Morgellons Watch Has Moved to MorgellonsWatch.com

New Blog location

2006-06-29T14:56:00.000-07:00

Morgellons Watch is moving to

http://morgellonswatch.com/

This site will remain up, but new comments are disabled.

The Trouble with Cotton Socks

2006-06-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

A few people on Lymebusters have problems with their socks:

belikewater
I threw away my shoes and wore old socks and treated my feet with tea tree oil. This seemed to stop the pain.Yesterday I put on a laundered, fairly new pair of cotton sweat socks. I think I got them recently from the Dollar Tree store. Wow, my foot pain came back and feet started peeling on bottom.Also, when I did my castor oil rubs on my arms last night, I started getting out 'white, cotton looking' fibers instead of my normal black ones. Like the socks had entered my system.

hannah
I was applying a lot of different creams prescribed by the dermatologist and thought that what was happening was that the material from my socks was being caught up with the cream and being drawn into my foot. However, it is definitely being absorbed as a couple of weeks back I wore a pair of black socks with purple heels and toes - that evening when I was getting undressed a purple fiber about an inch long and quite substantial emerged from my heel.

justhanging
Just a suggestion, but drop the socks into boiling water before ever wearing them, then wash with borax and machine dry

Betsy
For a while I wore plastic zip lock bags (cut to fit like a sock)over my socks so as not to keep contaminating my shoes. I also started throwing away my socks each day. I have been spending a bundle on socks. [...] Now, however, a new situation has developed. It is minor compared to the previous foot infestation. Each night when I take off my white socks to throw them away, there are all these pieces of cotton fiber from the socks in webs between the toes and even balled up knots of sock fiber.It is not the sort of thing one goes to the doctor to show and tell,but each night it strikes me as very odd. First of all, the fiber is not on the top or bottom of the foot where the sock torches the foot but rather it is in between the toes. Maybe a single piece of fiber could go between toes occasionally. But every night to find a network of sock fiber BETWEEN the toes suggests some unaccounted for activity happening on my feet at the toe area.I do not wash these new cotton socks before wearing. I have never washed new socks before the first wearing. I have never had fibers stuck in webs and balls BETWEEN each of the toes. [...] Yes, I have worried that the fibers are being drawn into the foot by these microscopic critters. They are definitely pulling fibers out of the new socks and practicing their knitting between my toes.

browncircles
Our shoes and socks were very infected with the white and black balls and fibers. We got news shoes and Gold Toe socks that are kinda thin with lots of nylon. I spray my feet, shoes, and socks with Woodward's Diabetic Basics Instant Foot Sanitizer with benzalkonium chloride. This works pretty well but I still have toenail fungus.

22122
My elderly friend with morgs bought some micatin spray from Dermatechrx and sprays it on her clean socks inside out the night before. It was on sale or she would not be doing this. She has clipped all of the cotton linings out of her underpants carefully leaving the rayon or nylon ones and then after these are laundered, soaks them in rubbing alcohol in ziplock bags.

hannah
Lots of different and inspired approaches as per usual. I've been washing the socks in Borax and changing them a few times in the day but didn't wash them when new. At night after applying Special No 1 ointment, prescribed by dermotologist, I then apply petroleum jelly to create a seal. This has been quite effective in healing some of the lesions so I've tried this during the day too but the tingling persists.

questionhair
First of all - anything that comes into my house - if it's fabric it gets sprayed with ammonia. New clothes get washed with a half-cup of ammonia added to the detergent. I don't have carpets or curtains anymore. No fabric furniture. But do use blankets, and have had to get new mattresses (sprayed with ammonia)Every load of laundry I do gets ammonia in the wash cycle, not just new stuff. And, because I do chores around horses, and they are constantly wiping their noses on me, blowing their noses on me, etc., I buy shirts at the thrift shop. I wash those with ammonia and am just fine with that. No problemo - no itching caused by the thrift shop shirts - ammonia fixes stuff for me.

belikewater
The socks i have been buying really have a lot of loose cotton fibers and balls on the inside. Today, I picke the stuff off before I put on a pair. Three hours later, I peeled them off and looked inside. All the loose stuff had re-appeared. Much was sticking to my feet and liked the area between my toes. I am coming to the conclusion that these socks are alive.

cliffmickelson
I was initially infected by new cotton socks right out of the sack that I did not wash first. There is little if any doubt that cotton is one of several of the more ubiquitous vectors for this thing.

I think what we are seeing here is the result of the culture of belief within Lymebusters. Nobody steps forward to suggest to Betsy that it's quite normal for cotton from new socks to collect between the toes. Nobody tells Belikewater that his socks are probably not alive, and everyone has experienced cotton balls and fluff on their feet from new socks. Nobody tells Hannah that, yes, the fiber was probably just caught in your foot cream. Nobody tells cliffmickelson that there actually is rather a lot of doubt that cotton socks are a vector for a novel pathogen.

I think willingness to believe others that some of the above people have, is paired with a willingness to believe themselves. Hence whatever idea pops into their head, they believe without question. Questioning themselves (are my socks really alive?) is tantamount to admitting they might have made some mistakes in other area, and perhaps an indication that they were deluded in some beliefs.

Socks are interesting since most people have two feet. It would be a very simple matter to perform experiments such as wearing a cotton sock on one foot, and a linen sock on the other for a week, and see if there is any difference. You could use this technique to test the various ("different and inspired") sock treatments, such as ammonia, alcohol, bleaching, borax, boiling etc.

But is seems some people don't want to investigate, to find the truth. They just want to believe.

This uncritical desire for belief is ultimately damaging their health.

The Trouble with Thrips

2006-06-27T07:53:00.000-07:00

Thrips are tiny winged insects, around 1mm (1/32th of an inch) long.

This is what they look like, life sized (on a leaf, look closely):

And here is what they look like under a microscope

Here's a photo of some thrips that a Morgellons believer found on her skin:

(Compare the one at the bottom left with the one in the previous picture)

Thrips infest plants. A serious infestation can have hundreds, even thousands, of thrips in a plant. Sometimes thrips swarm, they fly, and can land on your skin and bite, which can be painful. They can apparently even create lesions that they can get inside, a condition described as Thysanoptera dermatitis.

So suppose you had a thrips infestation, perhaps just on a houseplant, or perhaps you live in an agricultural area, or you have an orchard. Thrips are tiny (they can easily get through a normal window screen) and very hard to see when they are in the air. If you are closely inspecting your skin, then when the thrips land on your skin, it will be difficult to see where they came from. If you have a fertile imagination, it might look like they have emerged from your unbroken skin.

Now within the Morgellons community, there are mixed opinions as to the involvements of insects in the disease. The opinions fall thusly:

1) There are no insects involved with Morgellons, and people should stop talking about them.
2) Insects are not part of Morgellons, but it suppresses your immune system enough to allow insects to nest in your skin.
3) Morgellons is an insect infestation, the insects either create the fibers, or use clothing fibers to create cocoons, and that's what we should talk about
4) Insects are part of the Morgellons syndrome, but we should not talk about it, as it will get us labeled as suffering from Delusions of Parasitosis.

In its doctor approved "Case Definition", the Morgellons Research Foundation says:
"The sensations are at times related to the presence of easily seen insects"

On Lymebusters (the online forum that the MRF recommends), the thread entitled "Morgellons, (collembola?)" sums up the every shifting attitudes of some Morgellons believers.

Orion***
It distresses me every time that morgellons is referanced to insects --such as insects crawling out of the body---this tangent can really confuse those who are trying to understand the morgellon syndrom..I have NEVER, in any remote way, made any observance of bugs-flies-etc exiting my body or crawling underneath my skin...

Patti
The insect theory can be harmful to us if not presented in the correct manner. I believe there is an indirect connection, phermonally speaking [...]

Questionhair
Those that have the insects hatching are suffering a very bad aspect of this - they need so much support and especially to be believed and not rejected.

Patti
We never told anyone they couldn't talk about it and I apologize again if it sounded that way. We just didn't want people to place the main emphasis of this disease's symptoms on that aspect of it, since that is where our skeptics are getting their ammunition to dismiss us.

