h-idUSBRE85M0DF20120623 Reuters twenty people in Le Roy, New York, primarily teenage girls, reported perplexing medical symptoms including verbal outbursts, tics, seizure activity and speech difficulty.Steve Almasy and Jim Spellman February 4, 2012 N.Y. town still baffled by teens' mysterious tics https://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/03/us/new-york-students-illness/ February 4, 2012 CNN The affected individuals included 19 students (18 girls and one boy) from the LeRoy Junior-Senior High School and one 37-year-old woman. Medical professionals ascribed the symptoms of many of those affected to conversion disorder. The event has been described as a case of mass psychogenic illness, and the first such case in which reports of affected individuals spread via social networks. Progression of events The first case of an individual displaying unusual symptoms was recorded in 2011. On October 21, 2011, the Genesee County Health Department informed the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) that eight students at the LeRoy Junior-Senior High School had "recently developed neurologic tic symptoms".2012-01-31 Investigation of Neurologic Symptoms among Le Roy Jr/Sr High School Students, October 2011 – January 2012: Interim Report https://www.health.ny.gov/press/releases/2012/leroy/docs/investigation_summary.pdf New York State Department of Health By mid-December, 12 girls at the LeRoy Junior-Senior High School had reported symptoms.2012-03-10 The Curious Case Of Teen Tics In Le Roy, N.Y. https://www.npr.org/2012/03/10/148372536/the-curious-case-of-teen-tics-in-le-roy-n-y NPR By late January 2012, eight of the 12 students had been diagnosed with conversion disorder by the Dent Neurologic Institute; three of the students had previous diagnoses of tic-related disorders, one of whom was previously diagnosed with Tourette syndrome. Fifteen of the female students were treated by neurologist Laszlo Mechtler, of the Dent Neurologic Institute. Investigations by the New York State Department of Health ruled out environmental causes to the symptoms, including the presence of mold, fungus, or chemicals in the school building, school grounds, or water supply. No environmental causes were found after repeated testing around the school and surrounding areas of town. Investigators also found no correlation in regards to vaccine (Gardasil) administration or shared activities, and found no evidence of drug use by students. In mid-January 2012, five days after a community meeting in which the NYSDOH stated their diagnosis could not be revealed publicly due to HIPAA concerns, two of the girls appeared on NBC's Today Show to discuss their frustration with not getting adequate answers.Dominus Susan March 7, 2012 The Mystery of 18 Twitching Teenagers in Le Roy https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/magazine/teenage-girls-twitching-le-roy.html?pagewanted=all The New York Times The next day, Laszlo Mechtler, a neurologist treating most of the girls, was given permission to share the diagnosis of conversion disorder and mass psychogenic illness. Unsatisfied with the investigation's results, some of the girls and their parents spoke out publicly against their diagnosis, stating they believed the situation warranted further scrutiny from outside sources. Alternative medical theories were suggested, including Tourette syndrome and PANDAS,Chan Amanda L. 2012-02-08 PANDAS May Be Cause Of Mysterious LeRoy Illness, Neurologist Claims https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pandas-mystery-illness-leroy_n_1263933 2024-10-12 HuffPost en which Mechtler and his team ruled out.February 2, 2012 Could an Infection Cause Tourette's-Like Symptoms in Teenage Girls? http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=could-infection-cause-tourettes-like-symptoms-teenage-girls March 9, 2012 Scientific American Beginning in late January, noted environmental activist Erin Brockovich was called to town to investigate environmental pollution from the 1970 Lehigh Valley Railroad derailment as a possible cause.February 21, 2013 What Really Happened To The Girls In Le Roy? http://www.wgrz.com/news/article/201715/37/What-Really-Happened-To-The-Girls-In-Le-Roy dead https://archive.today/20130628022636/http://www.wgrz.com/news/article/201715/37/What-Really-Happened-To-The-Girls-In-Le-Roy June 28, 2013 June 25, 2013 WGRZ During this time, many of the girls appeared in the local and national media, as well as posting on social media."Mass Hysteria In Upstate NY", Huffington Post, Retrieved January 31, 2012. In February 2012, the Dent Neurologic Institute reported that two girls receiving treatment at the institute had recovered, with three others seeing improving symptoms.2012-02-25 Doc: 2 teens with tic-like mystery illness 'all better' https://www.today.com/news/doc-2-teens-tic-mystery-illness-all-better-wbna46523792 2024-10-12 TODAY.com en Eventually, as doctors encouraged their patients to stay away from the media and the media attention died down, many of the girls' symptoms improved. Some girls, eight of whom had been diagnosed with PANDAS by other doctors and had received antibiotics, also saw their symptoms lessen or disappear. By the end of the school year in June, one girl was diagnosed with Tourette syndrome, and most of the girls who received treatment for conversion disorder were healthy in time for graduation. In media The illness outbreak was cited as an inspiration of Megan Abbott's 2014 novel The FeverHughes Sarah 2014-05-26 Teen girls and mass hysteria: new novel tackles rare and mysterious illness https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/may/26/teen-girls-mass-hysteria-new-novel-tackles-rare-mysterious-illness 2024-10-12 The Guardian en-GB 0261-3077 and Katherine Howe's 2014 novel Conversion.Aloi Daniel 2014-07-09 Salem, student pressures inspire Howe's 'Conversion' https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2014/07/salem-student-pressures-inspire-howes-conversion 2024-10-12 Cornell Chronicle en The event was fictionalized in Lynn Rosen's 2017 play The Firebirds Take the Field.Reid Kerry 2017-04-27 ‘Firebirds’ tells the real-life story of cheerleaders afflicted by mystery illness https://www.chicagotribune.com/2017/04/27/firebirds-tells-the-real-life-story-of-cheerleaders-afflicted-by-mystery-illness/ 2024-10-12 Chicago Tribune en-US The illness outbreak was the subject of Dan Taberski's 2024 podcast Hysterical.Quah Nicholas 2024-07-25 Hysterical Stares Into the Abyss https://www.vulture.com/article/hysterical-podcast-review-teenage-contagion.html 2024-10-12 Vulture en The outbreak was featured in an episode of the true crime television series The Curious Case of.... Season 2 episode 7, titled "The Town with Tourette's" (2026)The Town with Tourette's The Curious Case of... Investigation Discovery 2026 2 7 https://www.hbomax.com/au/en/shows/curious-case-of/s2/61a59a72-d476-49a8-9cbd-2c49741b423f/e7-town-with-tourettes/875a4ee8-28be-4c1b-ac40-f28e44c9f286 June 23, 2026 Academic analysis A 2012 paper in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine questioned whether interaction on social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Internet blogs) contributed to mass psychogenic illness when the adolescent girls reported tic-like movements.Bartholomew Robert E. Robert Bartholomew Wessely Simon Simon Wessely Rubin G James December 2012 Mass psychogenic illness and the social network: is it changing the pattern of outbreaks? Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 105 12 509–12 10.1258/jrsm.2012.120053 3536509 23288084 In late 2015, two academics from the University of Colorado, Donna Goldstein and Kira Hall, criticized authorities for their rapid diagnosis of conversion disorder, suggesting that even if such a diagnosis was correct, it should have been delayed while testing for any possible environmental cause had been completed.Evans Clay Bonnyman 2016-02-17 ‘Hysteria’ theory short on science https://www.colorado.edu/asmagazine/2016/02/17/hysteria-theory-short-science 2024-10-12 Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine en In 2025, neurologist Jennifer McVige, Mechtler, and colleagues published an assessment of 15 students and an adult seen at the Dent Neurologic Institute. The assessment concluded that the cases constituted mass psychogenic illness.McVige J Masset L Mechtler L Rooney M Eugeni P Kaur-Spencer D Trzcinski A Niu Z An Occurrence of Mass Psychogenic Illness: LeRoy, New York. Journal of Child Neurology 8 September 2025 8830738251369759 10.1177/08830738251369759 40920186 free Selected publications Cook Ryan J. "I Didn’t Want to Be One of the Contaminated People": Confronting a Mystery Illness in a Rural American Landscape Somatosphere: Science Medicine and Anthropology 8 2013 Goldstein Donna M. Hall Kira Kira Hall November 2015 Mass hysteria in Le Roy, New York: How brain experts materialized truth and outscienced environmental inquiry https://www.colorado.edu/faculty/hall-kira/sites/default/files/attached-files/goldstein-hall-2015-mass_hysteria_in_le_roy_new_york.pdf American Ethnologist 42 4 Sammond Nicholas 2015 Touched by Le Roy: Teens, Tourette's, and YouTube in the Twilight of Neoliberalism https://www.jstor.org/stable/43958466 Women's Studies Quarterly 43 1/2 29–50 0732-1562 McVige Jennifer Rooney Megan Shukri Said Munir Ahmad Mechtler Laszlo Mangold Sarah 2021-04-13 Le Roy: Diagnosing Mass Psychogenic Illness (2400) https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.96.15_supplement.2400 Neurology en 96 15_supplement 10.1212/WNL.96.15_supplement.2400 0028-3878 subscription References Category:2011 in New York (state) Category:2012 in New York (state) Category:2012 controversies in the United States Category:Controversies in New York (state) Category:History of women in New York (state) Category:Le Roy, New York Category:Mass psychogenic illness in the United States Category:Medical controversies in the United States