Mass Psychogenic Illness - DHS Warning 

Wikileaks has made a storehouse of information available. One document is a July 5th, 2006 HITRAC Private Sector Note from the Homeland Infrastructure Threat and Risk Analysis Center warning about the possibility of "Mass Psychogenic Illness" events. They define these events as follows:

"Mass Psychogenic Illness

(U) 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."

The DHS warning goes on to say:

"The observed symptoms of many mass psychogenic illness events are similar to several non-specific symptoms of possible chemical and biological weapons—including chemical agents, inhalational anthrax, and avian influenza. 

⎯ (U//FOUO) Recent cases of mass psychogenic illness display a transferal of the symptoms onto contemporary anxieties."

The warning document gives three example events:

1995 release of Sarin in the Tokyo subway / 12 died but over 5000 people claimed exposure, flooding over 260 medical facilities, although the actual release was confined to a small area

2003 in California when a man entered a bank, sprayed an unknown aerosol into the air, then left / bank employees and customers soon became ill but no chemical or biological agents were ever found

2005 illness in children in the Shelkov region of Chechnya but medical officials determined it was a case of psychosomatic contagion—mass psychogenic illness—brought on by anxiety over Russian military activities in the area. 

The DHS should now update their warning by adding Covid-19 to their list of example events.

See document at:  file.wikileaks.org/file/dhs-mass-psychogenic-illness-2006.pdf