Questionhair
But to disarm skeptics, any mention of insects should include the fungal / various causes aspect. Any skeptic that can't figure out that insects and fungus can be connected is A) not too bright B) has an agenda/sponsor or C) works at UoG

Orion***
I wish to clarify my stance--no doubt that insects can lay eggs and hatch out of the hide-skin-of many animals---

H
My theroey is that the Morg attracts other parrasites. I have personally whatched a fly hatch and fly out of my leg and watched a white furry bug eat its way into my heal,

Orion***
We all have fibers--etc=====or defined as morgellons,some have this manifestation others some other presentation..we can not define it down to say morgellons is caused by this or that---this is what I see--That is what you see--but we all see fibers, right?SOO, I ask, why are the fibers created by so many different things?

Here's how one of the administrators of Lymebusters (who has posted his own photos of Thrips) explains his own pro-insect belief, and the diversity of what people are seeing.

Anthill
[...]every time I would get bit by something in the spot where I got bit there would be a fuzzball most of the time they were the color of the article of clothing in the area that that I found the fuzzball in If I was wearing white socks they would be white or if I had something red or blue the fuzzball would be likewise I cant speak for my comrade cult members but I think that the critters that are responsible gather the fibers around them like a cocoon
[...]
And I am not saying that we all have the same thing but there is a common denominator that we all have --and that is Doctors are giving us all a bogus diagnosis that we are stuck with so we unite under the same banner to fight it

(Note that Anthill is just joking here, when referring to the "cult", he's referring to another recent post)

So what is the problem with Thrips?

The problem is the assumption, almost the dogma, amongst Morgellons believers, that they all have the same "thing". That there is some new pathogen that they all are infected with that causes all of their symptoms. Any new symptom that someone professes to have gets included in the long list of symptoms that are allowed under Morgellons. Anything too outrageous or unique gets explained as a product of a suppressed immune system. Any mental issues get explained as neurological effects of "this disease".

The problem with that is that they obviously don't all have the same thing. They have a wide range of symptoms. The one thing they supposedly have in common, the fibers, vary as much as the symptoms. On the question of insects - some have them, and some don't. Again, some believers explain this as the insects taking advantage of a compromised immune system. But you can explain anything as the result of a compromised immune system.

The trouble with Thrips is that believers unquestioningly accepted that tiny bugs can be hatched in their adult form directly through your skin, if you have Morgellons. If you have Morgellons almost anything can be accepted, no matter how outrageous. The key thing many Morgellons believers want is "to be believed". By being part of a community that wants to be believed, they support each other, and hence they believe each other, easily glossing over all inconsistencies.

Unfortunately, by believing everyone and everything, some of them abdicate reason, and this gets in the way of them receiving appropriate treatment for their very real health issues.

Fibers on CNN

2006-06-23T11:09:00.000-07:00

The recent CNN story on Morgellons (text version) was interesting as it focused on Randy Wymore’s examination of fibers, and actually showed his colleges removing fibers from a patient, and looking at them under a microscope.

In absence of any epidemiological studies, the only thing that makes the claims of Morgellons at all notable are the “fibers” that sufferers claim to have emerging from their skin. Now I’ve written quite a lot about this before, basically showing that fibers are everywhere, and that many of the photos of fibers shown can easily be identified as Kleenex, or clothing fibers.

The whole Morgellons case hinges around these fibers, which was the thing that originally got me interested – I think it’s high time that I get back to examining the fiber evidence, starting with the CNN video.

First of all, we have Dr Wymore in a thrift store, collecting fiber specimens from clothing with some scotch tape. The reporter then asks him if the fibers he found from Morgellons patients resemble clothing fibers. He responds “No, not at all, totally different”.

Here’s what Dr Wymore told me, on May 22, 2006:
“You see, we do indeed find environmental contaminants in samples from Morgellons sufferers. Definitely cotton, likely from bandages and cellulose fibers, probably from tissue. But, we are not interested in the contaminants that are everywhere. We take the time to sort through the known fibers to examine in more detail the ones that look unusual.”

So what he’s saying here is that he ignores that fibers he can identify, and keeps looking until he finds fibers he cannot identify. I asked him if he did not think that in any sufficiently large sample of household fibers (laundry lint, for example), there would not be some fibers that he would be unable to identify – but so far he has declined to answer.

Later we have some footage of the Morgellons group examining patients, plucking fibers off them, and looking at them through a microscope. Dr Rhonda Casey, DO, points at a small blue fiber and says “That is definitely not a hair, the blue thing there”.

The fiber she points at looks exactly like standard tiny lint fiber. Probably blue cotton. She carefully take it off, and makes a slide.

“This is what they saw”, the reporter says, and shows this picture:

There’s a blue fiber in the middle that looks like a cotton fiber. For some reasons there are a bunch of other fibers that were not next to the blue fiber before. The clear ones in the middle look like cotton or paper, the large brown ones look like human hairs (at about 80 microns they are the correct size). The very dark lines look like the edge of a large air bubble.

We then see several other images, one of which is clearly a damaged human hair – you can even see the scales.

So what’s going on here? Randy Wymore is finding fibers that look different (to him) from clothing fibers. Well, notwithstanding that it’s almost inevitable that you will find unidentified fibers wherever you look, what might make ordinary fibers turn into the Morgellons fibers?

Let’s take a simplistic explanation. Say someone suffers from something that has symptoms of neurotic excoriations (they pick at their own skin, consciously or unconsciously). They are going to have many open lesions on their skin (forearms and faces being common areas). Now lesions are wet and sticky, so naturally they will have several tiny fibers stuck in them. Lesions also heal, so the tiny fibers become embedding in the new skin.

A few months later, just like a splinter, the fiber works its way to the surface of the skin. It may emerge at the original lesion site, or it may have migrated a few inches over. Is it surprising that a small blue piece of cotton that has spent many months under the skin, now looks nothing like clothing fibers plucked with scotch tape at the local thrift store?

That’s just a theory – but it’s a nice simple theory that explains things without introducing a mysterious pathogen. Occam’s Razor: “entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity”. Before claiming that because he cannot identify some fibers, then a new disease exists, Professor Wymore must explain how he has fully discounted the multitude of far simple explanations.

I’ll simplify this to two questions:

1) In any large sample of household fibers, will there not always be some that are unidentified?
2) If a clothing fiber were embedded in the skin for a long period of time, and then emerged, would you be able to identify it as a clothing fiber?

CNN Tonight

2006-06-22T08:30:00.000-07:00

This should be interesting. Paula Zahn is doing a story on Morgellons at 5PM Pacific, 8PM Eastern today (Thursday June 22).

Regardless of the tone of the piece, this will cause a huge blip in the number of "reported" cases, as viewers go to morgellons.org, and fill in the form. They list 4131 right now, which jumped up from around 2000 a few months ago with the local TV coverage.

Hopefully CNN will have done considerably more homework than the local news.

Why does the MRF recommend Lymebusters?

2006-06-11T22:16:00.000-07:00

If you were registered with the Morgellons Research Foundation about a month ago, then you would have gotten an email from Mary Leitao, in which was stated:

"Please know that hope truly is on the horizon. Please do not poison your body with pesticides and toxic chemicals while this mystery is unfolding. You must remain as healthy as possible.
[...]
If you would like a place to communicate with others who have this disease, you can go to this message board, which is dedicated to Lyme and Morgellons. http://lymebusters.proboards39.com/index.cgi

Best wishes,

Mary M. Leitao, Executive Director
Douglas Buckner, Ph.D., Associate Director Morgellons Research Foundation"

Why does the the MRF recommend Lymebusters (and ONLY Lymebusters) as the place to discuss Morgellons? I'm really not sure - since a look at Lymebusters does not lend Credibility to the Morgellons case. Here are some representative quotes from the past 48 hours or so:

From Glennb
I also have the stabbing ones, usually the stabbing is in the region of the lower legs and ankles. I can pretty much control this by spraying natural insect repellant on my lower legs everyday. If I forget I get the stabs. Also spraying the carpeting lightly with cedar oil spray helps. These things also float around in the air. I have a big plastic spray bottle that is one quarter water and three quarters Everclear Grain Alcohol that I added grapefruit seed extract to, also added lavender and teatree essential oils. This makes a great spray to clear the floaters out of the air, also like to spray my sheets with it before I get into bed at night.

