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Sue sue

Take 6
All three victims experienced eerily similar symptoms and internal trauma before their deaths, according to a news release from Dominican authorities. Pathologists said autopsies showed the three had internal hemorrhaging, pulmonary edema and enlarged hearts.

Toxicology reports are pending.





 
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I wish all of these threads could be merged.

SOSÚA, Dominican Republic — A New Jersey man reportedly died in the Dominican Republic last week -- becoming the latest American tourist to pass away while vacationing in the Caribbean country in roughly the last year.

ABC News reports Joseph Allen, 55, was found lifeless in his hotel room on June 13 at a resort in Sosúa. He was reportedly on a trip to celebrate a friend's birthday.

According to ABC News, Allen had complained about being hot at the pool and went to his room for a shower -- but still wasn't feeling fell afterward and decided to lie down for the night. When his friends asked the hotel for a wellness check the next morning, he was dead.

NBC News reporter Shomari Stone confirmed Allen's death, citing the U.S. State Department. He said the federal government declined to comment on some reports that tainted alcohol had anything to do with American deaths.

Allen's son was reportedly on the way to spend Father's Day with him when he learned his dad had died.

By our count, at least nine American tourist deaths have been reported in the last year or so.
[....]


 
More than 50 Jimmy Buffett fans from Oklahoma were sickened on an annual pilgrimage to celebrate the trop rock troubadour’s music and lifestyle at an all-inclusive resort in the Dominican Republic in April, according to the parrothead club’s travel agent.

News of the mass illness comes as another tourist has died in the Hispaniola island nation, bringing the total number of Americans to die mysteriously there to eight this year.

At least one of the Oklahomans who went on the trip to Punta Cana, from April 13 to 20, is still sick, and doctors at her Veterans Administration hospital diagnosed her with salmonella Wednesday night, said Dana Flowers, an Oklahoma City travel agent and trip organizer for the Central Oklahoma Parrothead Association.

“She’s been sick ever since the trip,” Flowers said.

Flowers, 62, was one of the 114 people to go on the trip to the Hotel Riu Palace Macao and one of those who became ill, he said. His illness lasted for 19 more days after he returned to the United States.
[....]
He tested negative for salmonella, but others in the group have tested positive, he said. The one thing all the ill have in common is they hung out at the hotel’s pool bar.

“We all either swam in the pool or drank something from the pool’s swim-up bar,” he said. “I tend to think it was contaminated water or ice or a chemical they were pouring into the pool every night.”

The hotel’s representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

When the trip ended, 47 fan club members reported being sickened. Since then, others have come forward saying they also became ill on the vacation, pushing the number over 50, Flowers said.

He said a few people who fell ill went to doctors on staff at the hotel and were immediately given medicine to treat for parasites without testing.

“It makes you wonder, did they know something,” he said. “To me, that was suspicious.”

According to Flowers, hotel staff said the people in the group became sick after going on an off-resort excursion, but he said he began feeling ill before then.

“It had nothing to do with the off-site excursion. We just didn’t believe it,” he said.

The Central Oklahoma Parrothead Association takes several trips a year to places like the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to party in honor of Buffett, the one-time Key Wester whose songs about living off the grid in island paradises made him famous decades ago and earned him a huge following of fans, known as parrotheads.

The fan club doesn’t see Buffett concerts on the trips, but musicians who play in the acoustic, country-rooted “trop rock” style music he helped pioneer come along and perform.
[....]

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Recent high school graduates from Oklahoma have fallen ill while staying at the same resort in the Dominican Republic where at least three Americans have died this year.

Several members of a group of former students of Deer Creek High School in Edmond, Oklahoma became unwell last week while on a trip celebrating their graduation, members of the group told The Oklahoman on Monday.

The group of about 75 former students and their chaperones were staying at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Punta Cana, where three Americans died in April and May.
[....]
No deaths have been reported in the latest incident, but at least six people fell ill. They reported chills and intense nausea, followed by dangerous levels of dehydration.

The students, who are believed to have visited the Hard Rock’s in-house restaurant, were taken to a local hospital.
[....]
“The one parent that I had spoken to said that … the majority did just fine and those that became ill ate at the same restaurant,” Deer Creek Public Schools Superintendent Ranet Tippens said of the incident, which she has been monitoring.
[....]

 
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I don't think we have anything on nos. 9 and 10, but I'll try to find articles that I must've missed.

[....]
full

Khalid Adkins traveled to the Dominican Republic with his daughter last week, Adkins’ sister-in-law, Marla Strick, told FOX31. After his daughter returned to Denver, he suddenly became ill. When he tried to fly back to the United States on Sunday he was forced to get off the plane because he was so unwell. He was hospitalized in Santo Domingo, the Dominican capital.

Strick said that the doctors told Adkins’ family that he had kidney failure, but that they had difficulty communicating with the hospital staff.

Adkins is at least 11th American to die in the Dominican Republic since June 2018. Officials in the United States and the Dominican Republic have said the deaths are not connected. :rolleyes:

Not connected, eh. I must've also missed that news, because last I read they were still investigating.

