The Toxic Woman
Chris Peek
Some time ago there was an (apparently serious) story in the news
about a woman being treated in an emergency room who released these
amazingly caustic/toxic/annoying fumes that sent several emergency
room workers to the hospital. Where did this story wind up. Did they
ever discover what it was that was released or was the story proved to
be a hoax?
Chris Peek
RE my toxic woman question- I searched the net for awhile and here is
what I found. Pretty fascinating story.
THE MYSTERIOUS RIVERSIDE HOSPITAL
FUME-EMITTING-LADY STORY
The Truth, At Last
By Jill Stewart
February 19, 1994, was just another busy Saturday night at Riverside
General Hospital, a public facility overburdened by the burgeoning
area's growing poverty and gang warfare. Then paramedics
wheeled Gloria Ramirez into the emergency room. Ramirez, a pretty,
dark-haired 31-year-old mother of two, had a low pulse, rapid
heartbeat, and, unknown to doctors, incipient kidney failure (a result
of cervical cancer) that would soon stop her heart. She was also
throwing up. Quickly, she was encircled by a crowd of physicians,
nurses, and technicians, who, in the clockwork rhythm of the E.R., set
up an IV and began drawing blood. When her heartbeat started to
flutter into oblivion, they peeled off her shirt and applied the
defibrillation paddles. Aside from her young age, Gloria Ramirez was
just another patient fighting for life in an emergency room accustomed
to extremes.
Thirty-six minutes later, Ramirez lost her fight. In the interim,
however, a series of events unfolded that so unnerved the emergency
team that government sleuths would later compare efforts to ferret
out the truth of what happened to investigating a crime with a dozen
witnesses -- none of whose accounts jibes with anyone else's. Indeed,
in the confusing days that followed, only one thing seemed certain:
that Gloria Ramirez's body had somehow become ground zero in the
year's most unsettling medical mystery.
Along with countless others, I devoured the first baffling news
reports of the bizarre goings-on in the Riverside E.R. How doctors who
smelled ammonia-like fumes from Gloria Ramirez's body had passed
out. How Nurse Susan Kane leaned over to sniff Ramirez's arm where the
IV had been inserted, then remarked, "Gosh, I think it must be coming
from her," and suddenly couldn't stand up. How Dr. Julie Gorchynski
saw "white crystals" in Ramirez's drawn blood. How Dr. Gorchynski then
took a whiff of the syringe used to draw the blood, fainted, and was
later placed on a ventilator, apparently unable to breathe on her own.
How Nurse Sally Balderas saw a sheen on Ramirez's body reminiscent of
something "on the ground at a gas station." How the stricken Dr.
Gorchynski was terrified to see "yellow specks" in her own blood as
her doctor drew a sample hours later.
The next day, investigators announced that Ramirez had received
chemotherapy the week of her death, and that her body was the likely
source of the fumes. It wasn't hard to imagine the chemo
mixture combining with something -- perhaps a poison Ramirez had
ingested -- to create a toxic monster. The very idea was terrifyingly
delicious -- and in the ensuing media frenzy, the public ate up
every word. But even as the mystery deepened and the spectacle of
moon-suited coroners was broadcast live on cnn, skeptics at research
centers, universities, and hospitals all across the country
quietly began asking questions that wouldn't go away. How was it that
five women from the Riverside E.R. were hospitalized, when so many
others who had worked on Ramirez felt fine? Although three of
the affected medical personnel were quickly released, why did Dr.
Gorchynski and Nurse Balderas linger in private hospitals for days,
each with different symptoms? How was it possible that Dr. Mark
Thomas, who worked on Ramirez from the start, felt lightheaded for
only a few minutes and needed no treatment, and Dr. Humberto Ochoa,
who took over resuscitation as others fainted, felt fine and
smelled no odor?
And why, in the face of all toxicological wisdom, did Riverside County
coroner Scotty Hill needlessly sensationalize the case by insisting
that Ramirez's body be sealed in an airtight coffin and that
investigating pathologists don moon suits -- as if they were in danger
of being exposed to some virulent real-life version of the Andromeda
Strain?
In the weeks and months following the death of Gloria Ramirez, a
number of theories were propounded to explain the tragedy, almost all
of which blamed her body as the culprit. Some theorists
believed a pesticide or chemical-warfare agent was involved; others
speculated about a botched suicide attempt. The notion that "mass
hysteria" might be involved also arose but was quickly batted
down, as if merely uttering the phrase was tantamount to "blaming the
victims."
The fact remains, however, that medical experts from a dozen fields
whom I interviewed all proposed hysteria as one of the most likely
causes of the eerie events. One such expert is Dr. Michael Baden,
chief of pathology for the New York State Police. Baden, a former
chief medical examiner of New York City who has performed some twenty
thousand autopsies in his career, was greatly perturbed by the
handling of the case. "We do thousands of exams of people who've died
by ingesting all sorts of horrible things," he says, "and nobody in
the history of the world has ever gotten sick from fumes [from a body]
-- other than psychologically sick." Another such expert is Dr. Al
Poklas, a respected pathologist at the Medical College of Virginia.
"Please," he says acidly. "[Ramirez's] death was not bizarre, but the
response to it was."
Baden thinks he knows what went awry. "Once the Riverside coroner got
his autopsy circus going and had them put on the moon suits and got on
TV, they all had a strong investment in not admitting that the body
couldn't be to blame . . . . They were unable to go back and say, 'I
made a mistake. I should have known from my training that a body can't
do this.'" (Attempts to reach coroner Hill were unsuccessful; he was
said to be on vacation and unavailable for comment.)
Whatever the reason, from the beginning, both the press and county
officials seemed determined to keep alive the idea that there was
something bizarre about Ramirez's body, even when presented with
persuasive evidence to the contrary. For example, one early "fact"
that transformed the story from weird incident to national news was
the report that Ramirez had received chemotherapy shortly before she
died. In fact, she had never undergone any chemo. But by the time the
truth came out a week later, the idea had already taken hold that
Ramirez's body was a giant toxic cocktail that had poisoned others.
Thus, when the stricken Dr. Gorchynski's own physician was quoted in
the Riverside Press-Enterprise as saying that the doctor's blood did
not contain any of the terrifying "yellow specks" Gorchynski claimed
she had seen, the report was blithely ignored and TV news shows
breathlessly went on promoting the "yellow specks" horror story. It
was also widely reported that Gorchynski's breathing was being
assisted by a ventilator -- with the clear implication that she was
suffering severe respiratory distress. But as Gorchynski's parents
made clear in another statement that also got little coverage, the
ventilator was being used merely as a precaution.
There were also the creepy "white crystals" supposedly spotted by Dr.
Gorchynski in a syringe used to draw blood from Ramirez. Although the
needle was tossed in the trash and destroyed, testing of the vials
into which the blood was drawn revealed no crystals. But county
officials never expressed any doubt about Gorchynski's "white
crystals" story. It also now appears likely that Nurse Sally Balderas
was the only eyewitness among the dozen or so people who worked on
Ramirez to see the "oily sheen" on her skin that several news agencies
attributed to multiple witnesses. Susan Kane, the nurse who helped
peel off Ramirez's shirt and held her arm, denied seeing any such
sheen and warned The Press-Enterprise that the descriptions were
"starting to sound kind of bizarre." Kane, however, was ignored as the
uncorroborated "sheen" story made its way onto the network news.
Similarly, officials seemed loath to knock down the rumor that a
particular kind of pesticide known as an organophosphate was
responsible for what happened. The rumor intensified when hospital
spokesmen reported that preliminary blood tests on Dr. Gorchynski and
Nurse Balderas had showed "possible" indicators for organophosphates.
In fact, as senior medical coordinator Peter Kurtz of the state food
and agriculture department pointed out, no organophosphate could act
as quickly as whatever affected the doctor and nurse had.
"I asked several reporters who were calling me, 'What is the basis for
believing organophosphates were involved?'" recalls Kurtz, an M.D. and
a Ph.D. in pharmacology and toxicology as well as a noted expert on
pesticides. "The response was the 'symptoms' of fainting, dizziness,
breathing problems. And I said, 'But these symptoms are common with
many things you can name -- anything from allergies to colds.' People
with massive organophosphate poisoning would have very, very
different symptoms." Nonetheless, Kurtz was ignored, and
representatives of the Los Angeles Regional Poison Control Center kept
pushing the idea of pesticide poisoning. Eventually, the hospitals
conceded the suspicious test results were probably caused by "lab
error." Far more accurate tests showed no toxins in Gorchynski and
Balderas's blood.