From Magnolia
[...] I sat down in front of the computer, turned it on and within 20 minutes I was being swarmed by stuff! I looked at the computer screen and saw the "things" that most of us have. The cube that I sat in was very dusty. So I got out the H2O2 and wiped everything down, wiped my face off, and the swarming stopped.

From l46cheetah
If a Dr wants to be in denial that something physical is wrong then he has to do it on his own time and without me in the room. I have fired about 15 Dr.'s for the way they talked to me . I finally got sick of it and started trying things on my own. Then my nurse friend sent me to her Dr friend and he listens and he is at least trying. I have been to 32 Dr.'s in 3 years.

From Flowerchild
You should see a big difference if you zap tonight, as the moon is full, and the parasites are active and easier to kill. Hanna Kroeger recommended going after parasites 5 days before the full moon until at least 5 days after, as that's when parasites come out of hiding in the body to reproduce

From Belikewater
This current lesion, about 1 inch square on my lower right arm I brought on myself, by pouring bleach on a picked area. There was an instantaneous, very scary reaction. The skin peeled back in a flash. My first panicked thought was 'flesh eating disease' and I grabbed my colloidal silver and splashed it on the area. The peeling instantly stopped. Then before my eyes a weird thing happened. Instantly all sorts of black fibers, specks and what appeared to be semi-formed arthropod forms appeared in the wound, spaced a bit apart from eachother

These are not unusual posts. They are quite typical, and they go without comment. There are far worse posts in there, but I limited it to the last 48 hours, and left out the suicidal rambles.

So why is Lymebusters the semi-official discussion board of the Morgellons Research Foundation? It really can't help their image.

Lymebusters, as has been noted several times in comments here, is not a very healthy place. It's a place where people build and reinforce errant belief structures, and a place where vulnerable people can easily be snared.

How can the MRF say "Please do not poison your body with pesticides and toxic chemicals while this mystery is unfolding" and then two paragraphs later direct them to Lymebusters, where people discuss assailing their skin with bleach, Everclear, tweezers and worse.

Medical Student Syndrome

2006-06-09T12:32:00.000-07:00

Medical Student Syndrome is an unusual affliction that affects people in medical training. The student reads about a novel disease, and finds they have some symptoms of this disease, and then imagine they have this disease.

Here's a brief audio account from NPR, entitled: "The Challenge of Knowing Too Much, and Too Little"

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5473416

People with inexplicable skin conditions, or itching, or people who simply worry a lot about their health, might resort to performing research on the Internet. It seems quite reasonable that they might find Morgellons, and since the range of symptoms is very broad, they would recognize some symptoms. They would then decide they have Morgellons.

Not that their problems are imagined, if people are sick, then they are sick, they have real problems, physical and/or mental. They are not sick with "Morgellons" but they might be suffering from a recently discovered form of MSS known as Cyberchondria.

Physical and/or Mental

2006-06-07T22:47:00.000-07:00

One of the problems with discussing Morgellons is that the argument tends to be polarized by the issue of mental illness. Inevitably, the people who believe they have Morgellons ("Morgellons sufferers") will accuse their doctors and other skeptics of explaining away their symptoms with "delusions or parasitosis", or some other mental disorder, and ignoring their physical symptoms.

In reality things are no so black and white. Let me try to clarify my position here, since I feel it's been misinterpreted.

It is very clear that people with Morgellons do not all have the same problem. In fact the cases discussed on boards such as Lymebusters are very varied.

Some Morgellons sufferers might have a single physical condition. Some might have more that one.

Some Morgellons sufferers might have a single mental condition. Some might have more that one.

Some Morgellons sufferers might have physical conditions, but not mental conditions.

Some Morgellons sufferers might have mental conditions, but not physical conditions.

Some Morgellons sufferers might have both physical and mental conditions.

Let me be very clear here, my UNCHANGED position on this topic is:

I do not think that all Morgellons sufferers are mentally ill.

And just to emphasise this a little more, I've changed the word "and" in line 3 of my header to "and/or".

Lesions are real, and there a number of things that can cause them, including many known diseases, mostly physical, some mental.

Fibers are real, and there a number of things that can cause them. But as yet, no known disease causes fibers to emerge from lesions. No credible evidence suggests that fibers are emerging from the skin.

What is the CDC doing about Morgellons?

2006-06-01T21:02:00.000-07:00

It has been reported several times that the CDC is forming a "task force" to investigate Morgellons, but I could find no mention of this on the CDC web site, nor did the news stories go into much detail. So I emailed the CDC to see if they could give me the official line on what they are currently doing. I got the following response (dated Thu, 1 June 2006 ):

"CDC is forming a working group to provide scientific overview for an objective review of issues surrounding what we are referring to as Morgellons Syndrome. This multidisciplinary group will develop a strategy by which we would expect to form a scientifically useful case definition, an important step toward answering other critical questions as to cause and possible treatment. We are basing this work on the evidence of human suffering without prior assumptions as to underlying cause. That important question can only be addressed by objective inquiry. / Dan Rutz Communications Specialist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC)"

What does this mean? I'll give you my interpretation.

They are "forming" a working group (meaning it's not formed yet), to "review .. issues" (meaning looking at the available purported evidence, and judge its scientific rigour and its public health impacts.)

They are looking at something they are "referring to as Morgellons Syndrome", (meaning they have not judged it a disease, not even a syndrome, they are just picking a name for something that might turn out to be one of them, but is initially just a phenomenon that the media wants investigated).

The "multidisciplinary" group (meaning it has at least two people, including someone for mental health) will " develop a strategy by which we would expect to form a scientifically useful case definition" (meaning they will figure out if Morgellons has enough initial evidence to qualify as an actual syndrome or not, and if so, narrowly define what set of symptoms should indicate "Morgellons" for the purposes of future investigations).

Which would be "an important step toward answering other critical questions as to cause and possible treatment" (meaning, if it is a real disease, you have to have some statistically meaningful evidence of this before moving forward, unlike the current anecdotal or otherwise poor quality "evidence").

"We are basing this work on the evidence of human suffering without prior assumptions as to underlying cause" - (Meaning, people are suffering, so we should do something about it. Possibly they have a real disease, in which case we should track that down. Perhaps Morgellons Syndrome should be treated as a specific type of delusional disorder. Perhaps there are actually several different things going on here. Possibly patients sometimes have some other disease and Morgellons is an unhealthy distraction, in which case we should demonstrate that Morgellons is a fabrication to remove uncertainty in treatment. Either way, it's just good scientific practice to not make any assumptions).

"That important question can only be addressed by objective inquiry" (Meaning - unclear. Did he mean to write: "those important questions", as referenced earlier? Or is he speaking of the "underlying cause"? Or a more general question? Regardless, I'm in agreement, as all important questions should be addressed by objective inquiry.)

The writer, Dan Rutz, is a man I have great respect for. He's the former chief medical correspondent at CNN. He once wrote:

"I left CNN under the pressure of reporting stories "for competitive reasons" even when I knew the information was highly speculative, sensational, and little else. It was difficult to cave in to a management style that favors the sizzle more then the steak and fails to recognize both the positive value of responsible health journalism or the great harm flowing from the opposite."

I feel Mr Rutz must be seeing much of what he describes in the current local TV coverage of Morgellons. It must be frustrating for him to not be able to at least urge restraint. But that's not exactly his current job. His current job is to tell the media what the CDC is doing. He's doing to very good job of that.

