BBC article: Are Iranian schoolgirls being poisoned by toxic gas?, 2023 (quotes Wessely)

There is a change.org petition requesting UNICEF conduct an independent enquiry into the poisoning of Iranian school girls:

See https://chng.it/sbrwJDzSLR

UNICEF Must Conduct an Independent Investigation on Poisoning School Girls in Iran

Hundreds of girls have been poisoned by gas in schools in over 15 cities in Iran. The Iranian government has refused to shut down schools to investigate the mass poisoning of girls and some reports shows the head mistresses have stopped girls from leaving school. So far the government has not done a thorough investigation to find out the root of these attacks or the physical harm it can cause, nor they have provided security for these schools to protect the students.

School girls have had a significant role in Woman Life Freedom movement and the recent women uprising in Iran. They became very vocal demanding their basic rights and showed their discontent against compulsory hijab. The state cracked down on schools and beat many school girls inside the schools, and sent many to correction behaviour centres. Many of us believe the recent poisoning is in connection with the school girls activities against the state. The fact that the Iranian government has not taken any actions to protect the students implies their involvement with the mass poisoning.

According to UNICEF

Every child has rights, whatever their ethnicity, gender, religion, language, abilities or any other status.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) forms the basis for all our work, including our campaigning. As the only organisation working for children recognised by the Convention, we are passionate about protecting the rights of every child.

Articles 28 and 29 focus on a child’s right to an education and on the quality and content of education. Article 28 says that “State Parties recognise the right of children to education” and “should take all appropriate measures to ensure that school discipline is administered in a manner consistent with the child’s human dignity.

UNICEF has the responsibility to keep ALL CHILDREN safe regardless of their gender, sex and religion. Iranian girls are not safe in the very place they are supposed to be kept safe, schools. The Iranian government has failed to protect them; therefore we are demanding UNICEF to step in and conduct a thorough and independent investigation on the nature of gas poisoning and the physical and psychological harm they can cause as well as finding out who is behind poisoning girls.
 
Guardian: Schoolgirls in Iran say they are still being poisoned: here’s what we know – video

"I've been speaking to schoolgirls who tell me they have been hospitalised after feeling sick in their classrooms. They started smelling rotten fish and tangerines in the air and they started falling unconscious, one after another."

"There are some experts that say there is a possibility that at least some of the schoolgirls have been suffering from mass psychogenic illness. Another Iranian official called it stress-induced. But many health workers have told me they've not been allowed to view the results of toxicology reports, if the tests were even carried out. One of the doctors I've spoken to said 'the most probable cause is a weak organophosphate agent'"

https://www.healthline.com/health/organophosphate-poisoning#diagnosis

Organophosphates are typically colorless-to-brown liquids at room temperature. Some may be unscented, while others have a fruit-like smell.

Or

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/restricted-use-pesticide

Following ingestion and contact with gastric acid, zinc phosphide is hydrolyzed to phosphine gas and free radicals. [...] Clinical signs include lethargy, vomiting, and rapid, stertorous breathing. Clinical signs of ataxia, weakness, gasping, convulsions, and hyperesthesia may be seen. The unpleasant odor of phosphine (smells like acetylene, garlic, or rotting fish) may be detectable on the breath, vomitus, or [animal] carcass.

See also Zinc Phosphide Poisoning (2014)
 
Change.org have a petition

Urgent Call for International Community to Address Poisoning of Schoolgirls in Iran

We urge the international community to:

- We call on the United Nations to urgently conduct an independent investigation into the incidents to determine the cause of the poisoning and hold those responsible accountable. An independent investigation is critical to ensuring transparency, impartiality, and fairness in addressing this situation.

- Given the gravity of the situation and the concerns about the involvement of state actors, it is important that an independent investigation is carried out by the United Nations. Such an investigation would help ensure that the findings are credible and that those responsible are held accountable.

- The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) should provide technical expertise to help detect and identify the toxic gases that were responsible for the poisonings. This could include providing specialized equipment and training.

- The international community should use diplomatic channels to put pressure on the Iranian government to investigate and address the poisoning incidents. Diplomatic pressure should also be used to call for accountability, as the evidence suggests that these were deliberate acts of sabotage. It is imperative that those responsible are held accountable for their actions to prevent any further harm to innocent civilians.

The international community must act quickly and decisively to ensure that those responsible for these attacks are held accountable and that the human rights of Iranian citizens, particularly women and girls, are protected. We stand in solidarity with the affected families and urge the international community to join us in calling for swift action.

https://chng.it/ZtDVxn5Nq2
 
This is from an Aljazeera report in March 2023:
But a deputy health minister, Younes Panahi, earlier this week became the first official to confirm that the poisonings have been deliberate. He told state-linked media that “some people” wish to stop girls from going to school. He did not elaborate.

Panahi said the poisonings have been caused by commercially available chemicals and cannot be transmitted because no viruses or bacteria are involved.
 
