By David Tuller, DrPH
On Monday afternoon, a bunch of people in Terminal 4 at Heathrow, London’s biggest airport, reported feeling ill. The reports led to concerns about a possible toxic exposure, which triggered an evacuation and major flight delays. An initial search for dangerous substances found nothing.
On Tuesday, The Guardian ran an article under the following headline:
“‘Mass psychogenic illness’ plausible cause of toxic substance alert at Heathrow, says scientist”
And here’s the headline on the Guardian article that appeared hours later:
“Man arrested on suspicion of bringing teargas to Heathrow airport”
Ok, then. Let’s parse this.
“Mass psychogenic illness,” or sometimes “mass sociogenic illness,” is the term that has mostly replaced what was formerly called “mass hysteria.” (The diagnosis and concept of “hysteria” has fallen into disfavor as stigmatizing and misogynistic.) This incident is a classic example of how quickly those with authority will turn to psychiatric or psycho-sociological assumptions to explain unusual medical phenomena–assumptions that are often asserted as definitive rather than speculative.
Long COVID has certainly been framed in such terms, perhaps most infamously and offensively by a resident in psychiatry at Canada’s McMaster University in Canada in a 2021 opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal. (I wrote about it here and here.)
Here’s the opening of the first Guardian article:
“Police were called to Heathrow late on Monday afternoon when 21 people fell ill in Terminal 4. Initial reports suggested a hazardous material could be involved and part of the airport was evacuated. But when the emergency services conducted a thorough search, no trace of any adverse substance was found.
“A source within the Metropolitan police subsequently suggested the event could be something quite different – a case of mass hysteria. And some experts agree.
“‘What happened at Heathrow is almost certainly an episode of mass psychogenic illness that is anxiety-based,’ said Dr Robert Bartholomew, a University of Auckland sociologist who is an expert on the subject.”
**********
Professor Sir Simon Wessely weighs in
Of course, the UK’s most renowned psychiatrist, Professor Sir Simon Wessely, was also asked to weigh in. In fact, he and Dr Bartholomew co-wrote a 2018 article on this issue for the British Journal of General Psychiatry. The article was called “The protean nature of mass sociogenic illness: From possessed nuns to chemical and biological terrorism fears.” Even so, Sir Simon was more cautious in his comments to The Guardian than his colleague, although he fully endorsed the possibility.
From the Guardian article:
“Prof Sir Simon Wessely of King’s College London…said it was ‘a bit early’ to come to judgments about the Heathrow event and it was unclear whether there was an unusual odour or what investigations were done to eliminate other causes. But he added: ‘If all these come to nothing, then yes, this may be an episode of what we now call mass sociogenic illness.’
“Bartholomew stressed the illness was not a mental disorder and victims were not psychologically disturbed.
“’It is best described as a collective stress reaction that is based on a belief. We all have beliefs, therefore we are all potential victims,’ he said. ‘It is not ‘all in their heads’ in the sense that they are experiencing real symptoms.’
“Wessely added: ‘Study after study has never found anything different about those who are affected from those who aren’t. All of us can experience anxiety in certain symptoms, and all of us can mistake these physiological symptoms, which can be easily explained by basic physiology for evidence of something else – such as a chemical, toxin etc. And we know these can spread very quickly in crowded environments, usually by rumour and also line of sight.’
“Wessely said there was nothing unusual about the events at terminal 4 on Monday: ‘It happens all over the world every day, particularly in crowded spaces like schools, concerts, crowds, factory floors etc. The only reason this made the news was because of the fact it was at Heathrow and led to major flight disruptions.’
**********
After the police investigated further, The Guardian updated its coverage. Here’s an excerpt from the later Guardian article:
“Police have arrested a man on suspicion of bringing teargas into Heathrow airport, which caused Terminal 4’s check-in area to briefly shut down.
“The check-in area at the UK’s main international airport was evacuated for around three hours on Monday evening as emergency services probed a ‘potential hazardous materials incident’.
“A Metropolitan police spokesperson said a 57-year-old man had been arrested after urgent inquiries on suspicion of possession of a firearm (CS spray) and ‘causing a public nuisance’.