After typing the above, I get a Google alert of this story from sfgate.com: which contains this paragraph which make things clearer:

"Not a day passes when I don't talk to somebody who claims to have this," said CDC spokesman Dan Rutz. "In the absence of any objective review, people have jumped to conclusions and found each other on the Internet and formed their own belief structure. We really need to debunk this if there isn't anything to it or identify if there is indeed a new, unrecognized disease that needs attention."

The article itself is much better than others in the media so far . I think perhaps the tide is finally turning.

India

2006-05-30T08:48:00.000-07:00

Here's a fascinating article from India:

A study of skin disorders in patients with primary psychiatric conditions.

Which neatly goes over a "mixed variety of physical and mental illnesses".

Only 2% were diagnosed with DOP, and less than 5% of the skin disorders were psychogenic.

Now, I don't think this group is at all representative of the people who claim to have Morgellons, since it's a sample of people who have a primary psychiatric condition. But the varied nature of the study group is probably representative of the mixed variety of Morgellons sufferers.

Here's a nice quote:

"The skin occupies a powerful position as an organ of communication and plays an important role in socialization throughout life. The interface between dermatology and psychiatry is complex and of clinical importance"

Morgellons Fact Check

2006-05-28T09:03:00.000-07:00

The following Q&A is aimed at addressing some of the misconceptions regarding Morgellons that have been propagated in various media articles.

(Note: This will be a work in progress - please email me suggestions and corrections at Morgellonswatch@gmail.com)

Q) What is Morgellons Disease?
A) Morgellons is an invented disease, self-diagnosed via the internet. People claiming to have Morgellons have widely differing symptoms, the most common of which is they feel they have been misdiagnosed by their doctors. Supporters claim the most notable feature is fibers emerging from the skin, yet everyone has fibers on their skin.

Q) Is Morgellons a real disease?
A) No. The offered case definition is very long, and very vague. It fits a very large number of existing diseases, and simply suggest co-morbidity of a variety of conditions such as eczema, chronic fatigue and anxiety disorders. The "evidence" for Morgellons is entirely anecdotal.

Q) What is the History of Morgellons?
A) Morgellons was invented in 2002 by Mary Leitao, to explain her 3-year old son's eczema. Leitao looked at her son's skin under a microscope and found fibers on it, and decided she had discovered a new disease characterized by fibers emerging from lesions, and started a foundation. Her son's eczema cleared up naturally. His symptoms did not include those of the more recent claims of Morgellons. The list of symptoms has rapidly expanded as more people registered. Leitao encouraged people to seek out fibers in their lesions. Morgellons was spread over the internet.

Q) Are the most cases in California, Texas and Florida?
A) Yes, because that's where the most people are, those stateS have the highest populations. Morgellons is a self-diagnosed disease. People "register" over the internet by filling out a simple form on Morgellons.org.

Q) Who is Ginger Savely?
A) Ginger Savely is a nurse practitioner who was unable to find a doctor in Texas to supervise her practice, due to her unorthodox and possibly dangerous treatment of Lyme disease patients. She gives similar treatments to self-diagnosed Morgellons suffers. She is a member of the Morgellons Research Foundation, and co-authored an article on it with Leitao. She is active in the Media campaign, and is seeking new patients. She makes a living from selling her unorthodox treatments.

Q) Did Travis Wilson commit suicide because of Morgellons?
A) His mother, Lisa Wilson, initially though this, and this was stated on her TV interviews, but on internet postings she now believes it was not an overdose, and instead was a toxic reaction to his medication. Travis Wilson was a heroin user with a prior self described "two balloons a day drug habit". He was a patient of Savely who oversaw $14,000 of his treatment. He seemed paranoid and delusional, his sad demise is being used to promote Morgellons disease.

Q) Have researchers determined the fibers are not environmental?
A) No. Randy Wymore is the director of Research at Leitao's MRF. He works on a volunteer basis using the facilities of OSU. He has been examining fibers sent (often anonymously) to him. Many fibers he would discard as environmental, but there were a few he could not identify. Not being able to identify a fiber is not the same as proving it is not environmental. Fibers go unidentified all the time in forensic cases. To prove it was not environmental, you would need to prove it was generated inside the body. This has not been done.

Q) Do most doctors dismiss Morgellons Sufferers as having Delusions of Parasitosis?
A) No. There are a wide range of things going on here. Doctors understand that people might mistakenly think fibers found on their skin are connected to their disease, without the patient being delusional. If a patient has lesions or itching, then there are a vast range of possible causes for this, and doctors would attempt to diagnose and treat them. Delusions would be diagnosed if the patient claims to see things that are not there. There are some people who are clearly delusional and who are highly resistant to any hint of a psychiatric diagnosis. These people are likely to latch onto anything they feel explains their symptoms.

Q) Are some of the fibers as thick as spaghetti strands?
A) No. Generally people describe the fibers as being like normal clothing or tissue fibers. The "spaghetti" description is based on one isolated comment by Lisa Wilson: "It looked like a piece of spaghetti was sticking out [of a lesion in his chest] about a quarter to an eighth of an inch long". Wilson does not actually describer the thickness of the fiber. Nowhere else are the fibers described as being thicker than a single thread.

Q) Do people "sweat black tar"?
A) No. Again this is based on one statement, and was then picked up by the media. This time Savely was quoted as saying: "These people will have like beads of sweat but it's black and tarry". She was probably referring to what other people call "black specks" (dried blood, necrotic tissue, or blackheads). The imagery was just to vivid for the press to pass up.

Q) Does Morgellons cause muscle twitching?
A) No. It's not a real disease, but the list of supposed symptoms was extended to include "uncontrollable muscle twitching" after a report (May 2006) that former Oakland A's pitcher Billy Koch has Morgellons. The extensive Morgellons Research Foundation's "Case Definition", written (Feb 14 2006) a few months before the Koch report, does not mention muscle twitching even as a secondary symptom.

Q) Is it odd that some fiber analysis shows some fibers to be made of cellulose, a molecule generally found in plants?
A) No, far from it. Cellulose is what the majority of environmental fibers are made from. Paper, tissues, cotton, q-tips, linen, ramie, rayon, tencel and lyocell are all made from nearly pure cellulose.

Q) Is it true that "Dermatologists claimed the filaments were all delusions, although none had studied them"?
A) No. Dermatologists often look at samples that patients bring in, in order to eliminate the possibility of parasitic infestation such as follicle mites, scabies or lice. Filaments themselves are not delusions, they are physical objects.

Q) Where do the Morgellons sufferers on TV come from, if this is not real?
A) From the internet. The TV report have been orchestrated by Ken Cowles, the MRF director of media relations. He seeks out people in the local area who have registered with the MRF, and sets up interviews, and supplies photographs and video. The people featured are often active in promoting Morgellons on internet message boards. For example, the Alabama WKRG report featured the family of Leigh Ann Cofield, very active on the Lymebusters forum

Neurotic Excoriations and Compulsive Skin Picking

2006-05-26T11:50:00.000-07:00

The more you look at Neurotic Excoriations, the more it seems to match some of the Morgellons sufferers you see on television.

From stopicking.com

Neurotic excoriations refers to the uncontrollable urge to pick and dig at the skin. This urge may be unconscious or may be deliberate in the belief that it corrects some minor abnormality or surface irregularity of the skin. The picking creates more pronounced abnormalities so that a vicious cycle is started. It involves picking, digging or scraping at the skin persistently often until what is described as a “thread” can be pulled from the skin. Many old scars, which can be disfiguring, are visible near areas of active picking. These pickers usually are middle-aged adults and may be depressed, anxious or obsessive-compulsive. Women are more likely to be affected than men.

From EMedicine.com

Patients pick at areas until they can pull material from the skin. This may be referred to as "pulling a thread from the skin."

Closely related to Neurotic Excoriation is Compulsive Skin Picking

From Wikipedia

It has been seen in psychoses of many people the 'creation' of foreign objects to satisfy the need to pick or damage one's own skin. Many psychiatrists have studied this and found the only real cure is to immobilize the offending object (hands, etc.). The most success has been seen with protective casts to make the picking impossible. In these test cases the skin healed almost immediately, with outbreaks not recurring until the casts were removed.