It didn't require a highly trained medical mind to see that the wild
speculation surrounding the events in the E.R. that night made no
sense. Gloria Ramirez's own family, led by her sister, Maggie
Ramirez-Garcia, realized as much from the beginning, pointing out to
hospital officials and the coroner the many discrepancies in the
accounts of what happened during the thirty-six minutes that
elapsed between Ramirez's arrival at the hospital and her death. For
example, what of the fact that only some of the medical personnel who
worked on Ramirez reported smelling a strong ammonia-like
odor, while others smelled nothing? "There is a phenomenon known as
specific anosmia -- the inability of some people to smell particular
compounds," concedes George Preti, a Ph.D. chemist and
an expert on human body odors, affiliated with the Monell Chemical
Senses Center in Philadelphia. "But if other patients, nurses, and
doctors right next to her smelled nothing? This would be real, real
unusual." Indeed, the very idea made him burst into laughter. "The
question is, who actually smelled ammonia, and who was just standing
nearby and, hearing about it, said that they too smelled
something foul?"
Gloria Ramirez's family also demanded to know how it was that the
relatives who had cared for her at home as she vomited into a bowl and
grew sicker managed to remain so completely unaffected by
whatever it was that plagued the E.R. personnel. Good questions all,
yet none were answered. "They ignored us," says Maggie Ramirez-Garcia.
"We couldn't get our phone calls returned. We were treated like
children one day, like the enemy another. We were being reasonable,
but they were not." What accounts for such behavior? One nonmedical
fact may be worth considering. It is that Riverside County Coroner
Scotty Hill was up for re‘lection on June 7, and in February his
victory was not assured. (It still isn't; he faces a runoff in
November.) "You didn't hear this from the county," one local official
told me, "but we think he milked the situation for all he could." As
more than one observer noted, the deeper the mystery, the more free TV
time Hill was bound to get.
Whatever his motivation, Hill's decision to seal Ramirez's body in an
airtight container for four days -- followed by his insistence that
the pathologists conducting her autopsy wear moon suits and be
washed down afterward -- has been widely ridiculed by experts. Such
precautions, most coroners and toxicologists agree, would have been
absurd even if extreme levels of toxins had been found in her
body. "Can you imagine a person brought in by paramedics, and you
stick a needle in them and it releases this godawful substance?" asks
Peter Kurtz. "There is absolutely nothing that a human body
can hold that a needle would release into a room to overwhelm people.
And any medical person should have known that. The autopsy [procedure]
was a total overkill."
Al Poklas, the Virginia pathologist, agrees. "I mean, she's not a
balloon you prick and gas comes spurting out," he says.
Which leaves us with the two lingering victims, Gorchynski and
Balderas, who did not return to work for months. The headaches and
dizziness suffered by Nurse Balderas are too vague to easily explore.
But Dr. Gorchynski had muscle spasms and occasional apnea, or
breathing lapses. What's more, her knees were found to have avascular
necrosis -- bone deterioration caused by lack of blood -- which
required surgery. Though like most of the others who worked on
Ramirez, Dr. Gorchynski isn't talking to the press anymore, she has
blamed her medical problems on her exposure to fumes in the E.R. that
night.
Yet medical experts to whom I described Dr. Gorchynski's symptoms
insist there are no substances -- either toxins, bacteria, or viruses
-- that can be inhaled through the nose or mouth and cause both the
instant and off-and-on symptoms she exhibited. "If you inhaled
something toxic, it could go to the brain and you could see a complete
repression of the breathing drive, like with a drug overdose," says
Dr. Raouf Kayaleh, a pulmonologist at the University of California,
Irvine. "But you would not see an intermittent situation where the
apnea comes and goes. [Dr. Gorchynski's] symptoms don't make any
sense."
Dr. James Evans, a neurologist and director of UC Irvine's Chemical
Senses Clinic, adds that a person could be knocked out as a result of
inhaling carbon monoxide or any one of a number of chemical-warfare
agents. But the former would reveal its presence through changes in
the blood; the latter, through chemical burns. In Dr. Gorchynski's
case, there were no such signs. Similarly, while hydrogen-sulfide
fumes have been known to kill sewer and tannery workers, they release
an unmistakable rotten-egg smell.
Other experts are equally skeptical about the relevance of Dr.
Gorchynski's knee problem. According to Dr. Gregory Adamson, a
Pasadena orthopedist who treats professional athletes, causes of
avascular necrosis include heavy use of corticosteroids, genetic
disease, and injury. To link the condition to fumes from Ramirez's
body, he says, "would be the first case of its kind . . . . It's very
improbable that it's related to Gloria Ramirez. It's probably a red
herring. When a physician looks closely at someone for one reason,
it's fairly common to find unrelated problems."
So if mystery fumes from Gloria Ramirez's body were not to blame for
what happened around her the night she died, what was? The answer may
be mass hysteria.
Medical literature offers many examples of serious physical symptoms
caused by . . . nothing organic at all. In 1957 in Britain, two
hundred nurses treating patients stricken with polio came down with
polio symptoms themselves, forcing the hospital to close for months.
No disease was ever found, and all the nurses recovered. More
recently, in California, twenty farmworkers vomited and reported
trouble breathing during a scare over pesticides spewing from a broken
valve. The workers recovered at hospitals after it was proved that no
poison was present and the valve was not broken.
Mass hysteria can be set off when one person in a group falls ill,
usually fainting, vomiting, or gasping for air, and the symptoms are
observed by others. It almost always afflicts far more female victims
than male. Indeed, Dr. Gary Small, a UCLA psychiatrist who has written
extensively on the subject, had one question when I called to get his
reaction to the Riverside incident. "What was the male-to-female ratio
of victims?" he asked. After I recounted the details, Small let out a
soft whistle. The case, he noted, has all the characteristics of
hysteria: a stressful situation, physical symptoms that appear organic
in nature but for which no cause can be found, a phenomenon spread by
sound or sight, lots of fainting, and mainly female victims.
So what happened in the Riverside Hospital E.R. that night? Kurtz, the
California toxicology expert, offers this scenario: A cleaning agent
or chemical used in the emergency room gave off an odor, then
someone fainted for an unrelated reason, setting off the chain of
events. Michael Baden, the New York pathology chief, adds that someone
may have popped an ammonia capsule to revive whoever fainted-and in
the ensuing chaos, cause and effect got jumbled.
"These things are fascinating," says Small. "You can actually be sick
with something else, then overinterpret your feelings, which leads to
an extreme reaction, which is then passed to others who see you get
ill. The fact that they are medical personnel does not make them
immune. Nor does it mean you are weak-minded or weak-willed."
Small says that government investigators typically launch costly,
highly publicized efforts to find organic causes before they finally
concede that hysteria may be to blame. Denial, it seems, is a big
part of the syndrome. Those with psychogenic illnesses are usually
very averse to even considering a psychological cause, and the truth
is often kept from the public to save face. When Small studied an
outbreak of fainting and vomiting among some students in Santa Monica
a few years ago, he says, "the politics that came into play were
incredible. The school administrators tried to cover themselves
just like Riverside Hospital is doing now. People in charge don't want
to admit they overreacted."
Unless new information comes to light, it's hard to see how anything
other than mass hysteria can explain what happened around Gloria
Ramirez's body that tragic night. This will come as small consolation
to her relatives, a decent family whose grief was trampled upon by
backwater officials scrambling for their day on national TV. After
authorities went to court in an attempt to force the family to bury
Gloria without opening her casket, an angry judge demanded to know if
the county "understands the family has some feelings." When the county
finally did return her body in April, the coroner's office kept her
heart -- for future "tests." Gloria's sister, Maggie Ramirez-Garcia,
says thateven now, months later, "it is still hard for us who loved
Gloria to overstate the nightmare those
people put us through."
The family, which plans to sue Riverside County, now questions whether
Gloria Ramirez received the care she needed during the confusing
events of February 19. At this point in the troubling game that is
being played around her death, that seems a very fair question indeed
alice faber
>RE my toxic woman question- I searched the net for awhile and here is
>what I found. Pretty fascinating story.
