1006 - Massive Widespread Panic Attack

Did the Pokémon cartoon trigger widespread epileptic seizures? Did coca-cola poison dozens of children in Belgium? Why did over a dozen teenagers spontaneously experience tourettes-like symptoms in New York? Join us as we explore incidents of “mass sociogenic illness” on another special episode of Rumor Flies! *We are not doctors/licensed medical professionals We have just launched the “Educated Mess Network.” Head on over to educatedmessnetwork.com for more awesome shows like The Side Characters and our new true crime show, Everything but Murder! Join our discord for endless shenanigans and discussions! Want to support the show? Head on over to Patreon! You can check us out on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, and beyond! RSS Feed: http://www.rumorfliespodcast.com/episodes/?format=rss Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/1999/jul/06/healthandwellbeing.health https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/155/2/140/108003 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0278691502001357 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12176091/ https://www.onthisday.com/events/date/1997/december https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon:_Indigo_League https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denn%C5%8D_Senshi_Porygon https://www.vice.com/en/article/59mnax/did-pokemon-actually-give-kids-seizures-in-the-90s http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9712/17/video.seizures.update/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_episodes_removed_from_rotation https://web.archive.org/web/20051107010228/http://angkor.com/cityrain/pokemon.shtml https://www.npr.org/2012/03/10/148372536/the-curious-case-of-teen-tics-in-le-roy-n-y https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/magazine/teenage-girls-twitching-le-roy.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_hysteria_cases https://theweek.com/articles/477146/conversion-disorder-epidemic-spread-by-sight https://slate.com/human-interest/2012/01/mass-hysteria-in-upstate-new-york-why-lori-brownell-and-13-other-teenage-girls-are-showing-tourettes-like-symptoms.html https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3536509/