Students come down with mysterious twitching at a New York High School

Medical mystery in upstate New York


Photographer: WMAR
Copyright 2012 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Medical mystery in upstate New York


Photographer: WMAR
Copyright 2012 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Medical mystery in upstate New York


Photographer: WMAR
Copyright 2012 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright 2012 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Posted: 02/03/2012

It's a medical mystery, more than a dozen students in one high school have come down with something strange.  

They're twitching uncontrollably.

The cause is unclear, but we've learned the school district that's affected has its own natural gas wells.

They supply the schools with fuel and the wells use a controversial technique called fracking that shoots a chemical mixture into the earth to force out gas.  

So the question now is, is the gas from the wells contaminating the water, soil, or air.

15 students have come down with similar tic like symptoms.

It's happening at a high school in upstate New York in the Le Roy school district.

Lana Clark says her daughter Lauren has been suffering since October.

Doctors have diagnosed some of the students with "conversion disorder," a sress-based condition.

But many in the community fear there may be something in the environment, and parents say school officials aren't doing enough to solve the mystery.   

The school district has hired an attorney who turned down requests to interview the school superintendent. Reporters are also banned from entering school property.

Copyright 2012 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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