There's a 20 min podcast link at the end of the Aljazerra article.

The attacks started in an extremely conservative religious area where some people do believe that girls should not be educated; girls' schools have been targeted; teachers and support staff, as well as girls, have been affected. Arrests of people charged with carrying out the attacks have been made; the government, after initially trying to downplay the attacks as flu and food poisoning, has acknowledged them, in fact some senior politicians have even suggested that the attacks have been carried out by people wanting to create instability in the country.

So, a complicated situation, but certainly not one where the most obvious answer is that the majority of the incidents are hysteria.
 
“Panahi said the poisonings have been caused by commercially available chemicals and cannot be transmitted because no viruses or bacteria are involved.”

Even though there may be no infectious agents involved, toxic chemical exposure can have long term consequences. There was the recent Korean study drawing on subjects with CFS (including the symptom PEM) arising from chemical exposure, that presented as common knowledge that Korea had a significant number of people with health issues arising from previous exposure to toxic humidifier disinfectants including a proportion who had developed CFS.

https://www.s4me.info/threads/a-2-d...infectants-2023-leem-et-al.32342/#post-465210
 
Wessely says Iranian girls' symptoms are probably "mass sociogenic illness".

This would appear to be a serious statement, when Iranian girls are being excluded from school:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-64829798

"Prof Simon Wessely, a psychiatrist and epidemiologist at King's College London, said several "key epidemiological factors" led him to believe these were not a chain of poisonings, but were instead a case of "mass sociogenic illness" - in which symptoms spread among a group with no obvious biomedical cause.

The spread of cases across the country and the fact it has been predominantly affecting schoolgirls, but not boys or adults, were central to his conclusion, he said. The nature of the symptoms and the fact patients quickly recovered were also key, he said."

I find these uninformed claims incredibly dangerous in the current situation in Iran.


Key epidemiological factors like what? Being girls has been one cited by his ilk so I’ll assume that but interested to know if he’s bothered with any others?
 
I wonder whether anyone has asked Wessely to publicly retract his views on this and apologise.

If Long Covid Advocacy is right in their view

This seems to be an issue with Wessely, he doesn't like patients or their involvement in research, he doesn't respond to valid criticism or the suffering his theories perpetuate, he can't apologise or admit fault. This all leads to a stellar career in failing upwards at the expense of those he's duty bound to help.

see https://www.s4me.info/threads/who-is-simon-wessely.9364/page-28

then I doubt we will see a retraction any time soon.
 
The current senior leadership of the BPS club are beyond saving. They have refused to take every off ramp offered to them, instead just endlessly doubling down on their claims and tactics. The decades-long pattern is now indisputable. Their behaviour post-NICE has settled that issue beyond dispute.

They have become nothing but a major and increasingly costly barrier to progress, and getting worse. Nothing will improve in psychosomatics until they are gone, and maybe not even then for a long time.

Because being a senior member of the BPS club means never having to say sorry for persistently being on the wrong side of reality.
 
And nothing will improve in medicine for chronic conditions either. More and more of the chronic stuff is treated as psychosomatic now because it's cheap.

because it claims to be cheap in its sales pitches at each individual level. Quite different to if someone totted up all the kingdoms and % of all staffs time, including all those full time specific ones, doing this stuff, vs 'impact'. I imagine the cost is unbelievably huge actually - particularly when you consider it is that nice open-ended never fixes the problem, but never really intends to printer that will always need new ink cartridges or toothbrush that will always need new heads.

Antibiotics for an H Pylori ulcer is way cheaper than if someone got sent to CHalder's 30 sessions of CBT for somatic symptoms by what must be many £1000s, and will do little to prevent someone ending up in A&E and all the costs of that if/when it gets worse.

If it was cheap I really don't think it would be as big and have such a group of people behind it let's be honest. I'll stop short of saying it is an industry that perhaps might prosper from keeping people ill and making their lives worse and more coerced but that is a very likely consequence of 'the overall process' of this stuff.

The only cost saving might be short-term of just telling people to shove off rather than giving a referral but I doubt it would even mean much saving given that just means another GP appt or worse

Sadly I suspect more of what is driving it is because so many are happy to put their hand up at short notice to be paid to do these sorts of jobs. In a political health service world that must spend a lot of its time behind closed doors 'hiding the gaps'. But of course all this stuff creates more gaps (why do an A&E job with few staff when you could do a 9-5 telling someone in pain to visualise or running a mindfulness session).

And of course because of how the system works with funding and 'loves an inititiative' and these people are like the people who always have plenty of time to ace an interview because they don't pick up their share of the dayjob vs those workhorsing it. Know where the bread is buttered in their career. And the funding blobs seem to be happy to take a nice spiel from this sector where awkward things like qualifications and security get in the way for real medicine. A bit like bad research taking over because when allowed then cheap surveys of 'any old bod' are going to be cheaper and faster than having to design something proper with controls and the right patients.
 
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