Post automatically merged:

Working backward, here's #10.

(CNN)A man from New York died while vacationing in the Dominican Republic earlier this month, according to a US State Department official, making him the 10th American to have died after an apparent sudden health issue in the Caribbean nation in the past year.
[....]
The State Department official did not offer details on the man's identity or cause of death, but a family member identified him as Vittorio Caruso, 56, of Glen Cove, Long Island, according to CNN affiliate News 12 Long Island.

Caruso's sister-in-law, Lisa Maria Caruso, told News 12 Long Island that Vittorio Caruso died after suffering respiratory distress and possibly a heart attack while on vacation.

The family received a phone call saying Caruso was sick, she said. Minutes later, they received a second call telling them he had died, the station reported.

According to Lisa Maria Caruso, her brother-in-law was enjoying part of his retirement in the Dominican Republic after he sold a Glen Cove pizza shop he'd owned with his brother for the past 12 years, News 12 Long Island reported.
[....]
The Dominican Republic National Police confirmed to CNN that Caruso died at a hospital in Santo Domingo. According to police, he'd been receiving medical attention since June 11.

He died of respiratory failure, police said, citing the physician. An autopsy is pending.

CNN has previously reported that the deaths could potentially be related to alcohol. The FBI is helping local authorities with toxicology tests in at least three of the recent deaths.

Sunday, the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Punta Cana said it was removing liquor dispensers from guest room minibars. The resort said the decision was made independently and not as a result of two deaths that occurred at its property.

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[....]
Thomas Jerome "Jerry" Curran was a 78-year-old from Bedford, Ohio, according to his family. He passed away on January 26, 2019, while traveling with his wife, Janet, ABC News reports.

The U.S. State Department confirmed on Wednesday that another death had been reported.

"We can confirm the death of a U.S. citizen in January 2019 in the Dominican Republic," the department said in a statement to ABC News. "We offer our sincerest condolences to the family for their loss. Out of respect for the family during this difficult time, we do not have additional information to provide."

The death is the ninth confirmed case in about the past 12 months of U.S. citizens dying in the Dominican Republic.
[....]

Okay, we're caught up now.

 
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New York (CNN Business)Delta Air Lines is giving passengers to one of the Dominican Republic's airports the right to change or cancel tickets without the usual penalty.

The flights covered by the waiver are those going to and from Punta Cana, on the eastern tip of the Island, where several American tourists have died in the last year.

Delta (DAL) said it is granting the waiver for travel through August 15, and if passengers are going to rebook they must begin travel no later than November 20. But if passengers cancel the flight altogether, they will get a credit that they can use on Delta for a period of one year from the original booking date.
[....]
Delta said it is working with passengers traveling to the two other Dominican airports — those serving Santo Domingo and Santiago de los Caballeros — on a case-by-case basis. Other airlines, such as American (AAL), JetBlue (JBLU) and Sun Country, also say they will work with passengers wanting to change or cancel Dominican flights on a case-by-case basis.
[...]
Between June 1 and June 19, cancellations increased 51% compared to the same period a year ago. The pace of cancellations has picked up even more than that in recent days with cancellations more than double year ago levels on June 18 and 19.

New bookings for July and August to the Dominican Republic from the United States have fallen by 74.3% compared to the same period in 2018. Bookings were up 2.8% in April and May, before the news coverage of the deaths began.
[....]
Bookings to rival tourism destinations have jumped, Tarsh noted. June bookings for summer flights are up 45% to the Bahamas, up 31% to Aruba and up 26% to Jamaica.
[....]
Dominican Tourism Minister Francisco Javier Garciacalls on Friday called the spate of deaths "exaggerated."
"It's not true that there has been an avalanche of American tourists dying in our country, and it's not true that we have mysterious deaths," he said. He denied Americans are canceling their vacations to the Dominican Republic.

 
Costa Rica's Ministry of Health says a total of 59 people have consumed tainted alcohol as the death toll due to the liquor rose to 25 in the Central American tourist destination.

According to a press release on the agency's website, 19 men and six women between the ages of 32 and 72 have died since June.

The Ministry of Health said it had closed 10 establishments and seized more than 55,000 containers of alcohol it said were laced with methanol, a colorless, poisonous alcohol found in antifreeze.

Adding methanol to distilled beverages allows sellers to increase the volume of liquid, as well as its potential potency, according to SafeProof, an organization that lobbies against counterfeit alcohol.

Costa Rica blames deaths on tainted alcohol: What you need to know

Earlier, the ministry said affected brands included Guaro Montano, Guaro Gran Apache, Aguardiente Estrella, Aguardiente Barón Rojo, Aguardiente Timbuka and Molotov Aguardiente.

