The town that caught Tourette's.

This documentary is about a small town, Le Roy in New York state, USA, where a group of teenage girls who attended the same high school developed symptoms that looked like Tourette's syndrome; violent and uncontrollable motor and vocal tics. In desperation, the young women posted videos of their tics on YouTube. The jury is out whether or not they are victims of 'conversion' disorder (the manifestation of physical symptoms caused by a psychological trigger), 'mass hysteria' or the condition has an environmental trigger. It has also been hard to establish whether the girls have or have not taken any recreational drugs such as cannabis. The high school asked the State Health Department to investigate any commonalities between the girls. An industrial hygienist company swept the building for environmental risks. Nothing was discovered in the building, although suspicions fall on the playing field which may have been used for recycling industrial waste. Parents find it hard to accept that their daughters had been suffering from psychological stress so they took their story to the media. Erin Brockovich appears on TV and in the 1970s she tells how a rail derailment which caused a small spill of TCE and cynanide may have seeped into the water table or the gravel from a nearby quarry was used in constructing the school. These revelations have proved catastrophic for local businesses. A paediatric neurologist, Dr Rosario Trifiletti, becomes convinced that the tics had been caused by an infection - Pandas (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal infections). The girls treated with antibiotics have improved; the girls also treated for conversion disorder have also started to get better. A journalist investigating the families discovers there were unusual personal traumas, lendiung weight to the conversion theory. Most girls have made significant progress except one. In the end, Erin Brockovich's team found no environmental link with the TCE/cyanide spill.