Glue-sniffing left boy handicapped

Press, 15 August 1984, Page 12

Glue-sniffing left boy handicapped

NZPA-AAP London British doctors warned of a new peril from gluesniffing after a stroke left a boy, aged 12, semi-paralysed and barely able to speak. The boy, who had regularly sniffed aero-modelling solvents for two years, is seriously handicapped with a large part of his brain damaged, the “Daily Mail” newspaper reports. It is believed to be the first case in which glue sniffing has been identified as the cause of a stroke, although it has been found responsible for deaths, heart trouble, and character changes in the past. Strokes are rare in young people and doctors were puzzled at first when the

boy was found paralysed in his bedroom with a blood clot in a brain artery. Then they found he had been sniffing solvents shortly before his collapse. A consultant pediatrician at Birmingham East hospital where the boy was treated, Dr Michael Tarlow, said that the dangers of glue sniffing were not yet fully appreciated. f ‘The outlook for this boy is very poor,” Dr Tarlow said. “We discharged him to his parents after six weeks because there was nothing more we could do. “Education authorities are finding it difficult to place him. He may need long term residential care.”