Again, I come back to the "Delusions of Parasitosis". I think it's a major mistake to automatically equate Morgellons with Delusions of Parasitosis. Each case should be looked at individually, and in many cases a diagnosis of Neurotic Excoriation, or Compulsive Skin Picking, is more appropriate.

Fibers are not imagined parasites, they are just fibers found on the skin, and mistakenly though to be part of a disease.

Morgellons is not Delusions of Parasitosis

2006-05-24T18:27:00.000-07:00

I was looking at this KTUV video, and one thing that struck me was the similarity of the lesions on the afflicted people. They were very similar to the ones on WKRG Alabama. What do these people have in common?

Here's a picture of the lesions.

Actually, I fib. The above picture is of lesions from someone suffering from what is termed Neurotic Excoriation, related to Dermiatitis artefacta.

The picture comes from the web site Dermnet, which has a fascinating (and sometimes disturbing) comprehensive photographic overview of what might go wrong with your skin. The eczema collection alone is quite amazing, and that's where we find Neurotic Excoriations.

So, my actual point here is that Morgellons is not Delusions of Parasitosis, at least not always. Based on the what I've seen, I think it often can be one of any number of skin conditions, compounded with simply mistaking environmental fibers as being fibers emerging from the skin. Delusions are not necessary, just a mistake.

Sure, delusions may be present in some people. But I think a lot of people are quite reasonably minded, and simply found a few ordinary fibers, and then were fooled by the web and media reports into thinking that this was a genuine symptom of their problem.

The sad thing is, this hurts them two ways. Firstly, hurried doctors diagnose them as delusional, and secondly they diagnose themselves as having "Morgellons", in both ways depriving them of appropriate medical care.

If you think you have Morgellons, perhaps you should browse though Dermnet first, just to get an idea of the range of possibilities.

Chat with Savely on My San Antonio

2006-05-23T14:14:00.000-07:00

Ginger Savely participated in a "live chat" today.

I'll quote a few bits:

Ginger Savely: There is no one treatment that works for all. I tell my patients
that they are all "lab rats" because this is all experimentation. I give a
combination of antibiotics (sulfa drugs, Biaxin, Cipro, Doxy are some),
antifungals (fluconazole) and antiparasitics (like ebendazole, Stromectol or
Prazequantil).

Lab rats huh, you are experimenting on your patients (see later)?

Question from Michael in Los Angeles, CA: Nurse Savely, it is often mentioned
that the highest number of cases of Morgellons are in Texas, California and
Florida. Is it not the case that these three states simply have the highest
populations of all the 50 states, and that Morgellons is actually evenly spread
over the country?

Ginger Savely: Good question. However, there is a
higher PERCENTAGE of the population of those 3 states that are reported cases.
So it is not just simply the quantity from each state, but also the higher
percentage of the total population from each state.

Not true. According to the USP database, Arizona, Georgia, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Vermont all have a much higher percentage than California. Still, the USP sample size is small, so I'd like to see some figures from the MRF. Remember however, it's a self reported survey, not very accurate either way.

Ginger Savely: I no longer have a practice in Texas, unfortunately. The heat
from the Texas Medical Board was too much for me here. So I have transferred my
practice to San Francisco, CA. California is a more liberal, open-minded state!
Patients who want to see me in San Francisco need to send an email to
lymesf@gmail.com asking for a new patient packet. If you have a sympathetic
local doctor you can ask him/her to contact me directly for suggestions

So, kicked out of Texas, and trying to drum up business in SF. These TV spots make for great infomercials eh?

Ginger Savely: I'm not sure but I do know that in general the medical
establishment tends to be very conservative and cautious. There is a big move in
medicine towards what is known as "evidenced based medicine". In other words,
unless there is hard-core science behind something doctors won't touch it

What, "evidence based medicine" is wrong? Hard-core science is bad? If you can't figure out what is wrong with someone, then just dose them with massive amounts of antibiotics, antifungals and anti-parasitic drugs.

Ginger Savely: Yes, Rife machines are sometimes used and in approximately 30
percent of cases it helps.

Rife machines!!? Are you kidding? Better watch out for the FDA

Ginger Savely: It would be unethical to do a double blind placebo controlled
study at this stage, with so many people suffering. We just try each treatment
on each patient until we find something that works for THEM. What works for one,
doesn't seem to work for another. This is puzzling. But right now, it is all
about getting these people better and ending or at least lightening their
extreme suffering.

Ah yes, unethical to do any kind of study. What if placebo were the most effective treatment? Are you perhaps even keeping records? Any statistics at all?

Border Disease!!!!

2006-05-20T16:40:00.000-07:00

(The latest version of this article can be found at:
http://morgellonswatch.wordpress.com/2006/05/20/border-disease/)

I don't like to go about mocking people, but here I'm just going to mock the media and the readers of FreeRepublic.

The former is spouting the old line that cases are centered in Texas, California and Florida.

The latter is taking that, and suggesting it must be a disease bought over the border by illegal immigrants.

Let's look at some infographics. Firstly from Morgellons.org, we have a little map that shows the states with the most cases:

See, it's Texas, Florida and California!

Now, here's a more detailed map from "Unidentified Skin Parasite (a.k.a. "Morgellons Disease") Database". Darker states have more cases.

Finally, here's one from Wikipedia:

Notice the amazingly high degree of correlation between the maps! This proves without a doubt that cases are highest in CA, TX and FL!!

But wait, what's Wikipedia doing supporting this nonsense?

Actually, the Wikipedia map in not a map of Morgellons incidence. It's a map of population.

That's right folk, there are more cases in CA, TX and FL, because MORE PEOPLE LIVE THERE!

The only reason those states have the most cases, is that they have the most people.

You might as well go around saying that the highest incidence of people is found in California, since it is, and it's just as meaningful.

And CBS2 news in Los Angeles gets people all scared, saying that Los Angeles has the highest number of cases of Morgellons in the country. Could this possibly be related to the fact that (excepting New York) Los Angeles has MORE PEOPLE than any other city in the US?

Idiots!

(The latest version of this article can be found at:
http://morgellonswatch.wordpress.com/2006/05/20/border-disease/)

Morgellons Theories are varied

2006-05-17T16:59:00.000-07:00

Many Theories have been proposed for the cause of "Morgellons", many were gathered at:

http://home.comcast.net/~usp-db/results/theories.htm
(Username: results, Password: survey).

Here's a selection of some of the more interesting theories:

I think this could be a tiny fly (midge) that carries a parasite (something like leishmania). The fly loves to live in hair, and the fly larva loves to live in our skin.
CO poisoning, mold, and the Lyme disease?
Took wormwood, used sulfur and had round spot- things "explode" out of my pores that hurt. Biting sensation can be pricly to very sharp. Are these hook worms?
I have leaned towards man-made govt. botches, bioterrorism, or.....get this.....one of the plagues of the end times
I believe that this is a bacterial infection primarily with a secondary parasitic element for the majority of patients
I believe this to be some type of fungus, bacteria or mycoplasma that resides in the dermis layer of skin. It is transparent and it attracts parasites that feed on it or its effects through skin pores.It could well be a new bio engineered strain of something that has escaped or been turned loose upon us
are military bases....something to ponder
I also had a Saltwater Aquarium w/ live rock & live sand. During water changes & moving the live rock, I cut my finger on sharp edge. I believe it is a strong possibility how I was infected.
contact with dying patient who supposedly had Norwegian scabies? Touched his rash- no gloves- immediate crawling
I believe this is an insect that morphs from one stage into another.
I got this from an ac system in a sick building.
I do believe that this blight was bio-engineered
possibly bug lives within body and crawls thru nasal cavity or tear ducts or when introduced to other insects
our government has a patent on Mycoplasma - this needs more research. Stealth Viruses are definitely involved. Government altered nematodes that were originally to be used to damage enemies crops.
I've research black pedra, which is a fungus of the hair/scalp. I believe it's a fungus which can spread from hair falling out.
I also feel that the slow permeation of the environment with radioactive dust and the imbalance created by electromagnetic pollution has given 'bad' fungi and bacteria an edge over 'good', creating more food for these super bugs.
Maybe the sticky liquid is the fungal infection and the lesions are our skin's attempt to fight this infection.
I believe the string/ lint/ hairs / etc. are both 1. Part of the cocoon structures produced to protect "their" young and 2. A way to transmit along blood to "their" young = via an umbilical-cord or veins..... I believe the sand-like granuals are nymphs / still in development....
Maybe this is a way to thin out the population
I use to think that I got this from doing crank way back then.
I am the only coffee drinker in the house. I used to drink tea but changed to coffee 6 years back. same time I noticed itching no other member off my family has symptoms
I think it is a parasite and not a fungus. This parasite can produce toxic substances such as threads and crystals.
This is part of the military and federal health care vaccination programs, people who receive the military vaccine and flu shots are heavy mostly asymptomatic carriers, avoid them for your life and especially EVERY vaccine even the new bird flu.
The fact that just entering the room people begin swatting at their eyes proves no doctor could claim this to be delusional because they are attacked by being within apex 3 ft of me.
One of my dogs has tested positive for Lyme disease
My torment is related to bird mites after removing a sparrow's nest from my garage
I had Morgellons lesions on my legs when sewage backed up into my tub
No such type of parasite exists in medical circles. They bite and create wounds. They are blood seeking parasites
This Morgellons creature has been identified by someone as the same creature that was found within the Frass Meteorite. Perhaps from another planet
I think this problem is a result of genetic engineering of enzymes and/or altering insects so or their larva used to controls pests so as to improve crops
My house, when I got back from out of town, was covered with black fiber balls everywhere, in every room and that's how I caught it. It couldn't of been fungus, and I believe it could've been used by most likely our government, in order to test out a new biological weapon.
I do believe it is possible Morgellons are "new" or possibly manmade, accidentally or otherwise. I find it curious that many Morgellons message boards have been visited by shady characters and/or harassed out of existence.
It seems to me that the most prevalent factors are water damage and dampness
These things make themselves in their own image. They take food, & reproduce themselves in my mouth.
scabies are a possible way of infection as im sure i had scabies first, and then these took over
I am 99.99% sure that my infestation came from a houseplant that I had left outside and brought into my house after several days and watering. I believe numerous types of mites infested the plant.
I think there is something else to all of this, but what "it" is, I just don't know.
The nanoflagellar machine. The idea of using bacterial nanocombinations in computers.
I believe something the biochemists made somehow mutated from what they thought it was and they are trying to correct it by putting things in the air, they didn't know it was affecting people, and now, what they are doing is making us worse.
my theory is that we have been infected much longer, but some recent environmental change (environmental becuase of it's diffuse nature among the population) may have brought on the acute parasitic effects or somehow made a dormant infestation become active.

Still think everyone has the same thing?

The problem with DOP

2006-05-16T09:49:00.000-07:00

DOP is Delusions of Parasitosis (the irrational belief that one is infected with parasites). People who think they have a condition called "Morgellons" sooner or later get an diagnosis of DOP.

This has led to a tendency to equate Morgellons with DOP. I think this tendency is not helping, for a variety of reasons.

Firstly, not all Morgellons sufferers claim to have parasites. Many claim that it's complication of Lyme disease, or other bacterial infection. Some claim a virus, some claim a depressed immune system for a variety of reasons, some quite outlandish (chemtrails, biowarfare, etc.)

The common elements of a "Morgellons" case are fairly simple:

1) Fibers found on the skin that are thought to be associated with their health problems.
2) Some Medically Unexplained Physical Symptoms
3) A belief in misdiagnosis by their physician.

The fibers are generally real objects, although sometimes the patient reports fibers that jump in and out of the skin, and even fly around the room. However most "fibers" are real, and generally resolve to lint, hair or sebum excretions.

Medically Unexplained Physical Symptoms (MUPS) is nothing new to the medical world, and treatment of MUPS has always been a problem. One thing that complicates MUPS is when a patient becomes "difficult", and begins to self-diagnose in an irrational manner. If the MUPS is suggested to have some somatic or psychological component, the the patient is often very resistant to any kind of psychotheraputic treatment, as they tend to vehemently reject any connection between their mental state or lifestyle and their physical ailments.

Which brings us back to DOP - if the tendency is there to equate Morgellons with DOP, then the patient is far more likely to enter into a diagnostic dialog in a highly distrustful and defensive state of mind. Their conviction in their own self-diagnosis will only become stronger as they mentally reject and retreat from the possibility of a somatic component, or any kind of delusion.

Thus, although it is tempting to equate Morgellons with DOP, it is both incorrect and potentially harmful. Diagnosis of DOP should be reserved for specific cases where an irrational belief in parasites is present. Other cases self-diagnosed as Morgellons would better be described as MUPS, as this is a more accurate description, and less polarizing for both patient and physician.

Follow the Money

2006-05-14T09:01:00.000-07:00

People who think they have Morgellons often have a hard time convincing their doctor that they have Morgellons. Despite the reams of information printed out from the internet, and the collections of fibers they bring to the Doctors office, they are invariably diagnosed with something like atopic dermitis, or eczema.

If they continue to insist that fibers are sprouting from their skin, then they may be eventually diagnosed with some kind of delusional disorder.

Because of this, the Morgellons sufferers seek out doctors and other medical professionals who are predisposed to diagnosing Morgellons when a patient believes they have it.

Who are these medical professionals? Why to they offer this diagnosis? Well, it turns out they are very few in number, and they might be doing it for sound business reasons.

The one most active in the news right now is Virginia R. Savely, RN, (aka Ginger Savely). Savely is a Family Nurse Practitioner. She recently moved from Texas to San Francisco, because she could no longer find a doctor in Austin who would supervise her practice. The problem was that she was treating people who had been diagnosed with Chronic Lyme (a debatable disease in itself), with long term antibiotic therapy, something that is not approved by the Texas Medical Board, and is generally regarded to have only placebo effect.

Some quotes for the above article:

Savely said she doesn't blame her upcoming move on her supervising physician. She knows that many traditional doctors consider her a quack, she said.
"In all the practice years of doing this, I haven't seen the (ill) effects" of long-term antibiotics, said Savely, who thinks she developed Lyme after camping in Maryland in 1987 and recovered after a year of antibiotics.
"There's no value in giving prolonged antibiotics," said Dr. Lisa Ellis, who works in an infectious disease practice group in Austin.
Savely was disciplined last year by the state Board of Nurse of Examiners for not following certain protocols and record-keeping requirements in treating a Lyme patient.
A 2003 study of 129 Lyme patients, co-authored by Dr. Mark Klempner at Boston University School of Medicine, concluded that a long course of antibiotics was no more useful in treating cognitive symptoms, such as memory and attention problems, than a placebo.
But Dr. Raphael Stricker, who supervises Savely's San Francisco practice, said the research was flawed because it considered "long-term" treatment to be three months, and the dose for two of those months was too low to be effective.

So, Savely moved to SF to work with Dr. Raphael Stricker. Stricker has an impressive looking resume, and currently works as Medical Director at Union Square Medical Associates (USMA).

USMA pushes six things:

Fertility treatment, specifically a novel treatment of "immunological abortion" with "intravenous immunoglobulin" (an infusion of antibodies from blood donors).
Viagra - If you want it, it costs $400 for an initial consult, then $15 per tablet. They will accept accept your personal check, major credit cards (VISA or MasterCard), and (oddly enough) cash.
Weight Loss - with "magical" medications
AIDS treatment - but only with DNBC (Dinitrochlorobenzene), a novel treatment with limited, yet promising clinical studies.
Lyme disease - which is not very common is California. Stricker recommend extended courses of antibiotics.
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy - usually used to treat decompression sickness, now an experimental treatment for many conditions.

What's common about these treatments? The common factor is they are NOT COVERED BY MEDICAL INSURANCE.

