The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced today that it is launching a study to learn about an unexplained condition that causes people to feel as if they have foreign substances growing from their bodies.
People with the condition, referred to as Morgellons disease, say they have fibers and other inorganic material growing out of their skin.
“We earnestly want to learn more about this unexplained illness, which affects the lives of those who suffer from it,” said Dr. Michele Pearson, principal investigator leading the study for the CDC, in a press release. “Those who suffer have questions, and we want to help them.”
“We have a team of epidemiologists, laboratorians and pathologists to carry out the study,” Pearson said.
The study will be conducted in conjunction with Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California Division of Research. For more information, CLICK HERE to visit the CDC’s Unexplained Dermopathy Web site.
In 2006, a number of Morgellons sufferers told ABC News in interviews that when they consulted doctors, they received diagnoses they called wrong or dismissive. Brandi Koch, the wife of former Major League Baseball player Billy Koch, said that she felt as if she were living in a horror movie, claiming she had colored fibers coming out of her skin.
Koch, of Clearwater Beach, Fla., said that her life was good until one day in the shower when she noticed something strange — tiny fibers running through her skin.
“The fibers look like hair, and they’re different colors,” Koch said.
Koch said she knows that what she experienced “sounds crazy,” but it’s true. “If I had a family member call me up and say, ‘I have this stuff,’ I’d say, ‘I’m sending a straitjacket over. You need some help,'” she said.
Anne Dill described a similar condition. Looking at Dill’s life in Florida, she seemed to be living the American dream — her three daughters excelled in sports and were straight-A students.
But life in the Dill household was far from idyllic. Anne’s 40-year-old husband, Tom, died in January 2006, and she believes his death was due to a contagious illness that has infected her entire family.
Dill described her family’s skin: “There’s this fibrous material. It’s in layers.” Dill said the skin on their hands was particularly bad, very swollen and itchy, and said it felt as if bugs were crawling underneath the skin.
Consulting Doctors
Dr. Greg Smith of Gainesville, Ga., has been a pediatrician for the past 30 years. He claimed that a fiber was coming out of his big toe, and he had video footage to prove it.
“It felt like somebody stuck a pin in my toe and wiggled it, and it just continued to hurt,” Smith told ABC News in 2006.
He said he never thought he had bugs. “I’ve certainly had those crawling sensations, and the fibers which come out of the skin are really bizarre, and really odd.”
Smith was handed over to a hospital psychiatrist when he went to the emergency room complaining of a fiber in his eye. He admits that he, too, would be skeptical if a patient came to him with the same story.
“I would wonder if they’d taken their medicine that day. It makes no sense. It’s totally bizarre. It’s something that — just telling the story is so outlandish on the face of it — that no one would believe it,” Smith said. Dill’s doctor told her to stop scratching, even though many of her sores were in places she could not reach.
Koch went to the Mayo Clinic, where doctors didn’t believe that the fibers she’d brought them had grown from her body.
“I saw the infectious disease doctor, and I showed him some samples that I had and he snickered,” she said. “I can’t go through another doctor blowing me off or looking at me like I’m crazy. I know I’m not.”
Dr. Vincent DeLeo, chief of dermatology at New York’s St. Lukes-Roosevelt Medical Center, weighed in on what he’d say to someone who came to him with this condition. “I don’t think this is any different than many patients I’ve seen who have excoriations and believe that there is something in their skin causing this,” he told ABC News in 2006.
DeLeo said the open lesions were most likely a result of scratching the skin.
Relying on Your Own Research
But biologist Mary Leitao refused to accept the medical skepticism surrounding Morgellons.
Leitao’s son, Drew, was just 2 years old when Leitao noticed an odd sore on his lip that would not heal.
“He very simply said ‘bugs,’ and he pointed to his lips,” said Leitao.
Leitao never expected to find herself at the center of a medical storm. But when her son complained about the strange sore, the biologist, who once ran the electron microscope at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, did what any scientist would do. She took a closer look.
“What I saw were bundles of fibers, *** of fibers,” Leitao says. “There was red and blue.” Even stranger, they glowed under ultraviolet light.
Armed with research, Leitao took her son to a doctor at one of the country’s leading hospitals. He dismissed her tale of fibers and wrote to her pediatrician, saying that her son needed Vaseline for his lips and that his mother needed a thorough psychiatric evaluation.
Undaunted, Leitao began poring through medical literature looking for clues. What she discovered was a 17th-century reference to a strange disease with “harsh hairs” called “Morgellons.”
She named the strange fibers Morgellons disease and put the information on a Web site, Morgellons.org. At the time of her interview in 2006, more than 4,500 people had contacted Leitao, claiming they had Morgellons-type symptoms. The name stuck, and the disease was featured on the television show “ER.”
But do these fibers grow from inside the body, as Morgellons patients believe, or do they come from the external environment — a kind of lint — as the medical skeptics say?
Searching for an Answer
Forensic scientist Ron Pogue at the Tulsa Police Crime Lab in Oklahoma checked a Morgellons sample against known fibers in the FBI’s national database. “No, no match at all. So this is some strange stuff,” Pogue said in 2006. He thought the skeptics were wrong. “This isn’t lint. This is not a commercial fiber. It’s not.”
