a mass poisoning case affecting students has been reported in the southern state of Chiapas 1 Constitución secondary school in Tapachula became sick and were taken to a Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) hospital Students said that some of their classmates felt dizzy and vomited before they were hospitalized IMSS said the 14 students had symptoms of “probable poisoning,” but what substance they had ingested was unclear a large number of students mysteriously fell ill in the municipality of Bochil only a day after a dozen students in Tapachula became sick due to suspected poisoning The events were all preceded by an incident in late September where some 30 students fell ill in Tapachula located about 80 kilometers northeast of state capital Tuxtla Gutiérrez saw over 100 students in their early teens poisoned by an unidentified substance Fifty-seven of the students were initially hospitalized but all but two – one of whom is reportedly in serious condition – were later released at least 20 Bochil students were readmitted to hospital on October 11  because they were suffering anxiety according to the newspaper El Heraldo de Chiapas Reports said that the Bochil students had ingested cocaine but the Chiapas Attorney General’s Office (FGE) said Monday that 35 toxicology tests had been conducted by state authorities and the results were all negative for that drug as well as opioids the state Attorney General’s Office noted in a statement that three adolescents had tested positive for cocaine in tests conducted by private laboratories Chiapas Attorney General Olaf López Hernández announced that due to this discrepancy his office had asked the federal attorney general’s office to provide additional experts to evaluate the case The FGE said it had received 29 complaints from parents of students who study at Bochil’s Juana de Asbaja secondary school and that five students reported drinking water after recess that tasted bitter The FGE said that it collected evidence from the school among which were 33 plastic bottles of varying sizes and nylon bags a prosecutor in Chiapas who focuses on cases involving adolescents said in a radio interview Tuesday that a blue substance was found in the nylon bags was presumably mixed with water the students drank Morales said that a total of 110 students were in fact taken to hospital and another 20 or so were treated by private practice doctors He said the case remains under investigation and that authorities were waiting to speak with more affected students With reports from El Financiero, Sin Embargo and  El Heraldo de Chiapas  ADVERTISE WITH MND COMMUNITY GUIDELINES Subscription FAQ's Privacy Policy Mexico News Daily - Property of Tavana LLC Mexican authorities are still struggling to find answers to the seemingly unexplained fainting of hundreds of middle school students all over the country in the fall of last year 12 students (11 girls and 1 boy) at the Federal 1 public secondary school in Tapachula Mexico spontaneously collapsed in their classrooms Another 22 middle school students reported symptoms like severe headaches and vomiting some of the affected students reported smelling something smoky in the air which led investigators to believe that drugs like marijuana had probably been to blame Other students reported seeing a mustard-color powder in the bathroom on that day but toxicology analysis again revealed nothing of interest doctors concluded that the kids had suffered panic attacks similar incidents started being reported at other schools across Mexico… Photo: Element5 Digital/Unsplash Two weeks after the Federal 1 middle school incident or suddenly became disoriented at a middle school in Bochil a rural community in the Mexican state of Chiapas Several of the children needed to be hospitalized but this time toxicology tests detected traces of cocaine in four of them there was another incident at the Federal 1 school in Tapachula another 18 children started fainting on school grounds for no apparent reason was also involved in the first fainting incident she lost consciousness but was back to her normal self in about 12 hours She told her mother that she had smelled the strange burning odor while in the girls’ bathroom before starting to feel dizzy and collapsing to the ground a team of specially-trained sniffer dogs were brought in hundreds of students at six different middle schools in four Mexican states hundreds of miles apart experienced fainting and authorities still don’t have a proper explanation for what happened Photo: Scott Webb/Unsplash Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador included updates about the school fainting episodes in his daily press conferences and even after the incidents stopped occurring theories about their cause flooded social media networks “It’s possible there’s something going on at the school and they don’t want us to find out,” Esmeralda’s mother said believing that her daughter had been drugged the general consensus became that drugs had been involved Some expressed concern about increasing drug use among middle school children while others feared a twisted plot orchestrated by Mexican drug cartels The latter theory was fueled by reports of shady characters hanging around schools in Bochil and that several episodes had occurred in Chiapas which lies on a well-known path for drug and migrant smugglers Photo: Taylor Flowe/Unsplash Six of the kids involved in the original episode at Federal 1 were called to the Chiapas district attorney’s office to be questioned by a psychologist but their depositions didn’t really help the investigation there were mentions of “probable intoxication through food” and “probable transmission through the air” while another report blamed a “probable intoxication with stimulants” for the episode in Bochil The mystery of this fainting “epidemic” intrigued many experts throughout Mexico and one of them actually conducted his own investigation based on the data available because so many of the affected children had tested negative for a variety of psychotropic substances or heatstroke were also unlikely because they would have required too many coincidences to occur simultaneously because most of the children had not felt sick prior to fainting or exhibiting symptoms like vomiting or dizziness the episodes could not have been caused by anything ingested orally many of the affected schools were not located close to farms or factories so intoxication with pesticides or other industrial chemicals was also ruled out mass hysteria is an extremely rare phenomenon where someone exhibits symptoms like fainting twitching or screaming and then other people in their proximity involuntarily replicate the symptoms It sometimes occurs in people who are emotionally close and where people spend a lot of time together and it can last anywhere from a few hours to a few months a big question remains – how could hysteria spread across hundreds of miles among people who had never interacted with each other “It used to be that you had to be there. You had to be in the room,” Dr. Robert Bartholomew, a psychology professor at the University of Auckland, told Insider Magazine “But now social media is an extension of our senses and we’re always playing catch up… I think we are on the verge of a much bigger Meléndez and Bartholomew are now the only two people still investigating last year’s fainting epidemic and their theory is that it was an episode of mass hysteria caused by the Internet and a combination of psychological and developmental disturbances due to the COVID-19 pandemic “These children were in their homes for almost two years That is significant in relation to the connection between the brain and the immune system,” Pantoja-Melendez said “We’ve seen all sorts of weird things happen the past year.” The two doctors plan to visit the affected schools this summer and interview the children to hopefully find an answer to this enigma worldDozens of Mexico students mysteriously poisonedAn elementary school student returns to full-time face-to-face classes for the first time after having online and staggered classes due to Covid-19 2022 3:33 AMMEXICO CITY – At least 57 students were poisoned by an unidentified substance in a rural secondary school in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas The mass poisoning on Friday (Oct 7) was the third at Chiapas schools reported in local media over the past two weeks spooking students and prompting outrage from parents The Mexican Social Security Institute said Friday that 57 teenage students in the rural community of Bochil had arrived at a local hospital with symptoms of poisoning One student in a "delicate" condition was transferred to a hospital in the state's capital while the rest were stable but local news outlets said some parents believe the students were exposed to contaminated water or food "We are outraged by these events," leaders of Bochil said in a statement adding that they are collaborating with a state prosecutor's investigation Videos circulating on social media showed a chaotic scene in which adults carrying teenagers in school uniforms rushed through a hospital hallway amid anxious shouting [embed]https://twitter.com/GabyCoutino/status/1578621251299352576[/embed] The state prosecutor's office said on social media on Saturday that it had conducted 15 toxicology exams which had all come out negative for illicit drugs after reports circulated in local media and on social media that students had tested positive for cocaine dozens of parents gathered at the basketball court of the secondary school passing a microphone around as they demanded answers from authorities while over a dozen police One man in the video said his daughter had been poisoned and tested positive for cocaine at a private laboratory The state prosecutor's office said it would continue testing students but did not respond to questions about the prior poisoning events local media have reported two previous cases of mass poisoning in the city of Tapachula