“After searching the area, Met officers located a canister of ‘what is believed to be CS spray’, which was ‘thought to have caused a reaction to those within the airport,’ the police said…
“A source in the Met Police initially suspected that the incident could have been a case of ‘mass hysteria’ before the canister was located, after officers scoured the area and were unable to find the source of the hazardous substance passengers had reported.”
Oops! Never mind!
This Wessley incident begs for another Guardian article by George Monbiot. I will never understand why the UK allows Wessley to repeatedly spread his psychobabble without being discredited. In any other profession, such public declarations is usually a career-ending exercise. An entire airport terminal falls ill and someone thinks to interview Wessley about it? Is there no topic in the UK this guy doesn’t have a published opinion about?
Because Simon Wessely has friends in high places and he scratches the right backs
Yup. All those people simultaneously decided to have the same symptoms, for a bit of fun, and delay their lives and their flights.
LOOK HARDER for the REAL CAUSE of the SYMPTOMS.
Because when they looked harder, they found it.
How much time delay was caused by chasing psychogenic wild geese? Because resources were diverted that should have been better used.
I’m not saying that the mass hysteria theory should be given much or any credence but, if one was to contemplate its applicability to this situation, wouldn’t it be problematic that there is very little that connects people in an airport, other than that they are passing through the airport? They’re not friends or part of a group that might be sympathetic to or in tune with each other. If anything, the opposite – I’d expect them to be sensibly concerned about stranger danger, left bags etc – and wary of those around them, so what human advantage could there be to them acting as a mass in that situation?
It would seem logical to me to first suspect some sort of chemical or toxin in the environment and to wait to see if there was any evidence to support that before advancing other theories. I’m reminded of the “Jumping Frenchmen of Maine” syndrome that supposedly afflicted French-Canadian lumbermen working in the forests of Maine in the C19th. Their reported reactions to being startled have been repeatedly attributed to psychosocial issues but scant attention seems to have been paid to the possibility that these men were being affected by a chemical that was in their environment or that they were imbibing or ingesting somehow. To me, that would seem the most logical/sensible explanation and, having done some research into this, I believe that there are some possible contenders – tea they might have brewed from local plants in the Maine forests or perhaps herbs or dubious medicines they took to try to keep themselves and their animals well while living and working in such a harsh environment. Obviously, it’s too late now for anything to be proven beyond doubt. The opportunity was missed to collect more useful information at the time, probably because people jumped too readily to their own conclusions.
Wessely’s magic powers make problem issues and problems people disappear. The powers-that-be are very grateful to have such a useful servant.
(It is Sooo Newsy ) out there.
Simon Wessely is a quack & I immediately think less of every publication that quotes him in a serious manner. I’m absolutely convinced that man could find hysteria under his bed, looking in his windows & in his walls because he’s clearly obsessed & unwell.
At least we can be grateful that Wessely wasn’t around to prevent the germ theory of disease ever getting off the ground.
It is a terrible curse to have been born into the same time period as Wessely, though. I’d welcome time travelling fifty years ahead to get away from him, if it wasn’t for climate change and the increasingly likely end of civilised life on Earth.
🙁
Keeping in mind that Kanaan is no longer at the address mentioned in this (the Freudian diaspora being a thing) it’s interesting that Prof Sir Simon Wessely was one of the authors:
The function of ‘functional’: a mixed methods investigation
Richard A Kanaan 1 , David Armstrong, Simon C Wessely
Affiliations expand
PMID: 22250186 PMCID: PMC3277687 DOI: 10.1136/jnnp-2011-300992
Hmm, using the term ‘functional’ (now considered to be the least offensive term available) to convey one meaning to doctors and another to patients means that we can’t have fun things like the patients as partners era of medicine or shared care and decision making. There’s another paper that someone in the FND Hub I’m in posted fairly recently that references ‘hysteria’ too so I’ll try to remember to fish that out and post it when I can.
Here’s the very longwinded paper about FND which mentions chronic fatigue and various other conditions. Amongst other issues it poses the question ‘where did all the hysterics go?’ Heathrow? Somehow I doubt it.
PMCID: PMC10064068 PMID: 37009111