On December 9, 2015, a town judge in the Buffalo suburb of Hamburg dismissed drunk driving charges against a woman who had been arrested while driving with a blood-alcohol level four times the legal limit in October 2014.
Joseph Marusak, the woman’s lawyer was interviewed last week, and talked with news media about the unusual case. It seems the woman, who the lawyer declined to name, has an extremely rare disease called “auto-brewery” syndrome. It was after Marusak presented evidence and research to the judge that the charges were dismissed.
In auto-brewery, of “gut fermentation” syndrome, high levels of a yeast called Saccharomyces cerevisiae in the intestines ferment high-carbohydrate foods into alcohol.
Gut fermentation syndrome was first documented in the 1970s in Japan. The unusual defense is beginning to be used more frequently as more is learned about this strange disorder, say medical and legal experts in the U.S.
Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University says, “At first glance, it seems like a get-out-of-jail-free card. But it’s not that easy. Courts tend to be skeptical of such claims. You have to be able to document the syndrome through recognized testing.”
And that is what Marusak did. The lawyer contacted Barbara Cordell of Panola College in Texas. Cordell published a case study in 2013 of a 61-year-old man who had experiencing episodes of debilitating drunkenness without drinking liquor a number of times. This man’s case was featured in Digital Journal on September 23, 2013.
When Marusak talked with Cordell, he explained that his client had been pulled over for erratic driving on Oct. 11, 2014. The woman insisted she had consumed no more than three drinks in the previous six hours before her arrest, even though her Breathalyzer test showed her blood-alcohol content to be 0.33 per cent.
Marusak was referred to Dr. Anup Kanodia of Columbus, Ohio, who eventually diagnosed the woman with auto-brewery syndrome. A low-carbohydrate diet was prescribed that brought the situation under control. The woman is now allowed to drive without any restrictions.
During the long wait for appointments and resolution of the case, Marusak had the woman monitored by two nurses and a physician’s assistant for 24-hours, to document she had consumed no alcohol. “At the end of the day, she had a blood-alcohol content of .36 without drinking any alcoholic beverages,” Marusak said.
Further testing at bedtime with a Breathalyzer for 18 days found the woman averaged a result of 0.20 every night, all without drinking any alcohol. The legal threshold for alcohol in New York state is 0.08.
The Erie County, New York assistant District Attorney Christopher Belling was quoted as saying the case is under review and his office does not comment on open cases. According to CBC News, the Buffalo News described the woman as a 35-year-old school teacher, quoting the arresting officer as saying she had bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, and failed several field sobriety tests.
Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a species of yeast that has been used in winemaking, baking, and brewing since ancient times. This yeast is also medically significant because antibodies to S. cerevisiae have been found in 60–70 percent of patients with Crohn’s disease and 10–15 percent of patients with ulcerative colitis.