In its latest press release, the brands Guaro Chonete, Guaro Cuerazo, Guaro Sacheto, Red Star Brandy, Brandy Red Barnacle, Brandy Timbuka and Brandy Molotov were added to the list of those that should be avoided.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, symptoms of methanol poisoning include drowsiness, confusion, headache, dizziness, and the inability to coordinate muscle movement, nausea, vomiting, mania, coma, seizure as well as heart and respiratory failure.
[....]
Meanwhile, the FBI is running toxicology analysis on at least two of the 10 Americans confirmed to have died in the Dominican Republic, another popular vacation destination, to see if tainted alcohol played a role. And the country's Ministry of Tourism is amping up safety measures.

The Hard Rock Hotel chain has also removed liquor dispensers from rooms at its properties in the Dominican Republic and Mexico.

 
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica - After weeks of investigation and a steadily rising number of cases of illness, theCosta Rican Ministry of Health confirmed that, as of Aug. 7, the official death toll of those killed by consuming methanol-tainted alcohol has risen from 19 to 25.

An official report issued on Aug. 7 from the Ministry of Health regarding the surveillance of methanol-tainted alcohol stated that 62 cases of methanol poisoning had been reported at the time, 47 of which were men and 25 of which were women. At that time, the total number of confirmed deaths was 25, meaning that 40.3 percent of cases in which methanol poisoning occurred resulted in death.

“The United States Embassy has said it is ‘not aware of any U.S. citizen illness or death due to consuming adulterated alcohol in Costa Rica,’” Costa Rican publication The Tico Times reported on Aug. 6.

An initial alert was issued on July 5 by the Costa Rica Ministry of Health warning that liquor being sold in bottles labeled as the brand Guaro Montano may be tainted after the department found dangerous levels of methanol in tested samples.

Liquor sellers sometimes dilute products with toxic methanol to increase profit margins or raise alcohol content to amplify the effects of intoxication.

By July 31 after much further investigation and testing, the Ministry of Health was warning that a slew of other samples had tested positive for toxic levels of methanol, including bottles with labels of the brands Aguardiente Barón Red, Timbuka Brandy, Molotov Brandy, Guaro Gran Apache, Red Star Brandy, Guaro Sacheto and Guaro Cuerazo.

Several of these brands are registered with the Ministry of Health, and the agency warns that it suspects counterfeit products are being circulated in the national market, and it would be nearly impossible to determine if you had a verified product or a counterfeit.
[....]
Fatal dosage varies from person to person based on factors like weight and whether or not the person is a habitual drinker, but generally speaking, .44 milliliters of 100 percent methanol per pound of body weight would result in a toxic concentration of methanol in the body, according to the Ministry of Health.

The Ministry of Health is warning people not to purchase or consume any bottles of liquor with these labels unless it can be guaranteed as an original and authentic product until the health alert is lifted.

Vendors have also been warned not to sell these brands of liquor if they cannot be verified as authentic and uncontaminated until the alert is lifted.

Additionally, the Ministry of Health warned that “the health authority shall proceed to suspend the Sanitary Operating Permit of the commercial establishments in which these products are sold despite this prohibition.”

The government agency reported that authorities had seized 38,000 bottles of liquor as of July 24.

The Tico Times reported on Aug. 6 that, as of that time, “Costa Rican authorities have seized more than 55,000 bottles of liquor and closed 10 establishments suspected of selling tainted liquor.”

 
stated that 62 cases of methanol poisoning had been reported at the time, 47 of which were men and 25 of which were women.

considering their math at this point is wrong, I don't know if we can trust any of their math about how many have gotten very sick and/or died there.

47 + 25 = 72 not 62
 
Really?

Toxicology tests done by the FBI have confirmed that three American tourists found dead this spring in the Dominican Republic died of natural causes, the U.S. State Department said.

The results were consistent with the findings of local authorities, according to a statement from the State Department on Friday.
[....]
Steven Bullock, a family spokesperson for the Day and Holmes families, said the families have yet to hear any updates from authorities regarding their loved one's deaths.

"The Day and Holmes families have not been provided with any information from the FBI or the Dominican Republic Authorities regarding the deaths," Bullock said in a statement to ABC News. "The only information that has been received by the families is what is being reported in the media. Our investigation is continuing, and we will not have any further comment until we receive the results of our investigation. Thank you."
[....]
Schaup-Werner died of respiratory failure and pulmonary edema, according to the hotel. An autopsy performed on Holmes and Day determined that they died of the same causes, according to the Dominican Republic National Police.

The families of the three Americans have been informed of the FBI toxicology reports.

 
Three people from two different parties die within a week of each other of the same cause in the same region, and it's from natural causes?

I ain't buying what they're selling.

--Al
 
I'm more than a little confused and pissed off about it, too. I don't know what the deal is, but do they think we're just fucking stupid?
 
Toxicology tests done by the FBI have confirmed that three American tourists found dead this spring in the Dominican Republic died of natural causes, the U.S. State Department said.

I wonder if that really is what the state department said or if it's a reporter putting a spin on it . . . or maybe digesting it for the unwashed masses and getting it wrong.

Toxicology is limited to whether they died from consuming a toxic material. It doesn't assign a manner of death. The ME does that after getting all the information surrounding the person's death. And the FBI would be providing that information, not making a MoD determination.

--Al
 
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