Drunk-driving charges against an upstate New York woman have been dismissed based on an unusual defense: Her body is a brewery.
The woman was arrested while driving with a blood-alcohol level more than four times the legal limit. She then discovered she has a rare condition called “auto-brewery syndrome,” in which her digestive system converts ordinary food into alcohol, her lawyer Joseph Marusak said in interviews this week.
A town judge in the Buffalo suburb of Hamburg dismissed the drunk-driving charges this month after Marusak presented a doctor’s research showing the woman had the previously undiagnosed condition in which high levels of yeast in her intestines ferment high-carbohydrate foods into alcohol.
The rare condition, also known as gut fermentation syndrome, was first documented in the 1970s in Japan, and both medical and legal experts in the US say it is being raised more frequently in drunk-driving cases as it is becomes more known.
“At first glance, it seems like a get-out-of-jail-free card, but it’s not that easy,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said. “Courts tend to be skeptical of such claims. You have to be able to document the syndrome through recognized testing.”
The condition was first documented in the US by Barbara Cordell of Panola College in Texas, who published a case study in 2013 of a 61-year-old man who had been experiencing episodes of debilitating drunkenness without drinking liquor.
Marusak contacted Cordell for help with his client, who insisted she had not had more than three drinks in the six hours before she was pulled over for erratic driving on Oct. 11, 2014. The woman was charged with driving while intoxicated when a Breathalyzer test estimated her blood-alcohol content to be 0.33 percent.
Cordell referred Marusak to Columbus, Ohio-based physician Anup Kanodia, who eventually diagnosed the woman with auto-brewery syndrome and prescribed a low-carbohydrate diet that brought the situation under control.
During the long wait for an appointment, Marusak arranged to have two nurses and a physician’s assistant monitor his client for a day to document she drank no alcohol, and to take several blood samples for testing.
“At the end of the day, she had a blood-alcohol content of .36 without drinking any alcoholic beverages,” Marusak said.
He said the woman also bought a Breathalyzer and blew into it every night for 18 days, registering about 0.2 every time.
While people in cases described by Cordell sought help because they felt drunk and did not know why, Marusak said that was not true of his client.
“She had no idea she had this condition. Never felt tipsy. Nothing,” he said.
Marusak submitted medical evidence of his client’s condition to the judge, who dismissed the drunk-driving charges on Dec. 9.
Erie County Assistant District Attorney Christopher Belling said the matter is being reviewed and his office does not comment on open cases.
Marusak declined to name the woman, citing medical confidentiality laws. He said the case has been sealed since the charges were dropped.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to