The lab’s director, Mark Boese, said the fibers are “consistent with something that the body may be producing.” He added that, “These fibers cannot be manmade and do not come from a plant. This could be a byproduct of a biological organism.”
Dill said she looks at pictures of her family and finds them unrecognizable. “My kids have to see not only their dad but their mom disintegrating, and that’s gotta be really scary.”
While they wait for evidence that they hope will convince the medical community to take them seriously, some Morgellon’s sufferers wear pink bracelets that say, simply, “Fortitude.”
Pictures of Morgellons Disea
Pictures can be viewed at the following location: Morgellon’s Disease Pictures
Hope you enjoyed the story and pictures of Morgellons Disease
The Clinique® 2 Clarifying lotion that contains the disodium EDTA is the one that works. Check the store’s gift packs to find this particular formulation. If you like it, please contact Clinique® and ask them to keep making it instead of the new formula. Thanks
Is Morgellon’s Disease Contagious?
I can’t say for sure, but since I believe that a bacterial infection is a major component, I do think there is the possibility that it could be transferred by skin to skin contact, or by sharing clothing, bedding, etc. Additionally, I believe that direct or indirect contact with lesions or with objects that touch lesions could possibly transfer this disease, especially to persons genetically related.
That last item is based on my belief that morgellons disease is a bio-weapon. I pray the creators weren’t stupid enough to make this disease easily transmissible to non-targets.
Excellent hand washing and cleaning the bathtub/shower with a bleach based cleanser as well as other “contact precautions” should be taken until we know more. Obviously, it is best not to share a bathroom with a non-infected persons if this is at all possible.
Energy-saver washing machines without agitator a hazard to health
Since having this awful disease, my sheets develop holes and the fabric tears easily. I have noticed thousands of skin scales on the bottom sheet after just a couple of nights use. My new washing machine, an “energy star” without an agitator has lots of room, but fails to remove the majority of the scales, even though I wash the bottom sheet separately.
Additionally, this type of machine is a public safety hazard due to the following problems:
-The manufacturer took away user controlled options, such as adding enough water to cover the clothing. Clothes don’t get completely wet and therefore cannot reach a high enough temperature to kill parasites or some bacteria, except perhaps with their 3-hour “sanitize” wash option.
-Even after tricking the machine into adding more water, without an agitator, the sheets develop air pockets and float on the surface. When the wash is complete, the clothes are still dirty.
-Additionally, due to the limited water allocated to wash the load, adding bleach will stain or destroy clothes unless the bleach is manually diluted before adding to the load.
-Load often becomes unbalanced on the rinse cycle, and because there is no optional alarm to alert user, I return to find the clothes soaking wet. My “energy star” has no spin only option so I have to rinse and spin all over again or babysit the little ______ during the entire wash cycle. It wastes my time, my money and tries my patience each and every time.
My next machine will not be an “energy star” and it WILLl have an agitator.
To remove skin scales, I wet my personal bathtub, shake the sheets and pillowcases over the tub and then wash the scales and debris down the drain. Then I wash the sheets separately. Works well.
stand up!! unite!!! lets lose the lying government!
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“Clinique® 2 Clarifying Lotion, Dry Combination Skin” no longer works to remove the scales and stinch from Morgellon’s. Apparently they changed the formula and removed a key ingrediant (either disodium or trisodium EDTA, based on my memory since I do not have an old bottle to compare the tw0). Will keep you posted if anything changes.
If you had a scabies infection, Lice, a spider bite or even other insects carry these infections. It’s not just ticks so it’s become harder to protect yourself from infection.
A lot of people are working outside the meddical system because the antibiotics that doctors use don’t cure and cause a lot of suffering in the process.
Borrelia becomes much more virulent in the presence of Bartonella which is more common than Borrelia. The most aware doctors think Borrelia should be considered a coinfetion to Bart.
Agrobacterium is used extensively to modify our food supply. The closest relative to Agrobacterium Is Bartonella bacteria. They share genes and abilities. Bartonella is intracellular so evades the immune system that way as well as releasing chemicals to shut down immunity. Agrobacterium is so like Bartonella it should be considered a Bartonella like organism.
Agrobacterium has the ability to readily change your DNA and is an opportunistic infection. The mutant DNA from agrobacterium is most likely responsible for Lyme disease developing into morgellons disease. Morgellons is linked to Lyme.
Since there is not much real research going on and after reading huge amounts of material Morgellons is likely to be a “Chronic lyme” infection with agrobacterium as a “co-infection”. This wasn’t caused by the government being evil it was cause by the government being incompetent.
Thank you with all my heart and soul. I agree that all of the precious energy you (I) have needs to go into finding ways to stop it, not hypothesizing conspiracy theory’s. It is tempting to run after the monster with pitchforks in our hands, but much wiser to discover how to heal the wounds it has already inflicted and protect our loved ones and neighbors from becoming victims.
I have been using every natural remedy that my holistic healer sister has been providing and recommending with some notable success. I would like to share the details with other’s and to make myself available to any scientific body searching for a cure.