Where on the net did you find this? Do you have any idea who Jill Stewart
is? I don't know, but some knowledge of who wrote the article and why
would seem essential to an assessment of its credibility.
Alice "defense de fumer" Faber
>THE MYSTERIOUS RIVERSIDE HOSPITAL
>FUME-EMITTING-LADY STORY
>The Truth, At Last
>By Jill Stewart
>February 19, 1994, was just another busy Saturday night at Riverside
>General Hospital, a public facility overburdened by the burgeoning
>area's growing poverty and gang warfare. Then paramedics
>wheeled Gloria Ramirez into the emergency room. Ramirez, a pretty,
>dark-haired 31-year-old mother of two, had a low pulse, rapid
>heartbeat, and, unknown to doctors, incipient kidney failure (a result
>of cervical cancer) that would soon stop her heart. She was also
>throwing up. Quickly, she was encircled by a crowd of physicians,
>nurses, and technicians, who, in the clockwork rhythm of the E.R., set
>up an IV and began drawing blood. When her heartbeat started to
>flutter into oblivion, they peeled off her shirt and applied the
>defibrillation paddles. Aside from her young age, Gloria Ramirez was
>just another patient fighting for life in an emergency room accustomed
>to extremes.
<<remainder of *lengthy* debunking article snipped>>
Emily Harrison Kelly
Chris Peek <cp...@shore.intercom.net> wrote:
>Some time ago there was an (apparently serious) story in the news
>about a woman being treated in an emergency room who released these
>amazingly caustic/toxic/annoying fumes that sent several emergency
>room workers to the hospital. Where did this story wind up. Did they
>ever discover what it was that was released or was the story proved to
>be a hoax?
Camilla Cracchiolo, who is well known and respected in AFU, wrote the
following "Toxic Lady FAQ", which can also be found at
http://www.urbanlegends.com/medical/toxic_lady_faq.html or at
ftp://ftp.urbanlegends.com/medical/toxic_lady_faq.txt.
Emily "doing my part to increase AFU bandwidth everywhere" Kelly
From: cam...@primenet.com (Camilla Cracchiolo)
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.skeptic,alt.misc.forteana,alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Woman with fumes
Date: 2 Mar 1995 06:06:06 GMT
Ok, Ok. I give in. I've been working on it for ages, but I should just
accept that it's never going to be perfect and just post it. So, here it
is: the long awaited, much requested
FAQ on 'the Toxic Lady'.
By Camilla Cracchiolo RN
copyrighted 1995, may be freely reproduced for non-profit purposes.
I. Who Was The Toxic Lady?
The 'toxic lady' (as the Internet has perhaps unfairly dubbed her)
was a 31 year old woman in Riverside, California named Gloria Ramirez.
Her body may or may not have emitted toxic fumes which made several
doctors and nurses in the emergency room of Riverside General Hospital
very ill. She was the mother of two children and had been diagnosed with
metastatic cervical cancer 6 weeks before the famous event leading
to her name.
II. What happened?
On the evening of Feb. 19, 1994, Ms. Ramirez was brought by paramedics to
the emergency room at Riverside General Hospital. She was admitted in
respiratory and cardiac distress, and went into full cardiac arrest about 15
minutes after arrival. A nurse named Susan Kane drew blood, probably
for an arterial blood gas determination, as part of the routine 'code
blue' procedure of the hospital. Nurse Kane noted a 'foul odor' and
immediately passed out cold. A doctor (Julie Gorchynski, the senior
medical resident) went to Nurse Kane's aid. After seeing to her
needs (probably by making sure she did not get a head injury from
falling), Dr. Gorchynski noted a strange odor, 'took a deep whiff' of
the syringe and passed out. 4 other staff then passed out, all standing
right next to each other. The paramedics who rode in the ambulance to
the hospital with Ms Ramirez and who remained in the room, as well as one
nurse and Dr. Humberto Ochoa, the director of the ER (who came as soon as
he heard staff were keeling over in the middle of a code) all were
unaffected.
Since other cases have occured where ER staff became ill from fumes
emitted by a patient (usually from people who have ingested pesticides,
although this can also be a risk to staff working in hyperbaric oxygen
chambers with people with carbon monoxide poisioning) the hospital
assumed that this was a case of toxic contamination, sealed the ER and
evacuated all patients and affected staff (who by now numbered somewhere
between 8 and 11, including clerks) and brought in the County
decontamination unit.
III. What happened to Gloria Ramirez during all this?
Ms. Ramirez died in the ER, after the staff tried to rescusitate her for
about 35 -45 minutes. The official cause of death was kidney
failure due to metasticized cancer. Her body was placed in a sealed
body bag and sent to the county coroner for autopsy in a special
sealed unit.
IV. Why is this case so unusual?
Because despite the apparently genuine and severe illnesses of the ER
staff, no satisfactory toxin that could have caused their illnesses has
been found. This has led to speculation as to whether mass hysteria
could have caused the symptoms experienced by the ER staff. Opinions
are still divided as to the cause of the incident.
V. Well, if a toxin from Gloria Ramirez didn't cause these
problems, what else could have?
The main alternative explanation is that there was some toxin in the
ER and that possibly the hospital covered this up. The hospital has
been cited before for improper waste disposal down drains. However,
they were inspected by nine different city, state and federal agencies
after this incident. While cited for some violations in other
parts of the hospital, no violations were found that affected the
ER.
The 'it's the hospital's fault' scenario is favored by Gloria Ramirez's
family, who have filed a lawsuit against Riverside General saying that
the fumes came from the hospital and also caused Ms. Ramirez's death.
The hospital, I'm afraid, did not handle matters well with the
Ramirez family. First, the hospital suggested that Ms. Ramirez
tried to kill herself by ingesting pesticides. This was not an
unreasonable initial theory given the situation (which looked very
much like pesticide poisoning.) However, it was ill thought out to
say this before preliminary lab results were back, since the Ramirez
family, like most people of Mexican descent in the area, are devout
Catholics. To allege suicide is to allege a very serious sin to
these folks.
To top this off, the County then hung on to Ms. Ramirez's body for
several months and at one point improperly stored it, resulting in
gross decomposition. The Ramirez family had to sue to get the body
back for burial, but by then it was unfit for showing. They had
wanted an open casket ceremony so her children could see her face
and properly say goodbye. I'd be mad too, if I were them.
VI. What are the official conclusions ?
There has never been a satisfactory resolution to the case. While
eventually 32 people reported what seem clearly to be hysteric symptoms,
the people originally felled have lab and physical findings that
seem to exclude hysteria. (Hysteria can only be diagnosed in the
absence of observable lab or physical abnormalities)
The official opinion of Cal-OSHA is that, while some of the staff
may have been affected by hysteria, at least three people had a genuine
reaction to some kind of toxin or agent.
The State Dept. of Health Services report said that most people (eventually
over 30) who reported feeling ill were suffering from mass hysteria, but
that the original six staff who were felled may have been affected by
either hysteria or a toxic agent.
The Riverside Dept. of Health says that they now believe that
Dr. Gorchynski, Ms. Welch and Ms. Balderas are not suffering from
hysteria.
Lawrence Livermore Lab released a preliminary report suggesting that
dimethyl sulfate, metabolized from hypothesized consumption of DMSO, was
the cause of their symptoms However, according to chemists here on the
Internet, it's highly improbable that dimethyl sulfate could cause this.
The final report was awaiting peer review and to my knowledge has not
been released.
VII. What is the status of the case now?
The family's lawsuit has not come to court yet.
Julie Gorchynski filed a lawsuit against Riverside County saying
that they withheld key information she needed in doing her own
investigation of the case. She is asking for six million dollars.
This may get settled out of court since Riverside Co. has stated
that they now believe Dr. Gorchynski's illness to be organic.
The Lawrence Livermore final report has not yet been released.
More Details:
VIII. Who were the affected staff and what happened to them?
The affected staff were:
Susan Kane, the nurse who initially drew the blood and who fainted
first.
Dr. Julie Gorchynski, the senior medical resident in the ER and who
fainted seconds after sniffing the syringe used to draw Ms. Ramirez's
blood, and who was also the most seriously ill of all the staff.
Dr. Mark Thomas, the attending physician in the ER, and who was
affected third (unclear if he actually fainted, but had dizziness
and muscle spasms).
