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[Dram]

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/13/health/mysterious-tourist-deaths-asia/index.html

Kari Bowerman, 27, and Cathy Huynh, 26, were backpacking in Vietnam while on break from their jobs teaching English in South Korea.

On July 30, the friends were admitted to Khanh Hoa General Hospital in Nha Trang. Both were vomiting, had difficulty breathing and showed signs of severe dehydration.

Huynh was eventually released from the hospital. She returned later that night to hear the devastating news -- three hours after being admitted, Bowerman had gone into respiratory failure and died.

Two days later, Huynh was dead.

The travelers' stories are just the latest in a string of mysterious tourist deaths in Southeast Asia. Investigators with the World Health Organization suspect poisoning is to blame, but determining the origin has proven difficult. Meanwhile, friends and family are desperate for answers.

Almost immediately, international media reports began linking the deaths to an incident in Thailand in June in which two Canadian sisters died.

A hotel maid found Noemi and Audrey Belanger, 25 and 20, in their room on Phi Phi Island more than 12 hours after their deaths. The sisters were covered in vomit, according to CBC News.

In February 2011, New Zealand resident Sarah Carter, 23, died in Chiang Mai, Thailand, after arriving at a local hospital with low blood pressure, difficulty breathing and dehydration from vomiting, according to the New Zealand television network TV3.

In the Downtown Inn where Carter had stayed, the Bangkok Post says three other visitors -- a Thai tour guide and an elderly British couple -- died between January and May 2011.

Other media reports linked Bowerman's and Huynh's deaths to the 2009 deaths of Jill St. Onge and Julie Bergheim, who had similar symptoms in adjacent rooms at the Laleena Guesthouse on the island of Phi Phi. (The hotel has since changed its name).

As Bowerman's relatives read story after story, they realized they weren't the only family frustrated and confused. The cause of death in every case was eerily similar to the one written on Kari's death report: "not yet determined."

In 2011, TV3 traveled to Chiang Mai, Thailand, to search for evidence in the Sarah Carter case. Show producers spoke with Dr. Ron McDowall, a United Nations toxic chemical consultant, who had reviewed Carter's pathology reports and believed she died of pesticide ingestion.

The swabs collected by TV3 in the Downtown Inn showed moderate levels of chlorpyrifos, McDowall told CNN in an email last week.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, chlorpyrifos can cause nausea, dizziness, confusion and, in high levels, respiratory paralysis and death.

The chemical is banned for use in homes and hotels in most countries, McDowall said. Yet it's still legal in Thailand and Vietnam, he said, and was included in the pesticide sprayed in the Downtown Inn.

Evidence for the insecticide theory is mounting. Thai police recently announced they found traces of the insect repellent DEET in the Belanger sisters' bodies, according CBC. Investigators believe the DEET was added as an ingredient to a popular cocktail served on the island.

The Downtown Inn was torn down this summer after the Thailand Disease Control Department concluded three of the deaths were "probably connected to the use of pesticides," according to the Bangkok Post.

The problem is that chemical poisoning is very hard to verify, McDowall says. Chlorpyrifos' half-life -- or the amount of time that passes before half of the original amount disappears -- in humans is about one day.

Vietnamese authorities have released very little information about the cause of death for Bowerman and Huynh. Investigators might know more when autopsy results come back in a couple of weeks.

 

[Napoleonthechimp]

So they're spraying dangerous insecticide inside hotel rooms? Yeah, that can't go wrong...

 

[Heretic]

So they're spraying dangerous insecticide inside hotel rooms? Yeah, that can't go wrong...

Question is: Are they doing it on purpose?

 

[Funky Papa]

Question is: Are they doing it on purpose?

I find more plausible the idea of using something super strong to kill the bugs because it's assured to work. It's not like it hasn't happened before.

 

[Heretic]

I find more plausible the idea of using something super strong to kill the bugs because it's assured to work. It's not like it hasn't happened before.

party pooper.

 

[The Bookerman]

So they're spraying dangerous insecticide inside hotel rooms? Yeah, that can't go wrong...

What about the drinks that were spiked with DEET? Can't go wrong either i guess huh?

 

[DiscoJer]

What about the drinks that were spiked with DEET? Can't go wrong either i guess huh?

Another story on that

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/310348/cocktail-lethal-for-sisters

(Thank you Wikipedia, sometimes you are remarkably current. I looked up DEET and it had it)

Though the chemical is a potentially neurotoxic mosquito repellent, it is sometimes used as an ingredient to add an extra kick to a euphoria-inducing cocktail that is popular among young people in Thailand.

The cocktail known locally as 4x100 contains cough syrup, cola, ground-up kratom leaves, which are a mild narcotic, and ice.

It is thought that an overdose of DEET was accidentally mixed into the young women's drinks.

Large plastic buckets filled with different drink ingredients that are sipped through a straw are popular with Phi Phi partiers, who carry the buckets from place to place.

The sisters from Pohenegamook, Quebec had just arrived on Phi Phi and were last seen partying with two Brazilian friends in the early morning of June 13.

 

[erlim]

weee i get to take a vacation to malaysia in early october. wish me luck.

 

[Zaptruder]

What about the drinks that were spiked with DEET? Can't go wrong either i guess huh?

Red Herring. Sounds super unhealthy, and it's not exactly good for you... but DEET isn't actually poisonous, and is sprayed, inhaled and even swallowed in decent quantities by everyone that uses it.

Also, the Belanger sisters drank the party drink from a bucket mixed with various drinks and the deet chemical.

Which sounds exceptionally dodgy - except those buckets are used to mix drinks for 20-30 servings, meaning that many other people drunk the same concoction they did. No other reports of death were found from people that went to the place they did.

The common denominator here seems to be the insecticide used in hotel rooms. But even then, it's not like all the hotel guests are dying in droves. Just some and largely limited to young females (not that I'm aware of any other victim types so far).

Low body weight + overspraying = death?

Maybe even a more esoetric combination such as something that they drunk and consumed... reacting badly with the insecticide in their rooms?

 

[Finaika]

weee i get to take a vacation to malaysia in early october. wish me luck.

Good luck.

 

[big_z]

Do not drink any alcohol there. There's a couple girls from my home city that where travelling in the area and both ended up hospitalised. One almost died and is now nearly blind. There are places that will mix all sorts of poisonous stuff like antifreeze in with drinks and serve it to foreigners.

 

[Dram]

Maybe someone is targeting foreigners.

 

[Deleted member 20920]

Maybe someone is targeting foreigners.

Doesn't seem like it since we're talking about different countries. Seems most likely caused by the insecticide. I remember reading at thread about this here some time ago.

 

[DiscoJer]

It could be that locals build up a tolerance to the insecticide, but tourists, especially young women with low body weights, get exposed to too much too soon and get sick/die.

 

[teruterubozu]

Backpacking in Vietnam is equated to deaths in a Thailand hotel?
Strange and far-reaching connection.

 

[Funky Papa]

Do not drink any alcohol there.

Just try to avoid open drinks and cocktails in dump-like places when visiting any developing country. You could never guess the contents of the bottle/container. At best, you may walk away with a mild case of explosive diarrhea.

Stick to reputable looking sites and factory sealed stuff.

 

[siddx]

The drinks aren't the problem, it's the ice thats dangerous. I have poured many a drink into a different container to avoid getting melted water in my drink that would likely give me the super mud butt.