Now, I'm sure Dr. Stricker is a fully qualified doctor - but it seems like the USMA is focused on selling Viagra, diet pills, and unconventional, expensive, "therapies" that often require multiple treatments.

In short, the collection of treatments on offer at the USMA seems ideally suited to establishing patients as revenue streams. Since the treatments do not need to be justified to the insurance companies, they can be continued for as long as the patient feels that they need them. As long as the patient can afford it, the USMA is able to give it.

Dr. Stricker is also on the Medical Advisory Board of the Morgellons Research Foundation.

Back to Savely - in Austin she had 400 Lyme patients, to whom she was prescribing long term antibiotic treatments. All these patients make up Savely's livelihood. She also had "over 50" Morgellon's patients, who she gave much the same treatment as her Lyme patients. Savely was making a living by prescribing a treatment not approved by the Texas Medical Board. They ran her out of town, and now she has set up shop with a like-minded Doctor in San Francisco, and continues to publicise Morgellons, which will inevitably lead to more patients coming her way.

There is nothing wrong with earning money - but when dealing with health issues, the patient needs to be aware of potential conflicts of interest that the medical professional treating them might have. Do they want to make you well, or do they want to sell you something?

(TO ADD COMMENTS, CLICK HERE)

Digg dug it

2006-05-13T16:43:00.000-07:00

Digg has a story

digg story

Digg visitors: I'd start with these:

http://morgellonswatch.blogspot.com/2006/04/objects-emerging-from-lesion-on-childs.html

http://morgellonswatch.blogspot.com/2006/04/tea-tree-objects-identified.html

and

http://morgellonswatch.blogspot.com/2006/05/duval-county-report.html

But there's lots more here.

Why don't doctors get Morgellons?

2006-05-13T10:46:00.000-07:00

(The latest version of this article can be found here:
http://morgellonswatch.wordpress.com/2006/05/13/why-dont-doctors-get-morgellons/)

People suffering from Morgellons are constantly going to see doctors. These doctors are generally dismissive of the symptoms of fibers coming out of the skin.

The Morgellons Community claims there are thousands of people with Morgellons. Many also claim that it is a contagious disease.

If so, then why have none of these skeptical doctors ever been infected with Morgellons?

Think about it, if 10,000 people have Morgellons, they have probably been to see a doctor at least 10 times, that's at least 100,000 times a doctor has been in contact with a Morgellons sufferer. (Probably more like 1,000,000).

Why, over all those visits, being in close contact with the patient, has a skeptical doctor never been infected?

This lack of infection proves with a very strong degree of confidence that either Morgellons is not a contagious disease, or that conventional Doctors are somehow immune to it.

(The latest version of this article can be found here:
http://morgellonswatch.wordpress.com/2006/05/13/why-dont-doctors-get-morgellons/)

Cause and Effect

2006-05-13T10:22:00.000-07:00

Recently (April 2006) a member of the Morgellons Community, a young man, died of a drug overdose. He was one of several patients of Ginger Savely, a Texas Nurse Practitioner who offers diagnoses of Morgellons to those who seek it.

This young man was very intelligent and well-spoken. He was also a self-admitted drug abuser, taking a wide range of drugs including heroin. He was very open about this, and discussed his extensive drug use, and his related health problems, at great length on a large number of internet posts.

After he was "diagnosed" in early 2005, he apparently became increasing depressed and paranoid, believing that he was the subject of biological and electronic harassment.

His passing is very sad, but it is made sadder in that the Morgellons Community will memorialize him as a victim of Morgellons. I think that "Morgellons" probably did contribute a little to his fate, but not in the way that Savely and other would suggest.

It is very, very, sad.

Fiber test from a Lab

2006-05-10T22:23:00.000-07:00

From "greta" at LymeBusters:

Scott F. Stoeffler, Senior Research Microscopist of McCrone Associates, Inc. "identified" my fibers. Got the actual bill today $820.00! They told me it would
be $600 charged on the credit card.

I got the written report too, my fibers were identified as follows: black wool fibers, red wool fibers, blue wool fibers, colorless wool fibers, colorless polyester fibers, a blue polyester fiber, colorless cotton fibers, blue cotton fibers, a pink acrylic fiber, and a green acrylic fiber. They were examined by polarized light microscopy. He sent one photomicrograph depicting typical woolen fiber from one of my samples.

And from "Sidney"

The NPA worked with McCrone's - Chicago, back in the 90's, when Dr. Walter McCrone was still living, interested in the fiber-skin issues, and either Dr. McCrone or Dr. John Shane, McCrone's chief researcher at the time, designed a protocol for us to follow. Participants strictly adhered to the protocol. As I recall there may have been twelve of us who submitted "specimens" to McCrone's Research Laboratory.Shower, shampoo, air dry, no towels, no hair dryers, no sitting on upholstered furniture during the process of combing and collecting from our skin.Results same as yours! Various fibers identified by content and color including Flax, Wool, Lycra, Cotten, Polyester, etc.
Thanks for sharing this information and naming the lab involved. Maddening that it was such an expensive process for you. I recall that it was an expensive process, but the amount you were charged is outrageous.

Okay, so a whole bunch of people had their fibers tested, under fairly rigerous conditions, and the results were that the fibers were regular household fibers.

Yet the response is simply to deny the results, and complain about the cost. Why would the labs make up results? Seems like the submitters had already made up their minds about the fibers and were just seeking validation.

Fibers are everywhere. They float in the air and land on you after showering, and they also remain on your skin even after showering.

Here's McCrones:

http://www.mccrone.com/ma/techniques/plm.html

Seems reasonable to me.

We all have the same symptoms!

2006-05-09T09:38:00.000-07:00

Morgellons folk say they all have the same symptoms.

You research the internet and so easily discover that Elliot's disease, National United Skin Parasites Association, the Fiber Disease, and Morgellons are all one and the same. Ironically, all of the people with the exact same symptoms that you have, have been receiving the same faulty diagnosis

What are these symptoms? What does MRF have to say? Well, they have two pages, one on "symptoms, and one that proports to be a case definition. Symptoms:

http://www.morgellons.org/symptoms.html
Most individuals with this disease report disturbing crawling, stinging, and biting sensations, as well as non-healing skin lesions, which are associated with highly unusual structures. These structures can be described as fiber-like or filamentous, and are the most striking feature of this disease. In addition, patients report the presence of seed-like granules and black speck-like material associated with their skin.[...] More significant than skin symptoms, in terms of the diminished quality of life of the individual with this illness, are symptoms unrelated to skin, to include Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), Fibromyalgia (ME), joint pain, and significant problems with concentration and memory.
Remarkably, not all people with this disease have overt skin lesions, as some individuals report intact skin. The troubling sensations and accompanying physical structures, are the consistent clues to this infectious process

http://www.morgellons.org/casedef.html
[...]The following case definition of Morgellons disease has been developed by physicians on the medical advisory board of the Morgellons Research Foundation[...]

Now, I'm not going to post the entire thing here, as it's quite long. But I'll paraphrase the important parts:

Lesions may or may not be present, they might be a symptom of the disease, or the result of scratching. They might look like pimples, or hives, and may or may not contain pus.
Crawling sensations can occur anywhere on the body. Sometimes insects or parasites are visible.
Fatigue is always present.
There will be behavioral effects that are diagnosed as psychiatric disorders (the implication is that they do not have these disorders, but the symptoms indicate Morgellons).
Fibers are reported in and on lesions and on the skin. Fibers may be any color size or shape. Granuals of any size or shape are found on the lesions and skin. Fuzzballs up to 3mm in size are found on lesions and skin.
Additonal symptoms include: vision changes, neurological changes, gastrointestinal changes, skin changes, Musculoskeletal changes.

Other than the fibers, what we have here is a catch-all of symptoms. Anyone who has some chronic condition cannot fail to have some of these symptoms. NOBODY has them all.

One can become a "Morgellons" sufferer simply by matching a few of your symptoms to the list, and then examining your skin for fibers - which everyone has on their skin.