Maureen Welch, a respiratory therapist who was using a special
device (called an ambu bag) to deliver breaths to Ms. Ramirez and
who was affected fourth (fainted).
Bettina Berry, a nurse in the ER (I don't know when she felt ill,
and I'm not sure if she fainted or not).
Sally Balderas, the nurse who moved the affected staff and Ms.
Ramirez's body into a holding area, who was one of the last people
to report feeling ill, but also the second most severely affected
staff person.
Debbie Carrier, a medical clerk in the ER.
A recent Los Angeles Times article stated that the official tally of
affected staff is 32, but no information is available on the others.
Most affected staff suffered no permanent effects. However, Dr.
Gorchynski, Maureen Welch and Sally Balderas continue disabled although
partially recovered. Their symptoms included immediate change in heart
rhythm, followed by 'spasms'. Two days after the incident, Dr. Gorchynski
had to be placed on a ventilator because these strange muscle spasms were
interfering with her ability to breathe to the point where her arterial
oxygen levels were 'markedly reduced'. She also had elevated liver and
pancreatic enzymes and subsequent to all this developed a rare necrotising
bone disorder due to the cutoff of circulation to the bone.
Dr. Gorchynski's case is particularly interesting. She is a very
amazing lady. Some people have suggested that the affected staff
must have had some kind of pre-existing medical condition, but all
evidence is to the contrary for Gorchynski. According to the
spokesman for Loma Linda University Medical Center (where Dr.
Gorchynski wound up after evacuation), she is either a national or
world surfing champion, holding the #2 title in the women's
division. She was, according to all accounts, in glowing health
prior to this. Certainly hospital residents must be in good health
or they cannot withstand the grueling, often 100+ hour weeks
demanded of them during residency. She had a masters in
microbiology and had been published prior to attending medical
school. She graduated at the top of her class and according to the
most recent newspaper article I've seen on her, was preparing
from her bed at home (she was in a wheelchair at the time) to fly
to London to accept some kind of award for a paper she had written.
IX. C'mon! Give us ALL the details! We're information junkies!
Ok, here is the official chronology from Riverside General Hospital:
(All capitalizations and spellings are in the original)
Summary of Events on February 19 and 20, 1994
Riverside General Hospital - University Medical Center
Riverside, California
Regarding Patient: Gloria Ramirez
7:46 p.m.: Ambulance and Riverside Fire Department dispatched
to home of 31-year old Gloria Ramirez; difficulty
breathing.
7:50 p.m.: Fire Personnel on scene
8:07 p.m.: Radio call received at Hospital from Ambulance.
Pre-hospital personnel reported patient to be in
severe cardiac distress. Patient was placed on
monitor, administered oxygen and an IV was started.
8:14 p.m.: Patient arrived at Hospital semi-conscious in a
life-threatening condition (placed in resuscitation
room) with rapid heart beat.
During the 36 minutes (8:14 p.m. - 8:50 p.m.) the following events
took place:
* Medical Team began care immediately. Dr. Mark Thomas,
Attending Physician, leading resuscitation - Dr. Julie
Gorchynski, Senior Resident, Emergency Department, assisted
with Nurses and Respiratory Therapy also at bedside.
* A full code 'resuscitation' was in progress. Emergency
procedures: defibrillation, administered IV fluids and blood was
drawn.
* As Susan Kane, the Nurse, drew the blood, she noted an
ammonia-like smell. Several other health care workers noted the
same odor.
* With seconds, Susan Kane fainted. She was placed on a
guerney.
* Dr. Julie Gorchynski assumed Kane's role in caring the the
patient and subsequently passed out. Another physician attended
to the fallen staff.
* Dr. Mark Thomas continued care of the patient.
* Susan Kane and Dr. Julie Gorchynski were moved into the
holding area.
* Susan Kane's condition worsened. She experienced difficulty
breathing.
* Evacuation of the Emergency Room was ordered by Dr. Humberto
Ochoa, Chairman of the Emergency Medicine Department.
* Maureen Welch, the Respiratory Therapist, while ventilating
the patient, became ill.
* Dr. Mark Thomas, the attending physician then became ill.
* Medical Care of Gloria Ramirez continued uninterrupted by Dr.
Ochoa who was assisted by a Respiratory Therapist, Resident
Physician, a Paramedic and two Nurses.
* Gloria Ramirez was intubated, adminstered addtional
emergency medications and defibrillated multiple times.
8:41 p.m.: 911 was called by Hospital.
Fire Department Dispatched.
8:47 p.m.: Fire Department arrived.
* Nurse Bettina Berry, who was caring for Gloria Ramirez,
became ill.
* Gloria Ramirez failed to respond to resuscitation measures
and at 8:50 p.m., Dr. Ochoa pronounced the patient dead.
8:52 p.m.: City of Riverside HAZ MAT notified by the Fire
Department
9:10 p.m.: City of Riverside HAZ MAT arrived on scene.
9:15 p.m.: Hospital Administrator On-Call and Hospital Safety
Officer arrived on scene.
9:29 p.m.: City of Riverside Environmental Health Resource Team
notified.
* Evacuation of all patients and staff from the Emrgency Room
was completed. Kaiser Hospital, Riverside, was notified
that RGH was on Emergency Diversion - redirecting all
ambulance services to other community hospitals. Kaiser
communicated this information to other base stations.
9:30 p.m.: Hospital Administrator arrived.
9:30 p.m.: Coroner notified and arrived shortly after.
9:30 p.m.: The Fire Department cordoned off the area outside
the Emergency Room.
* Emergency Room patients were transferred, admitted, treated
and discharged.
No patients demonstrated any signs of exposure.
In the parking lot, Sally Balderas, RN, exhibited symptoms.
Six staff were transferred to local hospitals.
11:00 p.m.: HAZ MAT entered the Emergency Room and performed
air-test sampling for common hazardous gases.
Results proved negative. (No contaminants
detected).
APPROXIMATELY MIDNIGHT:
* Planning Meeting was held with: HAZ MAT, Environmental
Health, Hospital Administration and Coroner to determine
course of decontamination.
APPROXIMATELY 12:30 A.M.:
* Decontamination of Remaining staff took place.
2/20/94
2:15 a.m.: HAZ MAT, after consultation with the Coroner,
reentered the Emergency Room, placed Gloria Ramirez
in a double-sealed bag, which was placed in an
airtight container and moved to the Hospital Morgue.
HAZ MAT decontaminated the Emergency Room area.
3:07 a.m.: HAZ MAT released the area to the Hospital staff.
3:10 a.m.: Hospital Environmental Services Unit conducted
extensive cleaning of all equipment and furnishings.
7:00 a.m.: The Emergency Room was reopened.
9:55 a.m.: Body was released to Coroner.
HERE IS WHERE EVERYONE WAS STANDING:
Maureen Welch, RT
(affected fourth)
____________________________
paramedic intern | |
(not mentioned as | head |
affected, gender| |
unknown) | | unnamed nurse,
| | unknown if and
| | how affected
| |
unnamed nurse | EXAM TABLE |
| |
| | Dr. Mark Thomas
Thomas
| | (affected third)
| |
| |
| foot |
Susan Kane RN |___________________________| Dr. Gorchynski
(drew blood, passed out first) (took over drawing
blood, passed out
second)
Dr. Humberto Ochoa (came in later)
[INLINE]
January 25, 1995
--
"Tell that fuicking cabal that KIrk is pissed poster of the year. Like
**nopbody&** can operate a fucking coputer when he/she is pissed as wekk as
kirk. I mean he's a fucking god man.,.....yeah right.....\.....zzzzzzzzz"
--Ewan Kirk, Scottish lurrrve god and AFU PPOTY nominee
Chris Peek
Jill Stewart
Contributing editor Jill Stewart has written extensively about
Southern California's political and social landscape. She is a
contributing editor of both the Los Angeles Times Sunday magazine and
the L.A. Weekly, and is currently writing a book about L.A.'s urban
ills. Her work for Buzz includes "The Mysterious Riverside Hospital
Fume-Emitting-Lady Story" (August 1994) and "Doctor in the House,"
a profile of city-hall chief of staff William Ouchi, in our Dec/Jan
1995 issue. © 1995 by Buzz Inc. -- All rights reserved
http://www2.earthlink.net/~buzzmag/ISSUE27/riversidefumes27.html
On 24 Oct 1996 00:27:15 -0400, afa...@panix.com (alice faber) wrote:
>In <3270a36d....@news.intercom.net> cp...@shore.intercom.net ( Chris Peek) writes:
>
>>RE my toxic woman question- I searched the net for awhile and here is
>>what I found. Pretty fascinating story.
