Some kids' bizarre compulsions may get their start from a common germ

摘要

After her run-in with strep bacteria, the Nashville, Tenn., teenager says she wants to hide her real name. Not because she's embarrassed about the common childhood infection, but because of the uncommon things she and her doctors think it made her do. There were months spent washing her hands until they were bloody and raw, constant terror of germs and others' blood, and an attempt to hurl herself out a window. Her classmates, for whom strep is usually a bout of fever and a sore throat, were cruel. "One put blood in my yogurt, and another said, 'I hope you get strep six more times!'" the girl says.