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[Music] 911. I think the baby's choked. Be right there. >> Emergency squad needed a baby that's
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choking 804 High Street. >> In 1994, an infant was rushed to a hospital emergency room with a serious breathing
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problem. The baby's lungs were bleeding, a life-threatening condition which is
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extremely rare. >> Within months, there were over 30 cases in Cleveland, just like it, a rate 1,000
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times higher than anywhere else in the world. >> Not all of the infants survived.
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>> Doctors had never seen anything like it and frantically searched for the cause.
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[Music] On a chilly November evening, Nema Williams heated some baby formula. for
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her 6-w week old son, Brian. But during that feeding, something went terribly wrong.
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>> I heard him regurgitate, so I figured it was milk. But instead, when I picked him
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up, instead of seeing white milk, you know, I'm seeing bright red blood. >> Her baby was rushed to Rainbow Babies
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and Children's Hospital in Cleveland, where doctors struggled to save little
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Brian's life. X-rays revealed that Brian's lungs were filling up with blood. Unable to breathe
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on his own, he was taken to intensive care and placed on a ventilator. >> The suctions are still pretty bloody.
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>> I'm wondering it, but I'm not thinking it. You know, my baby's going to be
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okay. We going to get through this. So, but it's still in the back of your mind.
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You know, you know, he could die. Is this the last I'm going to see you, Brian? Is this my last look at him?
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Brian was quite sick. He had bled a lot. He had dropped his hematocrit almost in
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half and required an acute blood transfusion on top of having to be supported with a ventilator.
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>> Brian Mitchell's condition was diagnosed as idiopathic pulmonary hemocerosis
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which means unexplained bleeding in the lungs. Lung bleeding is usually caused by a heart problem, an infection, or
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child abuse. But in Brian's case, doctors eliminated these as possible causes. The hospital's medical records
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revealed two other babies had been treated for unexplained lung bleeding, and one of those babies died.
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The incidence of lung bleeding in infants was 1,000 times higher in Cleveland than anywhere else in the
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world. Brian Mitchell was fortunate. After 2 weeks of improvement, he was released from the hospital. His doctors
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suspected that his lung bleeding was caused by an allergic reaction to his baby formula, and they recommended his
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mother change the type she was using. But one week later, Brian Mitchell was back in the hospital with more lung
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bleeding. >> I was just to the point, what's wrong with him? He starts bleeding. We bring
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him to the hospital. You leave him in the hospital for 3 days, but you can't
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tell us why he's here. You can't tell us what's wrong with him. Why does he keep
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bleeding? I don't know. >> Dr. Dearbornne discovered that Brian Mitchell and the other sick babies all
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lived within a sixmile radius of the hospital on Cleveland's east side. >> It was probably an environmental
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component. It said not necessarily that it was in their homes, but something in that in that part of the community was
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um was problematic. >> But there was a complication. Brian Mitchell had a twin sister, Briana, who
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lived in the same house, ate the same food, and slept in the same room as Brian,
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and even shared the same crib. If Dr. Dearborn was right, and the cause was environmental, why did little Brian get
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sick while his twin sister was perfectly healthy? And there was another problem. Only
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infants were getting sick. None of the older children or adults in the same neighborhood or even in the same homes
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were affected. Dr. Dearbornne knew he needed help and called in the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
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>> The fear is we were going to continue to have more uh more of these babies and
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that we wouldn't get them too late to save them. Something mysterious was happening in
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Cleveland, causing the lungs of infants to bleed for no apparent reason. It was an outbreak unlike any other
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before in medical history. And it was happening, ironically, within a six-mile radius of a children's
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hospital. The Centers for Disease Control assigned Dr. Ruth Zel to lead the investigation
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in Cleveland. Her job was to find out what caused the death of one infant and the life-threatening illness of seven
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others. >> The job of a medical detective is an awful lot like the job of a criminal
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detective. That is, we're looking to try to track down the culprit of a specific
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unknown disease. And if we can track down that culprit, we can prevent him from attacking again.
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>> Dr. Petsel reviewed all of the medical records of the infants with pulmonary
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hemoceterosis. One thing caught her eye. Many of the infants improved in the hospital, but
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started bleeding again after they returned home. >> Use soaps and things like that to clean
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it up. >> The families of the sick infants were interviewed using a 230 item
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questionnaire to see if they differed in any way from the families of healthy children.
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All of the homes were tested to see if the pesticides used were the type approved for residential use and air
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samples from the homes were also collected. Within days of the investigation, two more babies with pulmonary
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hemocerosis were rushed to the hospital from the same neighborhood. The total number of cases was now 10.