Warning…
Warm weather brings flies and other insects. Be careful to cover wounds with clothing when outside. Flies may attempt to lay their eggs in exposed wounds. In nursing, it was not uncommon to learn of patient’s wounds being infected with maggots.
are you blind?
Hi Jay,
I’m not blind; however, I prefer to avoid the maggots.But if you must, consider the “sterile” ones used in medicine. They like to chew on necrotic tissue.
There is now published, peer reviewed science supporting the claims of morgellons sufferers. Here is a published article from a prestgious scientific journal. Print this out and take it to your doctor if they call you crazy. As this thing blows up (and it’s getting bigger every day) all the poor people afflicted with the morgellons infection will finally get the validation they deserve.
http://www.omicsonline.org/2155-9554/2155…
morgellons sufferers in general do not follow the typical profile of people who are diagnosed with DOP (delusions of parasitosis). my advice? forget your doctor. most conventional doctors spend years learning anatomy as well as the highly profitable pharmaceutical synthetic chemicals that can be used to suppress symptoms of failing health. Most doctors are not scientists. I am truly sad to say this but our ‘medical professionals’ have been transformed into little more than drug reps. This is not how you heal and is not the basis for health. We need science, and courageous scientists to solve this problem. Also, it is you, the sufferers of morgellons, who must organize and fight. You must fight for your life. I know it’s hard, when you are not feeling well. i have done so much reading on this subject and i believe it is diet, neutraceuticals, and natural herbal antivirals and antimicrobials that offer the best hope for a cure. Here is one solution that seems to be working (I have no association with this site as well as another site that treats morgellons via blood microscopy (morgellons is a system wide infection, NOT simply a skin condition) as well as two examples of people battling and winning the morgellons war.
http://logosnutritionals.com/products/combopacks/morgellonssupport/
http://howicuredmorgellons.com/melsprotocol/
http://morgellonsdiseaseawareness.com/live_blood_microscopy
Ironically, anyone working in the field of biosynthetics would not be shocked by many of the odd autoflorescing filaments that have been photographed and removed from underneath otherwise unbroken skin as well as from the open lesions. So many people are becoming afflicted that you will easily find many photos being posted with the morgellons filaments just underneath intact skin.
Here is a link showing the hallmarks of morgellons match the hallmarks of biosynthetic technology. Ignore the political claims (bioweapon etc. which are difficult to prove) on this site and focus on the science. Biosynthetic infection has a fingerprint in the human body and that fingerprint is called morgellons.
http://www.skizit.biz/
Please find the link and post here. The current link won’t link to the article. Thank you.
Sorry about that. Here is the link again for the published scientific article on morgellons:
http://www.omicsonline.org/2155-9554/2155-9554-3-140.php?aid=5477
If you have any trouble let me know. You may also do a search on the title of the article which is: Morgellons Disease – A Chemical and light microscopic study. This article was published in the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Dermatology Research.
At some point I am considering putting up a website with the many many resources for morgellons. I believe one of the most important tasks for the morgellons community is to get scientists in the field of biosynthetics, genetics, virologists, entomologists, transgenic engineering, etc. involved. Because they are the only people who can raise their hands and say ‘I understand some of this…I’ve seen this before’. Only these types of scientists can understand a synthetically engineered infection – because that is what they do. Usually this science is used to create biopesticides or some other positive purpose which is a good thing in theory. But as we all know, life finds a way. I truly believe Morgellons is an example of the unintended consequences of the cutting edge field of biosynthetics…which many of you do not realize, has already been implemented in the real world, and has not been restricted to the lab.
Diane,
Can’t get to a free copy of the study from your link or a google search. Keep getting an internet error message.
As for this biosynthetic disease being accidentally transferrred to humans, I have a different view. Present day Morgellons peaked during the early years of the Bush Administration. We also saw Anthax. No coincidence here. I have been a target of Bush & company and I am 100% sure that is how & why I acquired this disease.
Are there any others who were very vocal against Bush, who are also suffering with this disease? Please let your voice be heard.
I’m not sure why you are having trouble with this link which takes me to the article. Here is the contact info so maybe you can contact the authors directly and they can help you get a copy. Is anyone else having problems with this link?
*Corresponding author: Raphael B. Stricker, MD
450 Sutter Street, Suite 1504
San Francisco, CA 94108, USA
Tel: (415)399-1035
Fax: (415) 399-1057
E-mail: [email protected]
Regarding Anthrax, Bush and Morgellons, I admit I have done no research on that angle and there very well may be a connection. My point above is that biosynthetic technology could easily explain what is otherwise very odd and never before seen physical phenomena (at least on living human beings) such as florescent blue filaments growing from bacteria infected mammalian cells. A biosynthetic scientist would understand the technology that could easily explain what we would otherwise describe as bizarre. Biosynthetic scientists are able today to engineer DNA as well as what are called ‘unnatural proteins’, place that engineered dna in bacteria, fungi and viruses, and then use their internal machinery to grow structures – florescent structures at that. All I’m saying is technology leaves clues and you need people familiar with those clues to take a look at the problem of Morgellons. I wish you the best for a successful recovery and healing.