So, seems there's a new way to kill brain cells. Those damn kids are starting to inhale Mothballs. I guess gas huffing's now just too expensive.

Mothballs are paradichlorobenzene, and /or napthalene, both nasty solvents. Liverand kidney failure are reported as these are the body's filters, working overtime to break down and excrete these pesticides. They're pesticides!!! As in they kill animals. Humans are animals. The logic train must have derailed.

The article....

" The 18-year-old French woman was hospitalized with scaly skin on her legs and hands, appearing unsteady and mentally sluggish, doctors said.

They found the condition puzzling, especially since the woman's twin sister displayed similar, but less severe, symptoms and there was no family history of the problem, the doctors reported in this week's New England Journal of Medicine that

Several days later, doctors discovered the cause: a bag of mothballs stashed in her hospital room.

The teenagers had been using the mothballs to get high, inhaling air from the bag for about 10 minutes a day because classmates had recommended it. The sicker of the young women also had been chewing half a mothball a day for two months.

The doctors described the high as "dangerous" and most likely under-reported in medical literature.

The teenager told the doctors that she continued to use the mothballs during her hospitalization "because she thought her symptoms were not related to her habit," said Lionel Feuillet at the Hospital of Timone in Marseille, France.

Mothballs, used to prevent moth larva from getting into clothing, contain paradichlorobenzene, a substance also found in air fresheners and insect repellents that can cause liver and kidney failure, and severe anemia.

The discovery comes at a time when teenagers are increasingly experimenting with legal drugs like OxyContin, widely known as "hillbilly heroin," and Vicodin, often bought online or taken from medicine cabinets, even before trying marijuana or alcohol, health officials say.

The sicker of the women took six months to recover fully. Her twin, who had only been "bagging" for a few weeks, recovered after three months.

Feuillet told Reuters that a cleaning lady discovered the mothballs in the drawer of the patient's night table.

When the woman was asked what she was doing with the bag, "she showed us how she used to breathe directly into the mothballs bag," Feuillet said.

Although only three cases of getting high with paradichlorobenzene have been reported in medical literature, "since young people usually deny practicing self-intoxication, the incidence of this type of recreational activity is probably underestimated," Feuillet and his colleagues said in the Journal. "

Reuters, UK, July 26th.



Found a Medical article on ingesting mothballs, interestingly, a lot of the cases were young and pregnant. I know there's supposed to be weird cravings going on, but...

Medical Complications Due to Mothball Abuse
from Southern Medical Journal

Discussion
Mothballs are made of naphthalene or paradichlorobenzene, and toilet deodorizers predominantly consist of paradichlorobenzene.[6] Differentiation between the two types of mothballs is difficult because they have similar odors and are both white, crystalline solids at room temperature.[7] Our patient was unable to identify which brands of mothballs she abused; therefore, it is likely that she was exposed to both types. The toxic effects of these two substances are different. Naphthalene has been reported to cause headaches, restlessness, lethargy, vomiting, anorexia, hemolysis, methemoglobinemia, hyperkalemia, fever, anemia, acute renal failure, seizures, and coma.[6,8] Case reports have described toxicity due to acute poisoning in children and occupational exposure in adults. While naphthalene is a component of other commonly abused solvents (model and plastic cement), there have been only four reports[9-11] in the English language of naphthalene being abused in isolation. These reports were of a 10-year-old American Indian boy who inhaled naphthalene mothballs for 8 hours nightly for 2 months and died of liver failure after progressive portal hypertension developed; a 26-year-old woman who "sucked on moth balls" during the last trimester of her pregnancy and developed anemia; a 19-year-old woman who smelled, chewed, and sucked mothballs during pregnancy and became anemic; and a 15-year-old boy who sucked mothballs, had mid-epigastric pain and vomiting, and subsequently received a diagnosis of anemia.

Paradichlorobenzene is less acutely toxic than naphthalene, but long-term exposure has been linked to kidney and liver disease.[6,12] As with naphthalene, toxicity has almost always been reported as a result of accidental or occupational exposure. However, there are two reported cases[13,14] in the English language of paradichlorobenzene abuse. In one case, a 19-year-old black woman ingested four to five paradichlorobenzene moth pellets per day for 2 years and had sluggishness and tremulousness when she stopped. In the other case, a 21-year-old woman ingested two paradichlorobenzene toilet air freshener blocks a week while pregnant; anemia developed that did not respond to iron therapy.

Inhalants such as n-hexane and methyl butyl ketone, which have general chemical properties similar to those of paradichlorobenzene and naphthalene, have been reported to cause peripheral neuropathy.[15] However, there is only one report of naphthalene[16] (and only in combination with several other compounds) causing peripheral neuropathy. No cases of paradichlorobenzene-induced peripheral neuropathy have been reported. Our patient had other risk factors that cause peripheral neuropathy, including diabetes and chronic renal failure. Nevertheless, the clinical progression of this case is consistent with a toxic etiology, with an acute onset and subsequent significant improvement when the patient was hospitalized and abstinent from mothball inhalation.[17] Similarly, though the patient had several other major risk factors for the development of renal disease, her medical and neurologic physicians concluded that her abuse of naphthalene and paradichlorobenzene, which are known nephrotoxins, was a contributing, causative factor in her chronic renal failure. Clearly, the role of underlying medical conditions in predisposing this patient to renal failure and peripheral neuropathy cannot be ignored; however, the evidence is consistent with mothball abuse being an important precipitating factor in this case.

This case is unusual because mothballs and the two compounds they contain, naphthalene and paradichlorobenzene, have rarely been reported to have been abused. Most reports of toxicity involve either accidental ingestion or pica and are from short-term use. However, our patient's long-term use and inability to stop despite adverse consequences clearly met the criteria for inhalant abuse in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-4th Edition.[18] The development of peripheral neuropathy as a result of abuse of these two compounds is also rare, though it has been described in cases of abuse of related chemicals. This case illustrates issues common to the abuse of inhalants: common household products not usually identified as recreational drugs can be abused, and directly linking specific medical problems with particular inhalants can be difficult because of confounding variables. Since patients rarely volunteer that they abuse mothballs and other common household products and physicians rarely ask directly about the use of such substances as intoxicants, there is currently no way of determining the actual prevalence of this type of substance abuse and the frequency with which it may contribute to medical problems. Further research into these issues, as well as treatment, is necessary.