I refer to a series of news reports on the mysterious illness suffered by female students of the Santa Rosa Secondary School. The girls are most likely suffering from nothing more than mass psychogenic illness, nothing paranormal or supernatural at all. The following is extracted from “The science of voodoo: When mind attacks body,” found at

http://magickdragonfly.com/2009/05/15/the-science-of-voodoo-when-mind-attacks-body/

“Late one night in a small Alabama cemetery, Vance Vanders had a run-in with the local witch doctor, who wafted a bottle of unpleasant-smelling liquid in front of his face, and told him he was about to die and that no one could save him.

“Back home, Vanders took to his bed and began to deteriorate. Some weeks later, emaciated and near death, he was admitted to the local hospital, where doctors were unable to find a cause for his symptoms or slow his decline. Only then did his wife tell one of the doctors, Drayton Doherty, of the hex.

“Doherty thought long and hard. The next morning, he called Vanders’ family to his bedside. He told them that the previous night he had lured the witch doctor back to the cemetery, where he had choked him against a tree until he explained how the curse worked. The medicine man had, he said, rubbed lizard eggs into Vanders’s stomach, which had hatched inside his body. One reptile remained, which was eating Vanders from the inside out.

“Doherty then summoned a nurse who had, by prior arrangement, filled a large syringe with a powerful emetic. With great ceremony, he inspected the instrument and injected its contents into Vanders’ arm. A few minutes later, Vanders began to gag and vomit uncontrollably. In the midst of it all, unnoticed by everyone in the room, Doherty produced his pièce de résistance – a green lizard he had stashed in his black bag. “Look what has come out of you Vance,” he cried. “The voodoo curse is lifted.”

“Vanders did a double take, lurched backwards to the head of the bed, then drifted into a deep sleep. When he woke next day he was alert and ravenous. He quickly regained his strength and was discharged a week later.”…

“Take Sam Shoeman, who was diagnosed with end-stage liver cancer in the 1970s and given just months to live. Shoeman duly died in the allotted time frame – yet the autopsy revealed that his doctors had got it wrong. The tumour was tiny and had not spread. “He didn’t die from cancer, but from believing he was dying of cancer,” says Meador. “If everyone treats you as if you are dying, you buy into it. Everything in your whole being becomes about dying. He didn’t die from cancer but from believing he was dying of cancer.”…

“In November 1998, a teacher at a Tennessee high school noticed a “gasoline-like” smell, and began complaining of headache, nausea, shortness of breath and dizziness. The school was evacuated, and over the next week more than 100 staff members and students were admitted to the local emergency room complaining of similar symptoms.

“After extensive tests, no medical explanation for the reported illnesses could be found. A questionnaire a month later revealed that the people who reported symptoms were more likely to be female, and to have known or seen a classmate who was ill. It was the nocebo effect on a grand scale, says psychologist Irving Kirsch at the University of Hull in the UK. “There was, as far as we can tell, no environmental toxin, but people began to feel ill.

“Kirsch thinks that seeing a classmate develop symptoms shaped expectancies of illness in other children, triggering Mass Psychogenic Illness. Outbreaks occur all over the world. In Jordan in 1998, 800 children apparently suffered side effects after a vaccination and 122 were admitted to hospital, but no problem was found with the vaccine.”

The full article appeared in May 16, 2009 issue of New Scientist magazine (www.newscientist.com), cover title: “How beliefs can harm you – When mind attacks body.”
M. XIU QUAN-BALGOBIND-HACKETT