Terrorism Fear Could Create Psychosomatic Epidemic, Feds Warn

Americans' fear of a terrorism could create a mass outbreak of a psychosomatic illness -- even in the absence of any real attack -- -- creating a fake epidemic that could overwhelm hospitals attempting to treat real victims.

Adding to the confusion, the symptoms of a mass pyschogenic illness look much like symptoms of an anthrax attack, avian flu outbreak or chemical attack.

At least that's what the feds warned hospitals in a nonpublic 2006 communique recently published by the government sunshine site Wikileaks.

Call it a contagious psychosomatic illness -- though the feds preferred to label the phenomenon "psychogenic illness," defining that as:

A phenomenon in which social trauma or anxiety combines with a suspicious event to produce psychosomatic symptoms, such as nausea, difficulty breathing, and paralysis.  If many individuals come to believe that the psychosomatic outbreak is connected to the cause of the trauma or anxiety, these symptoms can spread rapidly throughout a population.

In fact, the feds suggest (.pdf) that there's already been a totally terrorism-fear-created illness in California where no one was actually sick from an attack.

In that case, a man walked into a California bank in October 2003, sprayed an aerosol can into the air and then left. Employees and customers became ill, though investigators found there were no biological or chemical agents in the air. (Note proof of this incident is attributed to a November 2003 FBI report that is also considered too sensitive for the public's eyes.)

A similar fear-based illness began in Chechnya -- when 13 kids fell ill with headaches, fevers and numbness, according to the report. Many believed that the kids had been poisoned by a Russian chemical attack and the symptoms quickly spread. Some 87 people, mostly kids, were hospitalized, though there was no evidence of any chemical attack. Officials attributed the illness to anxiety over Russian military activities in the area.  - wired

I don't know about this. What if they are just trying to cover up something real that is really causing people to get sick by saying it is all in people's minds?