>
>Where on the net did you find this? Do you have any idea who Jill Stewart
>is? I don't know, but some knowledge of who wrote the article and why
>would seem essential to an assessment of its credibility.
>
>Alice "defense de fumer" Faber
>
>>THE MYSTERIOUS RIVERSIDE HOSPITAL
>>FUME-EMITTING-LADY STORY
>
>>The Truth, At Last
>
>>By Jill Stewart
>
>>February 19, 1994, was just another busy Saturday night at Riverside
>>General Hospital, a public facility overburdened by the burgeoning
>>area's growing poverty and gang warfare. Then paramedics
>>wheeled Gloria Ramirez into the emergency room. Ramirez, a pretty,
>>dark-haired 31-year-old mother of two, had a low pulse, rapid
>>heartbeat, and, unknown to doctors, incipient kidney failure (a result
>>of cervical cancer) that would soon stop her heart. She was also
>>throwing up. Quickly, she was encircled by a crowd of physicians,
>>nurses, and technicians, who, in the clockwork rhythm of the E.R., set
>>up an IV and began drawing blood. When her heartbeat started to
>>flutter into oblivion, they peeled off her shirt and applied the
>>defibrillation paddles. Aside from her young age, Gloria Ramirez was
>>just another patient fighting for life in an emergency room accustomed
>>to extremes.
>
TMO/TX
>RE my toxic woman question- I searched the net for awhile and here is
>what I found. Pretty fascinating story.
>THE MYSTERIOUS RIVERSIDE HOSPITAL
>FUME-EMITTING-LADY STORY
>The Truth, At Last
>By Jill Stewart
>February 19, 1994, was just another busy Saturday night at Riverside
>General Hospital,*** mass snipping to save ether**
**a snip snip here and a snip snip there**
>> Did they
>>ever discover what it was that was released or was the story proved to
>>be a hoax?
A lethal combination of toxins....
Hysteria and Beer Farts
el pelon sinverguenza
Judge
Chris Peek wrote:
>
> RE my toxic woman question- I searched the net for awhile and here is
> what I found. Pretty fascinating story.
>
> THE MYSTERIOUS RIVERSIDE HOSPITAL
> FUME-EMITTING-LADY STORY
>
> The Truth, At Last
>
> By Jill Stewart
>
> February 19, 1994, was just another busy Saturday night at Riverside
> General Hospital, a public facility overburdened by the burgeoning
> area's growing poverty and gang warfare.
(long and interesting article sniped)
> The family, which plans to sue Riverside County, now questions whether
> Gloria Ramirez received the care she needed during the confusing
> events of February 19. At this point in the troubling game that is
> being played around her death, that seems a very fair question indeed
>
> On Wed, 23 Oct 1996 22:24:04 GMT, cp...@shore.intercom.net ( Chris
> Peek) wrote:
> >Some time ago there was an (apparently serious) story in the news
> >about a woman being treated in an emergency room who released these
> >amazingly caustic/toxic/annoying fumes that sent several emergency
> >room workers to the hospital. Where did this story wind up. Did they
> >ever discover what it was that was released or was the story proved to
> >be a hoax?
Some comments on this events.
First, the story is both properly Fortean and a UL. A search in Fortean
newsgroups and/or mailing lists may bring some more information.
Second, the phenomenon has all appearances of a little known
epidemological
factoid. As modern western medicine begins to understand the mechanism
for
some fatal diseases enough to "cure" or prevent them other ailments seem
to rise to take their place.
Even though the previous statements sound more like pure unsubstantiated
balderdash the pattern does occur and once understood is obvious. For
example Legionaires disease was also considered as misterious. It turned
out to be a "common" bacillus of low population count in the soil but
one
who made a "killing" when growing in isolated pools of water leaked by
air conditioners. A purely artificial environment not present in nature.
A peculiar statement issued at an AMA convention in the early 80's made
me
think of the hubris of our technocrats. Like Lord Kelvin saying in the
late
19th century that in five years all of physics would be known and only a
few
clouds reamined to be explained away like black box spectra etc. the AMA
speech indicated that we were in the treshold of curing all diseases in
the
next twenty years. Then AIDS happened, so did Hanta fever and hemorragic
fevers galore of which the Ebolas (Reston, Warburg, Zaire, etc) are only
part. Hemorragic dengue fever is present in south Texas to give an idea
of
this spread.
As we tend to live longer by preventing communicable diseases like
tuberculosis
which killed many last century since antibiotic "cures" were not
available,
cancer, heart disease came to take their place. Tuberculosis is even
making a
come back due to the improper dosages. Patients do not follow up on
antibiotic
treatment. The bacillus is exposed to lower levels of chemical. It
mutates and
becomes resistant to that particular agent. There goes the cure and now
New York
city has a problem.
Interestingly, for those curious about these matters, an experiment can
be done
with Salmonella from two sources. One the wild strain collected from
spoiled
foods and the other from hospital kitchens. Expose both cultures to
antibiotics
and watch who survives. I am willing to conclude before hand the
hospital version
is the more lethal. So one may be concerned about hospitals stays that
stretch
too long. Exposure to mutated, antibiotic resistant disease agents is
higher
there. The experiment may have been done already. Check the literature.
All of this proves that there are mechanisms and causes but "mass
histeria" as
an explanation, in Ms. Stewart article, is to me not one of them.
There are several other strange ailments worth of UL study. Some like
"flesh
eating bacteria" are now in the common knowledge pathogen list. This
cocci
bacteria live normally on human skin although when entering the body
they become
the creature from planet X. But, it was considered UL as it was first
exposed on
a supermarket tabloid article.
Other more bizarre ailments which have collected a body of evidence and
serious
literature are still considered "mass histeria" and superstition. This
is the
case of SHC (spontaneous human combustion). Now here is the stuff for UL
research. Solve what happened to Spinal Tap's drummer and you will be
wiser, but
do not expect to win a Nobel with it.
What happened to the unfortunate Ms. Ramirez may have been a freak
combination of
events. I am willing to bet it may not be so. Another disease X rears a
maiming
claw.
I have not gone into detail about Hoyle' theories about outer space
contamination
(the base for the Andromeda strain story) but it is a recognized
hypothesis. We do
not have to look too far. Grab a pinch of common soil, culture it and
see how many
of the critters you can identify. You will be able to put your own name
to a few
I assure you.
Note: The above article contains statements which may be considered
hearsay. I do
not have all the references but welcome any validation pro or con on
these issues.
Regards,
Judge
Angus Johnston
Judge <bern...@gte.net> writes:
> A peculiar statement issued at an AMA convention in the early 80's made
> me think of the hubris of our technocrats. Like Lord Kelvin saying in
> the late 19th century that in five years all of physics would be known
> and only a few clouds reamined to be explained away like black box
> spectra etc. the AMA speech indicated that we were in the treshold of
> curing all diseases in the next twenty years. Then AIDS happened, so did
> Hanta fever and hemorragic fevers galore of which the Ebolas (Reston,
> Warburg, Zaire, etc) are only part. Hemorragic dengue fever is present
> in south Texas to give an idea of this spread.
Do you have a cite for the quote? (actually, a _quote_ for the quote
would be a good start) It sounds quite a bit like the spurious claim
that a patent official several generations ago predicted the Imminent
Death of the Patent Office, and so sets my Spidey sense a-tingling.
I don't know a hell of a lot about this stuff, but the early eighties
seems like a weird time for such a claim to be made.
--
Angus Johnston
Michele Tepper
In article <550p23$5...@panix.com>, Ian A. York <iay...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>I'm not entirely sure what pointing at this is intended to prove,
>actually. That medical types can be wrong? Well, *there's* a surprise.
>That scientists can be over-optimistic? So that's a condition that's
>limited to scientists, hmm?
I think -- the unformatted ravings of the guy who originally posted this
story notwithstanding -- that these sorts of stories continue to circulate
because scientists get represented in our techno-happy age as both the
guardians of 'truth' and as the avant-garde leading us into the Brave New
Future. This story shows a prominent scientist failing spectacularly in
both of these roles; that's why it might resonate with some listeners.
