Thread: Phi Phi : Canadian sisters found dead in Thai resort

Even the U.S. Embassy could see that chlorpyrifos--by inhalation or skin exposure--could not have caused the sudden deaths seen in either the May 2009 Phi Phi deaths (2 died) or the 2011 Chiang Mai deaths (7 died).

below posted on Jill St Onge memorial website About Jill


Saturday, May 14, 2011
Update from Embassy...

This is in response to your e-mail earlier today titled "From Mother of
victim Jill St. Onge."

Charles Carson departed Bangkok about a year ago.

We have been in touch with our counterparts from the Embassies of Norway
and New Zealand following yesterday's new report about identification of
the pesticide clorpyphiros as a possible cause of the recent unresolved
deaths in Chiang Mai. As you know, the U.S. Mission has offered the
technical assistance of Centers for Disease Control personnel in
Thailand to assist the Ministry of Public Health in its investigation.
That investigation continues.

Extensive information about clorpyphiros is available on the
Environmental Protection Agency's website, much of it from academic
sources. It appears that the primary reason clorpyphiros is no longer
approved for use for non-agricultural applications (except in child
resistant ant and roach traps) is due to risks chronic exposure poses
for vulnerable individuals, particularly small children. I have not had
time to search this information exhaustively, but it appears that
extremely high concentrations would be needed to cause death as quickly
as happened to your daughter, Ms. Burgheim, or the individuals in Chiang
Mai. It is premature to link all nine deaths to clorpyphiros.

Investigators have still not released the final report in your
daughter's case, although we contact them regularly. Please let me know
about other questions you may have and know that you have our deepest
sympathy.

Sincerely,
Tim Swanson

Timothy C. Swanson
Chief, American Citizen Services
U.S. Embassy Bangkok
phone: 66-2-205 4049
fax: 66-2-205-4103

This email is UNCLASSIFIED.

The birds caught mickey finning tourists in Phuket were making up their own concoctions.

Originally Posted by guyinthailand

Originally Posted by socal

Just what everyone wanted to here...Inconclusive. It is known that GHB cannot be detected in the body after a short period of time.

Anyway the issues on Phi Phi island are well documented. Anyone who goes there, especially after this, has only themselves to blame if something goes wrong. Not Thai's, not Thai cops but the individuals themselves.

GHB is an interesting idea. GHB, a date rape drug, colorless and tasteless, can be slipped in a drink and, with alcohol especially, can cause altered mental states but does not usually cause pulmonary edema but can, especially with alcohol, lead to respiratory depression and death. These symptoms don’t match what Thai poisoning victims had (vomiting, diarrhea, pulmonary edema, myocarditis). GHB is also unlikely here because traces of pesticides and cyanide were found in some victims. Plus GHB can be detected in hair samples for weeks.

But I wouldn’t be surprised if it has been used many times in Thailand as a date-rape drug and is very likely the drug used to rob tourists. Note the range of safety of the drug is very narrow. Note that 30mg/kg produces CNS depression & muscle twitching (myoclonus); 50m/kg produces unconsciousness; and 60mg/kg produces coma.

which is probably why some of these robbed tourists are found in varying states of consciousness: some groggy/hung over/confused, and others in a coma; others dead because the bar girls/lady boys/bar-tenders have given varying doses of GHB.

I don't believe it can be traced in hair samples.

The symptoms dont really match i guess

Is aluminum phosphide used as a room fumigant in Thailand? As fast as these unfortunate deaths occured, it seems that would narrow down the list of possibilities. Aluminum phosphide (otherwise known as Celphos) has no antidote.

Unlike most other pesticides, aluminum phosphide will reliably kill by inhalation.

If aluminum phosphide was routinely used inside hotel rooms in Thailand then we would see many, many more truly accidental deaths from it. A good part of a (Utah) family was killed by it when exterminators put the tablets OUTSIDE the home in tunnels of rodents which tunnels led near-- but not inside-- the house: the fumes from the tunnels wafted into the house and killed the family. See previous posts here for more details. So if the Belanger sisters did die from inhalation then it wasn't 'accidental'.

And it only takes a fraction of a tablet in food to kill.

And while there aren't any specific antidotes for it, there are treatment protocols which can save some. (see above posts to links to especially Indian physicans treatment protocols).

Questions remain as Quebec sisters buried

QMI Agency First posted: Saturday, June 30, 2012 01:29 PM EDT | Updated: Saturday, June 30, 2012 06:20 PM EDT
Audrey and Noemi Belanger. 2

POHENEGAMOOK, QUE. - As the two Quebec sisters found dead in a hotel room in Thailand were laid to rest on Saturday in their hometown, the cause of their deaths remains a mystery.

Results from the preliminary autopsies conducted in Thailand did not reveal how Audrey, 20, and Noemi Belanger, 25, died.

The autopsy report stated no traces of drugs were found in their bodies.
Quebec's coroner conducted a second autopsy, results of which are still unknown.

Staff on the Thai resort island of Phi Phi found the women dead in a hotel room two weeks ago. Thai authorities said there were no signs of violence in the room, but they said there was vomit on the floor and other signs the women were poisoned.

Audrey and Noemi's father, Carl, told QMI Agency earlier in the week that he deplored the way Thai authorities handled the case. He called Thai police work "corrupt" and "rotten."

Carl Belanger said the investigation took too long and there was little communication between Thai authorities and the family.
"(Thai) authorities said they found their bodies 12 hours after they died," Carl said. "But according to our calculations, it was 48 hours."

The Belanger family also told QMI Agency that Quebec coroner Renee Roussel told them the women's bodies were kept for five days in Thailand under conditions that were "not respectable."

