Aug. 29, 2012
“Los Angeles County’s Satanic Abuse Task Force, an official sub body of the Los Angeles County Women’s Commission, concluded (in 1992) that Satanists were trying to pump diazinon poison into their office and home air vents in order to silence them. Task force members became suspicious, according to president Myra Rydell, after experiencing bouts of profound exhaustion, headaches and, perhaps most significantly, ‘the inability to think straight.’
“McMartin parent Jackie McGauley, also a task force member, told a reporter that, according to her doctor, diazinon would be ‘virtually impossible to detect’ if given in small doses over a long time period. The County’s epidemic specialist said that diazinon was easy to detect and after his own investigation called the claims ‘outrageous.’”
– From “The Dark Truth About the ‘Dark Tunnels of McMartin’” by John Earl (IPT Journal, 1995)
No single reason accounts for the country’s belated skepticism about ritual abuse, but the poison-gas episode in Los Angeles surely qualified as a “jump the shark” moment.