>The whole arts/science debate is a particularly sterile one, and in my own
>experience it's mainly carried out on the fringes of both fields - perhaps
>understandably, those people least secure in their own field might be most
>apt to lash out at another.
True; those of us secure in our fields lash out at our colleagues. But I
don't think that's what this post was about. (although I'll be honest and
admit I stopped reading the original post after a while -- misformatting
makes me woozy)
>Ian "hubris? No, thanks, I Ate" York
Michele "that's not a palindrome!" Tepper
--
Michele Tepper "In speaking this way I do not concede that performing
mte...@panix.com experiments of this sort on literary critics is
ethical." -- Ben Weiner, sci.physics
Chris Peek
Judge <bern...@gte.net> wrote:
I believe that most (if not all) the "spontaneous human combusition"
occurances have been traced to smoking, malfunctioning heaters and
electrical wiring fires and related. Human fat (at ignition
temperatures) will produce a ferocious, disintegrating fire.
Sorry it couldn't be sexier.
>
>Other more bizarre ailments which have collected a body of evidence and
>serious literature are still considered "mass histeria" and superstition. This
>is the >case of SHC (spontaneous human combustion). Now here is the stuff for UL
>research. Solve what happened to Spinal Tap's drummer and you will be
>wiser, but do not expect to win a Nobel with it.
>
Ian A. York
In article <550ko0$8...@news1.iamerica.net>,
Angus Johnston <ang...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>Judge <bern...@gte.net> writes:
>
>> A peculiar statement issued at an AMA convention in the early 80's made
>
>I don't know a hell of a lot about this stuff, but the early eighties
>seems like a weird time for such a claim to be made.
I'm pretty sure that the "early '80's" bit is wrong: I suspect he's
thinking about the Surgeon General's statement in 1967. Here's what I
find on the web, attributed to Laurie Garret in The Coming Plague:
"By 1967 U.S. Surgeon General William H. Stewart would be so utterly
convinced of imminent success that he would tell a White House gathering
of state and territorial health officers that it was time to close the
book on infectious diseases and shift all national attention (and dollars)
to what he termed 'the New Dimensions' of health chronic diseases."9
9 - Garrette[sic], Laurie, ibid, pp 33. quoting W. H. Stewart, "A Mandate
for State Action," presented at the Association of State and Territorial
Health Officers, Washington, D.C., December 4, 1967.
The same statement is referenced by the FDA, at
<http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/396_infe.html>.
I'm not entirely sure what pointing at this is intended to prove,
actually. That medical types can be wrong? Well, *there's* a surprise.
That scientists can be over-optimistic? So that's a condition that's
limited to scientists, hmm?
The whole arts/science debate is a particularly sterile one, and in my own
experience it's mainly carried out on the fringes of both fields - perhaps
understandably, those people least secure in their own field might be most
apt to lash out at another. All the examples that can be dug out on both
sides simply go to prove that some scientists are jerks, some arts types
are jerks, and some scientists and artists aren't jerks. If this comes as
a surprise to anyone, take it as an indication that you shold get out
more.
Or, failing that, take this thread to another newsgroup.
Ian "hubris? No, thanks, I Ate" York
--
Ian York (iay...@panix.com) <http://www.panix.com/~iayork/>
"-but as he was a York, I am rather inclined to suppose him a
very respectable Man." -Jane Austen, The History of England
Judy Johnson
iay...@panix.com (Ian A. York) wrote:
>"By 1967 U.S. Surgeon General William H. Stewart would be so utterly
>convinced of imminent success that he would tell a White House gathering
>of state and territorial health officers that it was time to close the
>book on infectious diseases and shift all national attention (and dollars)
>to what he termed 'the New Dimensions' of health chronic diseases."9
[rest of Ian's discussion of the inappropriateness of the
Science/Humanities Holy War in afu snipped]
While I fully subscribe to Ian's conclusions that jerks and non-jerks
abound in every field, I would like to add something to the list of
stories regarding the overweening self-confidence of scientists, in
hopes of returning to a discussion of folklore.
While an entomology grad student at Univ. of CA, Riverside in the late
'70s, I was told this story, supposedly true. Sometime shortly after
the development of DDT and other organic pesticides revolutionized
pest control, an unnamed professor apparently took to telling his
students that they should quickly collect specimens of various pest
species, because the new insecticides would soon drive them to
extinction.
Now, of course, resistance to the new-fangled chemicals developed
almost immediately in pest populations, leading to a biological arms
race between us and the little buggers that we may never truely win.
In fact, we have yet to completely eradicate a single pest species,
although we have driven a number of non-pest populations over the edge
through habitat destruction and other clever ploys.
Reading the statement attributed to the Surgeon General brought that
little tidbit back to mind, with the realization that it has all the
earmarks of a legend, albeit one limited to entomologists. I just did
some quick checking to see if I could find a mention of the story in
print, and was unsuccessful.
While I have known entomologists well-endowed with hubris, resistance
to inorganic and botanical insecticides had been documented before the
advent of DDT, so I'm beginning to doubt that any bug bashers would
have been that optimistic. On the other hand, I'm a little surprized
that the Surgeon General would have neglected the possibility of
resistance in bacterial populations, even in 1967, so perhaps the
apocryphal professor has a basis in fact.
Judy " some of my best friends are humanity types, and most of them
regularly kick my butt in Trivial Pursuit" Johnson
Angus Johnston
mte...@panix.com (Michele Tepper) writes:
> In article <550p23$5...@panix.com>, Ian A. York <iay...@panix.com> wrote:
> >
> >I'm not entirely sure what pointing at this is intended to prove,
> >actually. That medical types can be wrong? Well, *there's* a surprise.
> >That scientists can be over-optimistic? So that's a condition that's
> >limited to scientists, hmm?
>
> I think -- the unformatted ravings of the guy who originally posted this
> story notwithstanding -- that these sorts of stories continue to circulate
> because scientists get represented in our techno-happy age as both the
> guardians of 'truth' and as the avant-garde leading us into the Brave New
> Future. This story shows a prominent scientist failing spectacularly in
> both of these roles; that's why it might resonate with some listeners.
I think scientists, and doctors in particular, were held up as the
guardians of truth to a much greater degree a couple of generations
ago. There's a reason (a bunch of reasons, actually, but this is one of
them) that I thought it was unlikely that a speaker at an AMA
conference would have claimed immanent victory over disease as late as
the early eighties.
It may be that part of why Ian can justifiably claim that the
science/arts debate is "sterile" is the fact that we're watching the
tail end of it. I know that the history of medicine, for instance, has
been utterly transformed in the last twenty-five years, and that the
transformation was too often marked by ugly pitched battles between the
scientist-historians and the historian-scientists. You just don't see
that kind of thing too much these days.
--
Angus Johnston
Michele Tepper
Angus Johnston <ang...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>mte...@panix.com (Michele Tepper) writes:
>> I think -- the unformatted ravings of the guy who originally posted this
>> story notwithstanding -- that these sorts of stories continue to circulate
>> because scientists get represented in our techno-happy age as both the
>> guardians of 'truth' and as the avant-garde leading us into the Brave New
>> Future. This story shows a prominent scientist failing spectacularly in
>> both of these roles; that's why it might resonate with some listeners.
>
>I think scientists, and doctors in particular, were held up as the
>guardians of truth to a much greater degree a couple of generations
>an AMA conference would have claimed immanent victory over disease in
>the eighties, and a reason why it's not so surprising that a Surgeon
>General would have made a similar (if apparently more modest)
>prediction in the 1960s.
Well, OK, fair enough. I was thinking of post-1940 as "our techno-happy
age" rather than "right now 1996" -- one of the disavantages of writing
and thinking about the World War I era, as I have been over the last six
months, is that all this trivial later material goes all out of focus and
blurry.
Still, while scientists themselves may have a less over-inflated view of
themselves now than they did a generation ago, I was thinking more of
mainstream representations of science. And while the bloom is
definitely off the proverbial rose -- the rise of "alternative medicine"
if nothing else shows us that not everyone is convinced that Doctor Knows
Best -- I'd still maintain that Science, broadly understood, gets socially
constructed as a truth-teller and a force for a better future in a way
little else in our secular society does, and that's why stories like this
AMA story and the Patent Office UL have some staying power. That Science
and scientists are also often depicted as egregiously mad, bad, and
dangerous to know strikes me as being the just the flip side of this same
coin.
