TED Talks Daily - The razor-thin line between contagion and connection | Dan Taberski

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

After a mysterious wave of tics and twitches swept through a small-town high school in New York, documentary podcaster Dan Taberski set out to investigate what was really happening. Drawing on extensive research and intimate interviews with the people involved, he explores the roots of mass hysteria — and what it reveals about the line between illness and belonging. What happens when the very thing that makes us sick ... is also what connects us?Want to help shape TED’s shows going forward? Fill out our survey!Become a TED Member today at ted.com/joinLearn more about TED Next at ted.com/futureyou Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas and conversations to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hough. Today we start with a fascinating story about a group of high school girls in LaRoy, New York, who in 2011 all suddenly developed tics, like those present with Tourette's Syndrome. In his talk, documentary podcaster Dan Taberski shares his findings after investigating this case for the award-winning podcast Hysterical, exploring what this disorder reveals about

the power of stress and trauma, and why the notion of mass hysteria isn't just for the history books. It still happens. Please note that this episode contains mature language. This episode is sponsored by PWC. AI, climate change, and geopolitical shifts are reconfiguring the global economy. That's why industry leaders turn to PWC to help turn disruption into opportunity. PWC unites expertise and tech so you can outthink, outpace, and outperform. So you can stay ahead. So you can protect what you build. So you can create new value. Visit pwc.com to learn more. create new value. Visit pwc.com to learn more. That's pwc.com. Pwc refers to the PwC network and or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate legal entity.

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instead of drowning in forms. Some regional exclusions apply, learn more at turbotax.ca slash business tax. Now this is taxes. Support for the show comes from Airbnb. Last summer my family and I had an amazing Airbnb stay while adventuring in Playa del Carmen. It was so much fun to bounce around in ATVs, explore cool caves, and snorkel in subterranean

rivers. Vacations like these are never long enough, but perhaps I could take advantage of my empty home by hosting it on Airbnb while I'm away. And then I could use the extra income to stay a few more days on my next Mexico trip. It seems like a smart thing to do since my house sits empty while I'm away. We could zipline into even more cenotes on our next visit to Mexico. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host. I make audio documentaries and I recently spent some time in a town called Leroy, New York. It's a town about 50 miles outside of Buffalo. It's a small town. It's claimed to fame as that it's the birthplace of

Jell-O. There's a museum and everything. Anyway, in 2011, at the beginning of the school year, something strange happened in Leroy. A student at Leroy Junior-Senior High School, a cheerleader, she wakes up from a nap with a stutter, like a severe stammer, trouble speaking. And pretty soon that turns into head ticks and facial twitches. And then blurting out sounds and words.

Symptoms that you'd associate with something like Tourette's Syndrome. A couple weeks later, while she's dealing with that, another student at the school comes down with the same symptoms. Ticks, spasms, barks, blurting out sounds and words. It happens from zero to 60 overnight out of nowhere. Then it happens to another student. And then two more. This is Rose.

Rose was in eighth grade at the time of the outbreak. At first it was whispers. It was like, oh, it's this one girl. Like, we don't know what's going on. Like blah, blah, blah. And the next thing I know, it's like doubling and tripling and it's all one girl, like we don't know what's going on, like blah, blah, blah. And the next thing I know, it's like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls. Jessica was a senior at the time.

And I remember thinking like, were they making it up? Like what is going on? People thought they were faking it. Yeah, everybody thought they might be faking it. And then my friend came to school the one day and I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad. I'm like, what are you doing?

Like, stop fucking around. like, what are you doing? Like, stop fucking around. Like, why are you talking like that? And she's like, I can't. She's like twitching, she's like crying at that point, like just trying to get out her words. And I'm like, holy shit, this is real. Like what happened?

Within weeks, the case count hits double digits. All at the high school, all girls. An investigation begins. They test for Lyme disease. They test for heavy metals in the blood. Back at the school, they test for the water safety. They test for the air quality. They test for mold.

And the only thing spreading faster than the contagion are the theories about what's causing it. I remember hearing at some point, since it was all girls, it must be a bad batch of tampons. (*Laughter*) The tampon theory does not pan out. In fact, none of them do. After a months-long investigation,

the state and the school board and the doctors involved, they come up with what they think is the answer. The outbreak ripping through the high school is a mass psychogenic illness, otherwise known as mass hysteria. Emily was in eighth grade when she came down with the symptoms herself. This is what her doctor told her.