The family was not able to identify the women's bodies because they were told the sight of the corpses would be too shocking, Carl said.

The family believes the sisters were accidentally killed by exposure to an insecticide vapour used to kill bed bugs.

Hundreds gathered Saturday afternoon for the funeral at a church in Pohenegamook, a town of just under 3,000 about 200 km northeast of Quebec City. The family is well-known in the community. Carl Belanger owns a grocery store in town where Audrey and Noemi worked when they returned home from university in Quebec City.

Pohenegamook's mayor, Louise Labonte, who said she knew the women well, said the town is still in shock.
"Already two weeks have passed and we are still without words," she told QMI Agency on Saturday morning.

Questions remain as Quebec sisters buried | Canada | News | Toronto Sun

Originally Posted by guyinthailand

Questions remain as Quebec sisters buried


Audrey and Noemi's father, Carl, told QMI Agency earlier in the week that he deplored the way Thai authorities handled the case. He called Thai police work "corrupt" and "rotten."


The Belanger family also told QMI Agency that Quebec coroner Renee Roussel told them the women's bodies were kept for five days in Thailand under conditions that were "not respectable."

A reasonable assessment and accurate,too.

The fact we could all view the cadavers in their body bags because some insenstive, brain dead news editor unquestioningly thought publishing photographs was an acceptable practice is of course a testament to the disrespect the Thai have for cultures other than their own. One can only guess at the state of their remains after the Thai fuck ups had relinquished control but doubtless the lack of refridgeration and sheer bloody cackhandedness meant they could never be viewable.

Even in death the Thai screw up. Ghastly people only fit for exploitation.

RIP girls.....your tragic end continues to be analysed by all and sundry on here making for some interesting yet sad reading.

A sad end to what was probably a good holiday

You know the longer I live here the more I look forward in many ways to the day I will leave.

Yep, I like many things about Thailand but I have never had to be somewehere so dishonest, corrupt and in many way, broken down.

Being in Australia recently just reminded me about how life can be.

Oh well, I've just signed up for another year, but I'm updating my CV at this time.

RIP

Hey Bobcock, if you want to see "broken down", go to the Philippines. This place is FANTASTIC in comparison.

I have never been and have no desire to go to the Phillipines.....

One Phillipino meal at a neighbours in London was enough to rid me of that desire....

Originally Posted by Latindancer

Hey Bobcock, if you want to see "broken down", go to the Philippines. This place is FANTASTIC in comparison.

Seems right enough. The Philippines are in 129th place out of 182 listed on Transparency Internationals corruption rankings. Thailand is 80th.....which is not great but better than half way up from the bottom.

The UK made it to 16th and the USA to 24th......well done...:

If you want to be bored shitless by an almost total lack of corruption, you need to move to New Zealand, Denmark, Norway etc. Interesting that so many people from those countries move here.....

Flip food is truly fucking awful, that's for sure.

Some of it is ok. But yes, more or less. no thanks

"The public health aspect of the investigation focuses on possible food poisoning, contaminated water or any communicable disease that may have spread on Phi Phi, Dr Pasakorn explained".

Of course the Thais want to focus on those things since those things don't involve murder, (which is the most likely explanation here).

Too bad for them none of those things--food poisoning, contaminated water or a communicable disease--could cause the kind of symptoms and death the victims had.

Originally Posted by Bobcock

Being in Australia recently just reminded me about how life can be.

Yea right, security camera's on every street corner, impossibly high real estate prices and rental and a flabbergasting cost of living. Yea you can keep the nanny state.

Really sad about these girls, and what the poor family has to go through.

Originally Posted by guyinthailand

"The public health aspect of the investigation focuses on possible food poisoning, contaminated water or any communicable disease that may have spread on Phi Phi, Dr Pasakorn explained".

Of course the Thais want to focus on those things since those things don't involve murder, (which is the most likely explanation here).

Too bad for them none of those things--food poisoning, contaminated water or a communicable disease--could cause the kind of symptoms and death the victims had.

The only problem with your idiotic thesis is the inescapable fact that poor sanitation, shitty food and lethal diseases are infinitely more repellent to successful tourism than the supposed ministrations of an occasional murderer.

You hare-brained nincompoop.

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

Yea right, security camera's on every street corner, impossibly high real estate prices and rental and a flabbergasting cost of living. Yea you can keep the nanny state.

Good thing too, protects the law abiding amongst us who want a quality of life. Does it hinder your drug deals?

As for high property prices, I think I can afford them and of course people in these places get salaries to cover that. Just makes everywhere cheaper when you travel. All for that, used to get that in the UK though not any more, UK is dirt cheap these days.

Anyway, this does detract from a rather sad and serious thread, although I would say in a nanny state as you call it, these people would be alive and if not their parents would have far more chance of knowing what happened. Sounds better to me.

Steady on, Gent. The reality is that poor sanitation, shitty food and lethal diseases have NOT been repellent to successful tourism....as tourist numbers show. Irrespective of whether numbers are currently up or down.....there are a LOT of tourists here.
And as murder is splashed over the international tabloids, the Thais know very well the effect that this can have. It can be catastrophic for tourism.
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Originally Posted by Mr Earl

Originally Posted by Bobcock

Being in Australia recently just reminded me about how life can be.

Yea right, security camera's on every street corner, impossibly high real estate prices and rental and a flabbergasting cost of living. Yea you can keep the nanny state.

Really sad about these girls, and what the poor family has to go through.

You're right, while living here is more dangerous than at home I willingly accept the risk because I believe freedom is more important than safety.