>It may be that one of the reasons that Ian can claim with some
>justification that the science/arts debate is "sterile" is the fact
>that we're watching the tail end of it.
Or that it was a singularly ill-favoured baby to begin with. It's been a
while since I read it, but if I recall correctly, C.P. Snow's "Two
Cultures" lecture managed to get both the sciences and the arts wrong
precisely because he was trying to set them up as dichotomous.
For what it's worth, I still don't understand how this story is part of
that 'debate.'
> I know that the history of
>medicine, for instance, has been utterly transformed in the last
>twenty-five years, and that the transformation was too often marked by
>ugly pitched battles between the scientist-historians and the
>historian-scientists. You just don't see that kind of thing too much
>these days.
Heh. I think that's overly optimistic; if you want ugly pitched battles
over the representation of the sciences, I've got a couple of places
downtown you should visit next time you're back in New York City. There's
still a great deal of resistance and mystification that occurs when each
field tries to speak the other's language, often because they don't bother
trying to practice their new vocabulary on fluent speakers.
None of which is meant to suggest that there isn't also concord and amity
in areas, or that the arts and the sciences shouldn't play better
together, and whatever other disclaimers I've left out.
Michele "void where prohibited" Tepper
--
Michele Tepper "When bad techs happen to good cultures," Lentz said.
mte...@panix.com "When bad cultures happen to good machines," I insisted.
--Richard Powers, _Galatea 2.2_
Charles Wm. Dimmick
Michele Tepper wrote:
> Michele "void where prohibited" Tepper
Isn't this the ultimate in civil disobedience?
Michele Tepper
Judy Johnson <jjoh...@asrr.arsusda.gov> wrote:
[Entomology/DDT variant on AMA story]
>While I have known entomologists well-endowed with hubris, resistance
>to inorganic and botanical insecticides had been documented before the
>advent of DDT, so I'm beginning to doubt that any bug bashers would
>have been that optimistic.
OK, but if the organic pesticides were some entirely new thing [how
different are they from botanical ones?], one can see where hubris might
develop.
A pity that no names were named -- I'd track down a gossipy friend or two,
ask them if they'd heard this story, and see if they ever heard a name
attached to it.
>Judy " some of my best friends are humanity types, and most of them
>regularly kick my butt in Trivial Pursuit" Johnson
Well, that's why one gets the degree. That, and the Sekrit Handshake^W^W
cool parting gifts, of course.
Michele ".sig stolen from Ian in the spirit of interdisciplinary
amity" Tepper
--
"You are one and they are many. You will work day and night or you
will be crushed like a roach." --Gunter Blobel
Angus Johnston
mte...@panix.com (Michele Tepper) replies:
> > I know that the history of
> >medicine, for instance, has been utterly transformed in the last
> >twenty-five years, and that the transformation was too often marked by
> >ugly pitched battles between the scientist-historians and the
> >historian-scientists. You just don't see that kind of thing too much
> >these days.
>
> Heh. I think that's overly optimistic; if you want ugly pitched battles
> over the representation of the sciences, I've got a couple of places
> downtown you should visit next time you're back in New York City. There's
> still a great deal of resistance and mystification that occurs when each
> field tries to speak the other's language, often because they don't bother
> trying to practice their new vocabulary on fluent speakers.
Here's where a lesser man would instigate just such a pitched battle by
suggesting that the kinds of disputes that I meant to suggest have gone
into eclipse were INTRA-field wars between folks who all considered
themselves historians and wrote for pretty much the same journals, not
brawls between science geeks and artsy fartsy cultural criticism types.
Not being such a man, I will confine my comments to a forthright "good
point" and a muttered aside that I should have said "as much" instead
of "too much."
--
Angus "Must to avoid: ugly pitched battles over the representation of
the sciences" Johnston
Ian A. York
In article <551h13$2...@opal.CyberGate.COM>,
Judy Johnson <jjoh...@asrr.arsusda.gov> wrote:
>
>pest control, an unnamed professor apparently took to telling his
>students that they should quickly collect specimens of various pest
>species, because the new insecticides would soon drive them to
>extinction.
I think that statement is pretty consistent with attitudes shortly after
DDT's introduction, although (hindsight is easy) biological resistance
should have rung some warning bells. To be fair, it's likely that the
apparopriate warning bells *did* ring in many places: it's possible that
the confident pronouncements we have records of represent a minority view,
or perhaps a distortion or simplification of a more complex statement by
recorders.
I seem to recall pronouncements similar to the one you mention, and Laurie
Garrett may mention them as well. On the web, I can find this:
Such ravaging diseases as yellow fever, dysentery, typhus, tetanus,
pneumonia, and meningitis have been all but conquered by penicillin and
the sulfa drugs, the insecticide DDT, better vaccines, and improved
hygenic measures. Malaria has been controlled. There has been dramatic
progress in surgery.
in: Science: The Endless Frontier
A Report to the President by Vannevar Bush, Director
of the Office of Scientific Research and Development,
July 1945
<http://www.physics.uiuc.edu/ysn/docs/html_articles/VBush1945.html>
The gerenal tone of this document is not overweening pride, though, but
cautious and - even in retrospect - justified optimism.
That's all I can find now, but I'd be surprised if, back in the 40's or
50's, someone wasn't a lot more enthusiastic than that.
Ian
Phil Edwards
cp...@shore.intercom.net (Chris Peek) writes:
> I believe that most (if not all) the "spontaneous human combustion"
> occurrences have been traced to smoking, malfunctioning heaters and
> electrical wiring fires and related. Human fat (at ignition
> temperatures) will produce a ferocious, disintegrating fire.
I've seen a couple of weird cases which didn't seem to have the right
elements for the "human tallow" explanation. I was originally
planning to post some details, but my files didn't yield anything you
could call conclusive.
Phil "just posting this so people don't think I'm... you know...
G-word <shudder>" Edwards
--
Phil Edwards amr...@zetnet.co.uk
"The good times are over -
I don't care, it seems I missed them" - Cathal Coughlan
Ian A. York
In article <5566ra$m...@news.interlog.com>,
Alan Barclay <gor...@elaine.drink.com> wrote:
>
>I'm not so sure that you can really call him wrong. He was advising a
>policy change, saying that non-infectious diseases should be targetted.
No, he was definitely wrong. Infectious diseases, while generally much
less of a concern than they were in, say, 1920 or 1940, are still serious
problems. If he had said that more attention should be paid to
non-infectious diseases, I'd agree; but to say that "all national
attention (and dollars)" should be spent on non-infectious diseases is
going way too far.
>diabetes, and strokes. The diseases common in the 40's and 50's, polio,
>tetanus, TB, etc, are almost unknown in non-HIV+ people.
Tetanus was never all that common, I think. Polio has been eradicated
from the Western hemisphere, for all practical puposes, and some other
infectious diseases (pertussis, smallpox - not such a problem in the US -
and measles spring to mind) are less of a concern. Tb, on the other hand,
is still a serious and growing problem in the US, even in non-HIV-infected
patients.
It's not entirely relevant to this case, which is restricted to the US,
but I always point this out when I get on my soapbax: Tb and measles are
MONSTROUS problems worldwide: "In 1995, more people died of TB than in any
other year in human history" (WHO Report on the Tuberculosis Epidemic
1996), and it's estimated that in the next decade 300 million more people
will become infected. Measles is relatively 'rare': it only kills some
one million children per year.
The question I have is how representative that single statement is of the
entire report. It's possible that he was recommending a shift of funds
away from infectious diseases, not completely ignoring them. If that's
what he was saying then I agree with you, that it's not that far out.
Perhaps the sentence that gets quoted is the most inflammatory in a larger
report.
It's possible I can get my hands on the complete report. I'll see what I
can do.
Alan Barclay
>
>"By 1967 U.S. Surgeon General William H. Stewart would be so utterly
>convinced of imminent success that he would tell a White House gathering
>of state and territorial health officers that it was time to close the
>book on infectious diseases and shift all national attention (and dollars)
>to what he termed 'the New Dimensions' of health chronic diseases."9
>
>actually. That medical types can be wrong? Well, *there's* a surprise.
I'm not so sure that you can really call him wrong. He was advising a
policy change, saying that non-infectious diseases should be targetted.