She basically said, oh, well, it's all in your head, you're fine. How are you as a medical professional gonna look your patient in the eye and be like, you're fine? Stop thinking about it, you're fine, you're fine? And she should be skeptical, right? Especially because she's a woman. Even the word hysteria has its roots

in the Greek for uterus. For centuries, doctors would blame the wandering womb for all sorts of problems that women were having with their bodies without really understanding what it was medically. all sorts of problems that women were having with their bodies without really understanding what it was medically. Back in Leroy, this is how Jessica reacted to the diagnosis.

I thought, that's bullshit. I don't believe that. Seeing all these girls, they're not making it up, and I just don't believe that that's the thing. After all of this, that's all it is? I just don't know how to believe that. I love that. I don't know how to believe that.

Not just I don't believe that, I don't know how to believe that. I love that. I don't know how to believe that. Not just I don't believe that, I don't know how to believe it. Here's what I've come to believe. I think we all need to start learning how to believe in mass hysteria, because while it is very rare, it is also very real. So, say, neurologists, psychoanalysts, sociologists, so says the NIH. And it's a very specific type of contagion that says a lot about how we're connected as people. Mass psychogenic illness is the rapid spread of real physical symptoms from one person to the other. But those symptoms don't seem to have any organic cause.

So you've got a limp, but your x-ray is normal. Or you've got neurological symptoms, but your MRI doesn't show anything. Medically, these symptoms shouldn't be happening. But then they begin to spread from person to person. But it's not random. The spread of the contagion tends to be a function of how connected the victims are to each other. So students at a small town high school,

or workers on a factory floor, or even nuns in a convent. In the Middle Ages, there were several cases reported or workers on a factory floor, or even nuns in a convent. In the Middle Ages, there were several cases reported in Europe in convents, including one extended case in France where a nun supposedly began meowing uncontrollably, only to have that symptom spread for the rest of the nuns in the convent. And then of course, there's the witches of Salem, right?

Perhaps the arch-ty, women being hysterical. Many now believe that that was a mass psychogenic illness. Why does it happen? There's usually some sort of underlying stress or trauma affecting the people involved. Like for example, in the fall of 2001, when a mystery rash broke out in grade schools around the country,

at least dozens and dozens of schools, hundreds of students affected. The rash would pass from student to student during the day in the school, but then often disappear when the kid went home at night. And then it would reappear the next day and begin spreading all over again. Tests showed no bacteria, no virus,

no toxic exposure that would explain it. Turns out what may have been happening is that it virus, no toxic exposure that would explain it. Turns out, what may have been happening is that it was fear of toxic exposure that caused the contagion. In fact, the mystery rash began on the very day that the news reported that a man in Florida had been diagnosed with anthrax, just weeks after they began appearing in envelopes after September 11th in people's mailboxes. Many epidemiologists now believe

that the post-9-11 rash was a mass psychogenic illness, a real physical expression of the collective anxiety those kids were feeling at the time. It's actually why I don't even care for the phrase mass psychogenic illness. It's more polite, perhaps, but it's mass hysteria that really gets the messiness of it. It's not just medical, it's not just psychological,

it's social, it's cultural. It's about all of us. And it's not just women. You may have heard of Havana syndrome. That's the neurological medical mystery affecting foreign workers in the United States and in Canada. Many people believe that that is a mass psychogenic illness. And these things don't just happen anywhere.

They tend to happen at the stress points in the culture, or as one expert put it to me, they tend to happen in the fissures of society. I want to play you some more tape. These are all taken from police body cams of police officers in the field. In each instance, the police officer has just come into contact with the street drug fentanyl.

I feel weird, man. He said he's floating, his legs are tingling. Yeah, yeah. My toes are tingling. He had fentanyl! He had fentanyl! You're good, you're good. You're good for you. Keep breathing. Hey, stay with me.

Okay, it's for an officer, possible exposure to fentanyl or something. I'm getting mine. You got yours out? Alright, relax. Stay with me. Okay, it's more an officer of possible exposure to fentanyl or something. I'm getting my, you got yours out? Alright, relax. You may have seen or heard footage like this in the news. It pops up all the time. Local news loves it. It makes great tape.