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>> Nine of those 10 were male and all of them were African-American. So this made us start thinking as to
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whether we were dealing with something related to the genetics of race, uh whether we were dealing with uh
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something that was particularly susceptible in males. Um, so it those were in the background of of
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our considerations of still primarily something in the environment was probably causing this. But if the cause
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was environmental, why was Brian Mitchell sick while his twin sister Briana was healthy. Both slept in the
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same room, in the same crib, ate the same food, and breathed the same air. Here an infant who had no outward signs
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of bleeding had had ongoing low-grade bleeding for several weeks. And yet at any time she could have had a stress and
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she would have bled to death. So this said to us not only frightening for her but frightening for the
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community. How many infants like Briana were out in the community that were showing no real significant problems?
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How deep was this iceberg? >> As the mystery intensified, so did the fear among parents in
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Cleveland's east side neighborhoods. The level of pesticides in the sick baby's
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homes were all within normal range. And there was no difference in air samples collected from the homes of the sick
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children than those collected from the homes of the healthy infants. >> We want to prevent another death. We
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want to prevent another case. and and we didn't know where to reach out to next.
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So, uh I think all the public health authorities involved, state, federal, local, were really uh trying to get
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together in the think tank and and figure out some answers because we didn't have any.
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>> But the data gathered from the questionnaires began to reveal some important information.
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Seven of the 10 sick children lived in homes with cigarette smokers. All of the sick babies had been bottlefed. None had
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been breastfed. And all of the sick babies lived in homes that had recent water damage. Was it possible that
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smoking, baby, or something in the water was causing the deadly outbreak of the bleeding lungs in infants? Or was it
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something else? Dr. Dr. Ruth Zel spent weeks trying to figure out what was causing the
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mysterious lung bleeding among infants in Cleveland. There had been 10 cases reported so far with one death and Zel
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was afraid there would be more. >> I really can't. >> During the investigation, Dr. Zel met
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with a friend for dinner. She was a physician and a fellow medical detective from Brazil. She mentioned a lecture she
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once attended and couldn't recall all of the details but said the lecture described how micotoxins caused the
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serious illness of some Brazilian children. After dinner, Dr. Zel rushed to the library to read all she could
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about micotoxins. When she cross-referenced the words micotoxin with the word hemorrhage, the
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computer led to an article about a mold called stakibbatras atra. The article described how stakibbatras atra found in
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some grain in Europe over 40 years earlier caused livestock to bleed internally and die. Stacky botras is a
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dark green almost black slimy mold. It often grows on cellulosebased items like straw and paper after coming into
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contact with water. >> I began to wonder if micotoxins could make animals sick when they ate grain
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that was moldy. Could it be possible that micotoxins could make babies sick if they breathed them in? To test her
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theory, Zel contacted Dr. Bill Sorenson. He's a micologist who had done some
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research on the stackibbotric mold. Sorenson knew that the only possible way that stakibbot could get into a baby's
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lungs was by the spores, the tiny, almost invisible seedlike structures which are produced in the mold. Once the
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mold dries, the spores become light and powdery and can flake away, traveling great distances through the air.
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>> And so therefore, it would be possible if the spores are present in large
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enough numbers in the homes and released into the air that they could be inhaled
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and produce disease symptoms. >> There were 400 different types of spores found in the homes of the sick babies.
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The spores were placed on culture plates and left to grow for 10 days. When Sorenson analyzed the culture plates, he
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noticed that many contained a dark green, almost black mold. Under a microscope, Sorenson noticed that the
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samples from the Cleveland homes were structurally similar to the mold which killed the livestock in Europe. It was
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in fact stakibbatras atra. Investigators now knew that spores from stakibbatras atra were in the air of the sick baby's
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homes. But they needed to know whether the stakibbatra spores in Cleveland contained the same toxins as those which
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killed the livestock in Europe. To find out, scientists grew the spores found in
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the Cleveland homes in a mixture of rice. Stackibbot grows well in rice because of the moisture in the grains.
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The mold was then ground and mixed with a series of solvents to extract the chemicals contained in the spores using
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what is called high-performance liquid chromatography. The physical characteristics of the spore chemicals
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were analyzed and scientists discovered that the Cleveland spores were identical
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to the highly toxic micotoxins that killed the livestock in Eastern Europe. They were a special class of micotoxins
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called triccoenes. >> The tririccoin micotoxins are among the most potent protein synthesis inhibitors
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known. By that I mean they disrupt the ability of cells to make proteins and without that ability a cell will die.