Looking at the most common diseases today, I think that seems to be a
valid approach. With the exception of AIDS, the most common diseases
aren't infectous, they're heart disease, various forms of cancer,
Judge
In article <326f99d5....@news.intercom.net> <3270a36d....@news.intercom.net> <32735C...@gte.net> <3275ddd0...@news.intercom.net>,
cp...@shore.intercom.net (Chris Peek) wrote:
>
> Judge <bern...@gte.net> wrote:
> I believe that most (if not all) the "spontaneous human combusition"
> occurances have been traced to smoking, malfunctioning heaters and
> electrical wiring fires and related. Human fat (at ignition
> temperatures) will produce a ferocious, disintegrating fire.
> >
> >serious literature are still considered "mass histeria" and superstition. This
> >is the >case of SHC (spontaneous human combustion). Now here is the stuff for UL
> >research. Solve what happened to Spinal Tap's drummer and you will be
> >wiser, but do not expect to win a Nobel with it.
> >
> >hearsay. I do
> >not have all the references but welcome any validation pro or con on
> >these issues.
> >
> >Regards,
> >
> >Judge
>
possibility. Ignition caused by smoking, etc. My own view is that of
methane as the sparking agent. Yes, "break like the wind" is spinal
tap's in memorian to their drummer. Seriously humans produce quite
a bit of methane, cows do too. It is extremely flammable, called
"natural gas", no kidding. I read an article a veterinary friend
posted in his bulletin board. Vet used a lighter to examine a cow
with a sick stomach on a dark barn. Barn explodes. Vet, cow, two
horses and a pig suffered serious injuries. UL or not? I don't know.
Do not smoke in bed is my recommendation. Specially after a heavy
beans and brussel sprouts meal.
Regards;
Judge
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Judge
In article <326f99d5....@news.intercom.net> <3270a36d....@news.intercom.net> <32735C...@gte.net> <550ko0$8...@news1.iamerica.net>,
ang...@mindspring.com (Angus Johnston) wrote:
>
> Judge <bern...@gte.net> writes:
> > A peculiar statement issued at an AMA convention in the early 80's made
> > me think of the hubris of our technocrats. Like Lord Kelvin saying in
> > the late 19th century that in five years all of physics would be known
> > and only a few clouds reamined to be explained away like black box
> > spectra etc. the AMA speech indicated that we were in the treshold of
> > curing all diseases in the next twenty years. Then AIDS happened, so did
> > Hanta fever and hemorragic fevers galore of which the Ebolas (Reston,
> > Warburg, Zaire, etc) are only part. Hemorragic dengue fever is present
> > in south Texas to give an idea of this spread.
> that a patent official several generations ago predicted the Imminent
> Death of the Patent Office, and so sets my Spidey sense a-tingling.
> seems like a weird time for such a claim to be made.
> Angus Johnston
>
The quote about the AMA speech as I recall came out in an issue of
Scientific American in the 80's about the spread of contagious disease.
I cannot give the exact issue but maybe if the text is online somewhere
someone can do the search. It was not intended to denigrate M.D.'s or
scientists of any kind. It just showed how sometimes a researchers
optimism (blind faith perhaps) can sound strange when faced with reality
as it later develops. The issue contained articles about contagious diseases
coming back in part due to emerging antibiotic resistance. Mostly in less
fortunate areas of the planet. They are still there, the old contagious
diseases, like bubonic plague, polio, influenza, dengue fever, tuberculosis,
and spreading to other more industrial areas of the world. New York seems to
be having a problem with antibiotic resistant tuberculosis. This may be UL,
then again it may not.
The 80's is the borderline time when a lot of understanding about known
epidemic diseases, their mechanism and treatment, was widely diseminated.
Came Legionaires disease and the methods of isolation and cure worked. We
were very proud of ourselves. Then came AIDS. Took a little bit longer. The
viral mechanisms are not completely understood. Then Hanta. What is going
on? Then Ebola. This cannot be happening. (Note: Ebola Zaire kills 9 of
10 patients. If spread world wide it can wipe out 90% of the human population
in less than a month. Happy happy joy joy.) Enough to shake a mans faith.
You telling me the little buggers are now antibiotic resistant? Go away.
So the 80's was the time of transition for a new view. Humanity is still
vulnerable. This can be summarized better by Richard Preston in the Hot Zone.
Paraphrasing, he quotes, that humanity is the only species in this planet
without a predator. So there is this humangous mass of flesh waiting to be
eaten. If ecological patterns hold. Is it justice? No, just nature. Outside
a new window.
There is still optimism that we can figure these things out. I do subscribe
to this opinion.
There are some sites with information on these subjects. The CDC (Center
for Disease Control) has a web page, so does NIH (National Institute of
Health). BioNet on the news is good for ongoing discussions, also several
mailing lists.
Good luck in your search. Let me know what you find.
Roger Douglas
iay...@panix.com (Ian A. York) expostulated:
......
> Such ravaging diseases as yellow fever, dysentery, typhus, tetanus,
> pneumonia, and meningitis have been all but conquered by penicillin and
> the sulfa drugs, the insecticide DDT, better vaccines, and improved
> hygenic measures. Malaria has been controlled. There has been dramatic
> progress in surgery.
>in: Science: The Endless Frontier
>A Report to the President by Vannevar Bush, Director
>of the Office of Scientific Research and Development,
>July 1945
><http://www.physics.uiuc.edu/ysn/docs/html_articles/VBush1945.html>
>The gerenal tone of this document is not overweening pride, though, but
>cautious and - even in retrospect - justified optimism.
>That's all I can find now, but I'd be surprised if, back in the 40's or
>50's, someone wasn't a lot more enthusiastic than that.
The thing I find interesting about this discussion is that this is the
opposite extreme to the usual "Foot in Mouth" stories, which dwell on the
"man will never travel faster than 20 miles an hour" type of quote.
Are scientists, as a class, either hopelessly optimistic or stick-in-the-mud
reactionaries?
Does it depend on whether they are asking for money?
Or is it just that opinions of a non-dogmatic nature are not particularly
memorable?
--R.
joe larkin
Roger Douglas (Roger....@tafensw.edu.au) wrote:
: Are scientists, as a class, either hopelessly optimistic or stick-in-the-mud
: reactionaries?
Maybe, but many of these quotes lack context. Given context, they
are often true. For example, the semi-famous heavier than air crafts
will never fly was really true, given the weight to power ration of
engines at the time it was written. Sorry, no cite so add this to the
pile of vectored ULs if you like.
: Does it depend on whether they are asking for money?
Yes, sometimes.
: Or is it just that opinions of a non-dogmatic nature are not particularly
: memorable?
Haven't you ever told a story in a way that made it just a little
bit better? A good story is a good story, regardless of its voracity.
To me ULs are fun because some of them are really good stories. However,
some are so common that debunking them is necessary.
Joe "Columbus was wrong" Larkin
Martin Gilbert
Judge <bern...@gte.net> wrote:
> ang...@mindspring.com (Angus Johnston) wrote:
>> Judge <bern...@gte.net> writes:
>> > A peculiar statement issued at an AMA convention in the early 80's made
>> > me think of the hubris of our technocrats. [...] the AMA speech indicated
>> > that we were in the treshold of curing all diseases in the next twenty
>> > years. Then AIDS happened [...]
>>
>> Do you have a cite for the quote? (actually, a _quote_ for the quote
>> would be a good start) It sounds quite a bit like the spurious claim
>> that a patent official several generations ago predicted the Imminent
>> Death of the Patent Office [...]
>
>The quote about the AMA speech as I recall came out in an issue of
>Scientific American in the 80's about the spread of contagious disease.
>I cannot give the exact issue but maybe if the text is online somewhere
>someone can do the search.
Why can't you look? If you make a claim, you should be able to back it up
-- we can wait, if necessary.
>[The claim] was not intended to denigrate M.D.'s or
>scientists of any kind. It just showed how sometimes a researchers
>optimism (blind faith perhaps) can sound strange when faced with reality
>as it later develops.
Name me an age when some Thinkers didn't thunk that History Is Over...
It's in no way confined to science!
Sorry, but as it stands this stinks of being a new variant on the old
Redundant Patent Office tale, as Angus noted, and is as believable as a
politician's promise.
Martin Gilbert
--
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucapmkg