Fears of mass posioning of Afghan School Girls

[foxholeatheist]

Quote:

Fears of mass poisoning of Afghan schoolgirls
By HEIDI VOGT, Associated Press Writer Heidi Vogt, Associated Press Writer 23 mins ago

CHARIKAR, Afghanistan – Doctors were investigating whether dozens of students were poisoned at a high school in northern Afghanistan on Monday after 61 girls went to the hospital complaining of sudden illness, officials said.

Dr. Khalil Farangi said the 61 students and one teacher from Hora Jalaly high school in Parwan province northwest of Kabul complained of symptoms like irritability, weeping and confusion. Several girls also passed out.

The mass hospitalization comes about two weeks after a similar incident in Parwan, where dozens of girls were hospitalized after being sickened by what Afghan officials said were strong fumes or a possible poison gas cloud.

The Taliban and other conservative extremist groups in Afghanistan oppose education for girls, who were not allowed to attend school under the 1996-2001 Taliban regime. Though it was unclear if Monday's incident was the result of an attack, militants in the south have previously assaulted schoolgirls by spraying acid in their faces and burned down schools as a protest against the government. Scores of Afghan schools have been forced to close because of violence.

Officials on Monday sent blood samples to Kabul and to the main U.S. military base in Bagram to test whether some form of poison was to blame, said Farangi, the director of Charikar's hospital.

Provincial Gov. Abdul Basir Salangi said officials said an investigation is under way.

A number of students interviewed at the hospital by The Associated Press complained of a strong sweet smell, which gave them headaches and made some girls wobbly before they passed out.

"There was a very strong smell, like flowers in the hallway. I fell down and woke up in the hospital," said the 18-year-old Zahera, who like many Afghan goes by one name. She lay in a ward full of girls, many of them two to a bed, wearing the typical Afghan school uniform of black robe and white headscarf.

Sadia Akbari, who was shaking and sweating in a hospital bed with her parents holding her hands, said she first smelled something while sitting in religion class and asked a friend if it was her perfume.

"But then we went outside to the yard and the perfume smell was stronger out there," 18-year-old Akbari said.

Akbari said she left the school with rest of the girls and went home, but she kept feeling dizzy and her eyes were stinging. Her father said he saw her pale face and brought her directly to the hospital.

The 10th grader took gasping breathes as she told her story. Her face glistened with sweat, which had also soaked through her headscarf to saturate her pillow. Akbari nodded toward her hands, with fingers awkwardly splayed out and explained that she was having trouble bending them.

Nizamuddin Rahimi, a provincial education official, tried to downplay the incident, suggesting it was a panic attack after the students saw one of their classmates collapse.

As a precaution, and in response to parents' concerns, at least 50 students were sent to the hospital and the rest home, Rahimi said.

Several hours after the incident, about three dozen students remained at the hospital, Farangi said. They were receiving glucose intravenously and oxygen, said Dr. Khalil Rahman, one of the doctors treating the girls.

The high school where the incident happened is attended by both girls and boys. The girls attend class in the morning, at the time when the students became ill.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090511/...a6h379M3ZvaA8F

Awesome.

[Quad4_72]

Originally Posted by foxholeatheist

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090511/...a6h379M3ZvaA8F

Awesome.

How is that awesome? And I am sure either E.J. or some other poster is going to try and make this out to be the United states fault somehow

[Beerina]

Well, if the US didn't start stirring around a hornet's nest over there, the girls would just never have been in school in the first place, and therefore, they'd be better off, as judged by us, sitting safe and free ten thousand miles away.

[I Ratant]

There've been similar incidents (test runs?) in schools over here over the years, when female students develop nearly the same symptoms.
Peer-pressure hysteria?

[Skeptic]

In the west bank, a few years back almost a whole girl's school developed symptoms of "poisoning" from "Israeli nerve gas" that never existed. It *IS* of course possible that in this case it's a real attack, but one needs to be very careful.

It could just as well have been burning garbage or fumes from fuel whose strong odor and the "makes me feel sick!" feeling it induces in some people was instantly interpreted as "poison gas attack" by impressionable girls.

I'd say the jury is out on this one. More evidence is needed to see if it's real or mass hysteria.

[Nogbad]

The fact that there are no fatalities or even, it would seem, serious symptoms would suggest the it wasn't the Taliban. If they had planned an attack one might expect a body count.

I doubt Health and Safety is a major thing in Afghan business life. It could easily be noxious fumes from something or other. Given the political climate if the girls thought it was an attack panic would soon set in.

[Darth Rotor]

Hmmmm.

Forty years ago, reports went out that the US hearts and minds campaign versus the Viet Cong ran into a slight problem. US medics come to village, with platoon of armed soldiers or Marines in support, and innoculations/vaccines/medicines dispensed. Much wampum and big medicine accrued, as it were.

Platoon and medics leave.

A day or so later, VC operative arrive, armed, grab a few kids, and cut off arms. Trying to make a point. Suggest to village elders that they not accept Yankee charity. (Hint: I have as friends and neighbors some folks who grew up in Viet Nam during that era. Their accounts are consistent with this scenario.)

Fast forward forty years: why would the Taliban be any less ruthless?

That said, Skeptic has a good point: jury is out, what really happened?

Give it the 48 hour rule, at least.

DR

[Sir Robin Goodfellow]

This makes me think of the TV show in Japan that supposedly gave all those children seizures, which turned out to be largely mass hysteria.


That's not to say there hasn't been some nefarious doings in this case, though I would expect the Taliban to be less subtle in their terrorising. I guess time will tell.

[gumboot]

"Dr. Khalil Farangi said the 61 students and one teacher from Hora Jalaly high school in Parwan province northwest of Kabul complained of symptoms like irritability, weeping and confusion."

It's not mass poisoning, it's puberty!

[tyr_13]

Originally Posted by gumboot

"Dr. Khalil Farangi said the 61 students and one teacher from Hora Jalaly high school in Parwan province northwest of Kabul complained of symptoms like irritability, weeping and confusion."

It's not mass poisoning, it's puberty!

Irritability? Weeping? Confusion? They live in Afghanistan for water's sake. How are they supposed to feel?

[Skeptic Ginger]

Sounds more like mass hysteria than an actual poisoning. It's a common occurrence and it's not confined to girls. I read about similar events all the time from my sources of unusual illness outbreaks around the world.

Here in the US people have "scratchy throats and headaches" and are convinced the buildings are toxic. Often a few get taken to the hospital, some supposedly faint. It's like a panic attack.

[billw]

Originally Posted by Darth Rotor

Hmmmm.

Forty years ago, reports went out that the US hearts and minds campaign versus the Viet Cong ran into a slight problem. US medics come to village, with platoon of armed soldiers or Marines in support, and innoculations/vaccines/medicines dispensed. Much wampum and big medicine accrued, as it were.

Platoon and medics leave.

A day or so later, VC operative arrive, armed, grab a few kids, and cut off arms. Trying to make a point. Suggest to village elders that they not accept Yankee charity. (Hint: I have as friends and neighbors some folks who grew up in Viet Nam during that era. Their accounts are consistent with this scenario.)

I've seen horrors … horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that … but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face … and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. I remember when I was with Special Forces. Seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for Polio, and this old man came running after us, and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there, and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember … I … I … I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized … like I was shot … like I was shot with a diamond … a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God … the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters. These were men … trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love … but they had the strength … the strength … to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men, then our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral … and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling … without passion … without judgment … without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us.

-- Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, Apocalypse Now

[GreyICE]

Billw 1, DarthRotor, -500,000 for relying on anecdotes. Nominated for making me believe in God, or at least a universal justice for nincompoops who try to pass off anecdote as argument.

[Shadowdweller]

Originally Posted by Darth Rotor

That said, Skeptic has a good point: jury is out, what really happened?

Give it the 48 hour rule, at least.

DR

Originally Posted by GreyICE

Billw 1, DarthRotor, -500,000 for relying on anecdotes. Nominated for making me believe in God, or at least a universal justice for nincompoops who try to pass off anecdote as argument.

Let's read the entire post before we point fingers, shall we?

[TheDoLittle]

Originally Posted by GreyICE

Billw 1, DarthRotor, -500,000 for relying on anecdotes. Nominated for making me believe in God, or at least a universal justice for nincompoops who try to pass off anecdote as argument.

Quote:

"No, these peasants were terrified. The VC controlled all these hamlets. I remember a little village on the other side of Dom Tam, where Army medics had vaccinated kids against measles. One night the Vietcong came in and chopped off those children's arms - retribution for cooperating with the Imperialist enemy. The peasants on this road where not the enemy... they were the victims." - American Soldier By Tommy R. Franks, Malcolm McConnell

I seem to remember seeing a documentary on The Hitler Channel mentioning this.

Also, Polio vaccines from that time on were almost exclusively administered orally, usually on a sugar cube.

[billw]

Originally Posted by TheDoLittle

Also, Polio vaccines from that time on were almost exclusively administered orally, usually on a sugar cube.

John Milius got it wrong?

The horror...the horror.

[Piscivore]

Originally Posted by Sir Robin Goodfellow

This makes me think of the TV show in Japan that supposedly gave all those children seizures, which turned out to be largely mass hysteria.

It was Pokemon:

Quote:

The episode is infamous for using visual effects that caused seizures in a number of Japanese viewers, an incident referred to as the "Pokιmon Shock" (ポケモンショック ,Pokιmon Shokku?) by the Japanese press. Six hundred eighty-five viewers were taken to hospitals, but only two people remained hospitalized for more than two weeks. Due to this, the episode has been banned worldwide.