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>> When scientists searched the homes of the sick children they found the source
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of the stackibbatra spores in mold found growing in the basement. The mold was found in all but one of the sick babies
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homes. But stackibbot was also found in half the homes tested where healthy children lived. If it was stacky that
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caused the death of one Cleveland infant and the serious illness of nine others,
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why didn't it affect all of the infants who lived in homes where it was found?
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Spores from the stackibbatric atra mold were found in all but one of the sick infants homes but were also found in
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half of the homes of healthy children living in the same neighborhood. Scientists wanted to know why some
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children developed lung bleeding while others did not. They soon discovered that the number of airborne spores in
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the sick babies's homes were far higher than in the homes of healthy children.
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In effect, the homes of sick babies contained more spores and more poison. >> Stacotus is generally not considered one
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of the major components in indoor air, major fungal components in indoor air. In fact, it's often not observed at all.
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In a study in Canada just a few years ago, they examined a few hundred houses. I don't remember the exact number, but
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they saw something like three colonies in all of these houses combined. We observed levels as high as 600 colony
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former units per cubic meter of air in some of the Cleveland homes. >> Researchers found the source of the
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stackibbotra spores in the basement growing on walls, on boxes, and even on the insulation behind the walls. For
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stackibbot to develop, two things are necessary. a cellulose product and water. Researchers discovered that some
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heavy rainstorms caused the sewer system in the geographic cluster of case homes
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to overflow which produced flooding in many of the basements. In other homes, the residents said they had some leaking
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pipes. The water was not immediately cleaned up and soaked through the drywall and the insulation inside the
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walls, creating the perfect medium for stacky botras to grow in the warm, moist, dark environment. But if the
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stackibbot was in the basement of these homes, how did the children come into contact with the spores since none of
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the sick children had been in the basement? Researchers discovered that when the mold dried, the spores flaked
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away and became airborne. The furnaces of these homes all drew air from the basement instead of the upper floors.
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The spores were sucked into the furnace, traveled through the duct work, and made
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their way into every room of the homes. Tragically, they were blown into the rooms where they could do the most
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damage, into the infant's bedrooms where the babies spent most of their time
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sleeping. Once inside the infant's lungs, the spores released the miccotoxins called triccoenes,
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which prevented the infant cells from making the protein needed to hold their tiny vessels together. With the vessels
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now weak and fragile, an external trigger may have caused the tiny vessels to rupture and bleed. Since most of the
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sick babies lived in homes with cigarette smoking, this may have been one of the triggers. And none of the
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sick babies had been breastfed, leading researchers to suspect that breast milk offered some sort of immunity.
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Older children and adults were not affected by the stackibbot spores because their lungs were better
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developed. And once researchers found how the stackibbot spores traveled from the basement to the children's rooms,
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they discovered why little Brian Mitchell was so much sicker than his twin sister Briana. Although the two
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slept in the same crib, Brian slept closer to the heating vent where he probably inhaled more spores than his
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twin sister. By the time the investigation was over, there were over 30 cases of pulmonary
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hemocrosis in Cleveland and four young infants died. Health officials urged parents to remove
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all visible mold with bleach and water and to clean up water damage immediately to prevent the mold from developing.
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One year after this investigation, the coroner in Cleveland reopened the files of 117 babies who died from what had
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been listed as sudden infant death syndrome. lung tissue samples from their autopsies were re-examined in light of
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what doctors now knew about Stakibbatraatra. In six of those samples, the lung samples turned blue, an indication that
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the babies had bleeding in their lungs prior to their death. Officials believe that Stakiotraat may have played a role
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in those six deaths. Yolanda Po is the mother of one of those six babies. Knowing the true cause of
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her daughter's death helps bring some closure to her family's tragedy. >> I don't think that you could get any
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worse than this outside of literally going to hell alive. There's there's
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nothing worse than this. It's not because you'll never get over. This is
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something you will never ever get over and you'll always wonder what could I
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have done? No matter how many times you hear, there was nothing you could have done.
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>> I feel remorse. I feel I feel I feel their pain because I was standing there
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at one time, you know, wondering if my son's going to die. >> Nemo Williams is thankful that her two
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children, Brian and Briana, both survived their encounter with Stakiatra Satra. When I see a little baby's face
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who is doing well, I think way beyond myself and thank the help that has come to all of us in
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trying to sort this out because we didn't do it alone. >> Something simple but so deadly. You
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know, you don't you I mean, mother nature has a bunch of stuff out there that we don't know about yet and this
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was one of them. [Music] [Music] Hey. [Music]