Arjenyattah epidemic

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The Arjenyattah epidemic , in Anglo-Saxon literature Arjenyattah epidemic or West Bank epidemic called, was a 1983 in the West Bank occurred epidemic , caused a mass hysteria was.

course

At around 8:00 am local time on March 21, 1983, a 17-year-old Palestinian schoolgirl complained of shortness of breath and dizziness in a school in Arrabah , West Bank . Six other students developed similar symptoms over the next two hours. Some students smelled hydrogen sulfide ("rotten eggs"), which - as it turned out later - probably came from a defective toilet in the school yard. At around 10:00 a.m., employees from the local health authority arrived after an emergency call. Based on the reports from the students, a poison gas was suspected to be the cause of the illness. A large-scale search for the source began, but it was unsuccessful. During the search, another 17 students developed the symptoms described above, whereupon the school was closed at 11:00 a.m. The local hospital admitted 60 students the next day.

A second wave of the disease with 367 people affected broke out on March 26-28 of the same year in Jenin and some surrounding villages. Here, too, primarily schoolgirls initially showed the symptoms previously described from Arrabah. However, after the local population observed a vehicle driving through Jenin with heavy smoke, all age groups and both genders were affected, including four Israeli soldiers.

In Hebron and Yattah , in the southern West Bank, the third wave of the epidemic began on April 3, 1983, resulting in the closure of all schools in the West Bank.

The events led to intensive reporting in the local media and to a total of 949 people affected. Of these, 727, or 77 percent, were female teenagers aged 12 to 17 years. The main complaints of the patients were headache , dizziness, nephelopsia (foggy vision), abdominal pain, myalgia (muscle pain) and fainting .

The symptoms could not be confirmed by physical signs or by laboratory diagnostic methods. No toxins could be detected in the blood or urine of those affected . The hydrogen sulfide concentration at the location of the outbreak of the epidemic was measured to be 0.040  ppm . No other environmental toxins could be detected. The maximum workplace concentration (MAK value) for hydrogen sulfide is 10 ppm. After neither poisoning nor environmental damage could be detected, the epidemic ended suddenly after two weeks.

causes

From a pathogenetic point of view, the cause of the epidemic was a mental disorder . The epidemic was influenced by psychological and non-medical factors, especially the public attention of the mass media, and was ultimately mass hysteria. The phenomenon can be attributed to the nocebo effect .

Political Aspects

Very quickly, even before the official results of the investigation were available, a rumor arose in the Israeli- occupied West Bank that a sulfur-containing poison gas used by the occupying forces was the cause of the epidemic. A yellow powder found on the school window frames served as the first "evidence". The powder was later than usual pollen identified. Shortly before the second wave of the epidemic, leaflets were distributed in Jenin calling on the schoolgirls there to “fight against the occupiers” and “fulfill their national duty”.

The Palestinian news agency Wafa spoke of a "mass murder in the occupied territories". The Soviet news agency Tass reported the "use of toxins against the Palestinians by the occupiers". The then PLO boss Yasser Arafat called the events "part of the genocide of the Palestinian people". The United Nations Security Council expressed after a debate of its concern about the operations, without taking a position on the poison gas speculation.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Epidemic of Acute Illness - West Bank. Centers for Disease Control (CDC). In: MMWR , 32, 1983, pp. 205-208. PMID 6406806
  2. ↑ a b c P.J. Landrigan, B. Miller: The Arjenyattah epidemic. Home interview data and toxicological aspects. In: The Lancet , 332, 1983, pp. 8365-8366. PMID 6140560
  3. ^ W. Bischofsberger: Safety aspects in dealing with digester gas. In: Anearobtechnik . Verlag Springer, 2005, ISBN 978-3-540-06850-1 , pp. 693-701. doi: 10.1007 / b137857
  4. ↑ a b B. Modan u. a .: The Arjenyattah epidemic. A mass phenomenon: spread and triggering factors. In: Lancet 322, 1983, pp. 1472-1474. PMID 6140559
  5. ↑ C. Augner: Psychological effects of cell phone radiation on humans (PDF; 5.0 MB) Dissertation, University of Trier, p. 19.
  6. ^ GW Small, JF Borus: Outbreak of illness in a school chorus. Toxic poisoning or mass hysteria? In: NEJM , 308, 1983, pp. 632-635. PMID 6828094
  7. ^ ZY Wu, K. Li: Issues about the nocebo phenomena in clinics. In: Chinese Medical Journal (English) , 122, 2009, pp. 1102-1106. PMID 19493448
  8. ↑ a b Yellow powder . In: Der Spiegel . No. 15 , 1983 ( online ).