Chinese Factory Workers Fall Ill: Is It Pollution or "Hysteria"?

Treehugger.com reports on a pollution sickness hysteria that has struck Chinese factory workers. Could dancing plagues be next?

In a story nearly worthy of the Onion, officials in China have sought to reassure 1,200 factory workers in the city of Jilin that their symptoms of nausea, numbness, dizziness, convulsions, breathing difficulties, vomiting and temporary paralysis were not the result of chemical poisoning from a nearby factory, but rather of "hysteria."

After a chemical plant began production in the spring, workers from a nearby yarn factory began piling up in the city's hospital beds. The factory happens to produce aniline, a highly toxic chemical used in the manufacture of polyurethane, rubber, herbicides and dyes.