We were able to track 332 cases of accidental fentanyl poisoning among police officers in the field. Passing out, tingling, rapid heart rate, all just because of proximity to the drug fentanyl, sometimes even just knowing its presence on the scene. But of those 332 cases that we were able to track, the number of actual toxicology reports that showed fentanyl in those police officers' system at the time, as far as we can tell, one.

At a state prison in Alaska. And even that one hasn't been independently confirmed. In fact, the American Society of Medical Toxicology says it is near impossible to overdose on fentanyl in this way. And yet it keeps happening. But it doesn't happen to doctors and nurses who handle fentanyl in hospital settings. It doesn't even really happen to fentanyl abusers

who are obviously handling the drug all the time. It's only in this one specific preexisting social group, police officers, male police officers, incidentally. Phenomenon that many people believe is a mass psychogenic illness. With a particularly modern twist. So the thing about mass hysteria is that it's a line of sight

thing, right? Like part of the reason you get the symptoms is because you see somebody having the symptoms themselves. But with the advent of police body cams, each psychogenic overdose also creates a video. And that video then gets seen by other police officers, which potentially creates more psychogenic overdoses, which creates more videos.

You see the problem. Creating perhaps the perfect vector for spread. Back in Leroy, the outbreak there followed the pattern of many mass psychogenic illnesses. It came on strong, it wreaked havoc, and it faded away. Why there?

It's impossible to say for sure, but we do now know that some of the girls were experiencing their own personal, private, traumatic situations that may have contributed to their susceptibility. And of course, once mass hysteria sets in, it kind of brings its own stress and trauma. As does just being an American teenage girl in today. Before it was over, 19 girls at the high school came down with symptoms. All of them somehow connected to the others. Several of them were on the soccer team together. Several of them shared a very specific art class, and two of them were best friends.

By the time summer break arrived, the symptoms were all but gone from the high school, almost. Remember Rose? She was one of the tampon theory. the symptoms were all but gone from the high school, almost. Remember Rose? She was one of the tampon theory. Rose never caught those Tourette's like symptoms that ripped through the high school so severely because Rose already had Tourette's. She has since she was three.

I mean, I had always had very prominent tics from the time I was diagnosed. Like I have facial twitches, I would go through spurts where I would be throwing things. I was always very loud. Like I always have very loud vocal tics. You will always hear me. Everybody always knows who I am. Unfortunately for Rose, when people with tic disorders are around other people who tic, both people tend to tic more severely. So you can imagine, when 19 other girls are walking the halls ticking,

Rose's ticks got worse, much, much worse. So I had a tick where I would punch myself right here in the face, over and over and over, over and over. And like I- In your chin, that was your tick. My tick was literally to like, cold cock myself.

I have permanent damage in my right eye because my other tick was to punch myself in the eye. I was literally beating the shit out of myself. Rose had a really difficult year, to say the least. But it was something she told me about her life now that struck me, about this idea of contagion and connection. So like I volunteer to Tourette Syndrome Camp every summer. Wow.

Yeah, and I love it. It is one of the best things I do with my life every year. It's so amazing. But we all tick so much more because we're all ticking. Does that feel good or bad? Oh, I love it. At Rose's Tourette's camp, when the contagion comes on, they let it happen.

They don't hold back. It is so worth every second of it because you are having the best time and you are around your people. And the other thing is there's something called tick shopping, that's the actual name for it. And you can pick up other people's ticks. They're literally sharing in their symptoms.

They're passing them back and forth unconsciously. And even if just for one weird, humid, buggy weekend in the summer, they're able to revel in those symptoms and really appreciate the connection that it gives them. So I always have to take like the day after camp off cause I'll come home with God knows what takes doing what. Like it's the, it's the, but it's like the best feeling ever. It is the best feeling ever.

The line between contagion and connection is a thin one. Sometimes it's hardly there at all. Thank you. Applause That was Dan Taberski speaking at TED 2025. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at TED.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today's show. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective.

This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, Alejandra Salazar, and Tonsika Sarmarnivon. It was mixed by Christopher Fazy-Bogan, additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Balarezo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening. This episode is sponsored by PWC. AI, climate change, and geopolitical shifts are reconfiguring the global economy. That's why industry leaders turn to PWC to help turn disruption into opportunity. PWC unites expertise and tech so you can outthink, outpace, and outperform.

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