What about those other conditions mentioned: Elliot's Disease? Well, Elliot's Disease research Library links to this article about "this disease"
http://explorepub.com/articles/omar_10_2.html#top
This gives a simpler definition:

It is characterized by neurological sensation of movement subcutaneously and/or in deeper tissues and cavities that is usually associated with mucoid cutaneous lesions from which one or more species of arthropods as well as unidentified fibers may be recovered.

Unfortunately, although this is a shorter definition, it's actually even less precise than the Morgellons.org definition. We have a "sensation of movement" either on the skin or somewhere on the body, usually with lesions but not always, and either with or without arthropods and with or without fibers. Based on that definition - I've got it, since my scalp itches a bit right now. Yours probably does too.

Moving on, NUSPA has a nice page of symptoms:

http://www.skinparasites.com/id12.html

They focus on a very broad range of symptoms of infestation by a parasite, insomnia and the specks and fibers. Nowheres does it mention fatigue or any neurological complain. This is obviously very different to Morgellons.

Then there is "The Fiber Disease" - this seems to be a term popularized by the biology-online forum thread.
http://www.biology-online.org/biology-forum/about1958.html
Unfortunately, they don't list the symptoms anywhere I could find. But individual posters report a very wide range of symtoms.

Okay, finally my point:

Not everyone has the same thing.

There are so many different symptoms, it's impossible to describe this as "a disease" or even "a syndrome". Everyone has different symptoms, everyone responds differently to treatments. The term "Morgellons" was invented to describe a child's skin problems, which he is now cured of, and which have no relation to the symptoms described by the vast majority of sufferers.

Bridging the chasm

2006-05-08T15:07:00.000-07:00

Karla McLaren was a new-age healer and teacher. An author with several books like "Emotional Genius" and "Becoming an Empath". A self described "full-fledged member of the New Age culture for over thirty years".

Then, a few years ago, she became a skeptic, and she wrote this wonderful article that explains in part why it took so long.

http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-05/new-age.html

In a very similar manner we have two cultures in the area of Morgellons. One of rational skepticism, and one of alternative beliefs. What these two culture have is a failure to communicate. Karla gives a heartfelt request that I'm sure many Morgellons sufferers would agree with:

"I would ask you to respect our humanity, and approach us not as if you are reformers or redeemers. I would ask you to approach us as fellow humans who share your concern and interest in the welfare of others. I would ask you to be as culturally intelligent as you are scientifically intelligent, and to work to understand our culture as clearly as you understand the techniques, ideas, and modalities that have sprung from it. We are a people, not a problem"

A nice analysis

2006-05-06T10:41:00.000-07:00

This article is mostly about Chronic Lyme - yet it describes a more general set of "Medically Unexplained Symdromes" (MUS) and discusses some of the implications of these problems. Well worth a reading in full.

http://www.ehponline.org/members/2002/suppl-4/607-611sigal/sigal-full.html

"
In the final analysis there is a struggle over
who defines a new and emerging disease:
patients, their chosen clinicians and advocacy
groups, or the biomedical establishment’s
physicians and scientists. It is clear that the
scientific community faces a formidable challenge.
Unexplained suffering and fear of the
unknown are far greater than fear of even the
worst, incurable disease and drive these
patients to extreme measures. Dealing with
the phenomenon of chronic Lyme disease, a
new constituent of the MUS syndromes complex,
requires an appreciation of its complex
psychopathogenesis. We need to appreciate
and study the aporology of MUS conditions—
to describe and heal the sense of being lost,
hopeless, and vulnerable"

Schwartz, CIA, France, Bottled Water.

2006-05-04T10:54:00.000-07:00

Mr Schwartz, a recently defrocked doctor, is one of the supporters of Morgellons sufferers.

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/36346.html

Schwartz said he talked to a man who said he used to work with the CIA, and the man told the doctor about a government-developed bacteria that got out of control in France. That theory would substantiate claims that Morgellons has come from bottled water from France, Schwartz said. Schwartz said he is not sure what to think of the theory that the disease comes from imported bottled water because some of his patients don’t drink bottled water

One wonders then, why there would not be more Morgellons in Europe?

Schwartz is either a quack, exploiting people's fears for money, or he simply shares and reinforces the delusions of those he "treats". Good job he can no longer pescribe medicine or peddle narcotics.

Duval County report

2006-05-03T20:34:00.000-07:00

While looking into the CDC's actual interest in Morgellons, I came across this report from the Duval County Health Department:

http://cctvimedia.clearchannel.com/wtev/morg2.doc

The Duval County Health Department Epidemiology Program began to receive phone calls from the public in February 2005 regarding a skin condition called Morgellons Disease recently highlighted in local news reports. DCHD initiated an investigation into the epidemiology of Morgellons Disease in Duval County. Each reported case was documented and investigated, and the feasibility of designing an epidemiologic study was considered.
[...]
The following chart represents all of these inquiries which include telephone calls, emails, and written letters. Calls began in February 2005 and DCHD continues to receive sporadic calls. Although there appears to be a cluster of reports around March 3,2005, this is attributed to the airing of Fox News’ coverage of the illness and is not a true cluster of disease.
[...]
DCHD Epidemiology consulted a pediatric dermatologist within the health department for his professional opinion. It was concluded that this is a psychological condition that has been mentioned in literature for hundreds of years, and further dermatological research is not practical. DCHD then consulted with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA. The reply was the same in that there was no interest to support research into Morgellons disease

I wonder if this is how Morgellons.org somehow got the idea that there was a "team" assigned to investigate Morgellons. Here's another version of the report, as a FAQ:

http://cctvimedia.clearchannel.com/wtev/morg3.doc

Due to high media interest the following personnel were involve with initial research:
Dr. Zaheer, C. Bailey-GOC II, R. Kay-EIS, and R. Alcantara-RN; to this date continued research personnel include: Dr. Zaheer, S. Jones-GOC II, S. Traynor-EIS and R. Alcantara-RN.

The team investigated, and deduced the normal skin conditions, sprinkled with DOP.

[UPDATE: 5/26/2006] After similar reports in May, the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services released a brief statement:

No credible medical or public health association has verified the existence or diagnosis of "Morgellons Disease." The current description of the disease is vague and covers many conditions. Until there is a credible, national standard for the diagnosis of this condition, there is no basis for making it a reportable disease. Concerned individuals should have careful clinical and laboratory investigation of their serious skin irritations, but at this time there is no reason for individuals to panic over unsubstantiated reports of this disease.

Mogellons.org Disinformation?

2006-05-03T20:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.morgellons.org/doctors.html states:

Note: Some county and state health departments are unaware that the CDC has a team assigned to investigate Morgellons Disease.

That's because the CDC does NOT have a team assigned to investigate Morgellons. How can morgellons.org claim this?

They also state:

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) , physicians who have patients suspected of having Morgellons disease, should engage the public health system in the following way:The physician should contact the county health department and inform them that they have a patient suspected of having Morgellons disease, etiology unknown. The county health department should then contact the state health department, who will in turn inform the CDC about the patient in question.

Okay - this text appears nowhere else on the Internet except on this morgellons.org page (and now, here). Did they just make it up?

Then on another part of morgellons.org, we have:

http://www.morgellons.org/medical.html

The CDC has no program to test Morgellons…They're being a little disingenuous

Sounds like a contradiction to me.

What's the real deal with the CDC and Morgellons? Here's what is sopposed to be their form letter:

CDC has been aware of patients' concerns about a skin condition knows as Morgellons Disease for some time; to date no parasites or other agent have been identified as the source of disease.Specimens received directly from patients are typically not appropriate for diagnostic purposes. CDC laboratories are available to examine clinical specimens received from physicians or health departments to try to clarify the cause of disease. CDC encourages people who think they have Morgellons disease to work with their physicians to seek appropriate diagnostic testing.Thanks,Public Inquiry

Sounds about right. Note that they are aware of "patients' concerns", not the disease itself. Maybe I should email them and see what they say.

(UPDATE May 24, 2006: I've heard the news reports of the CDC "task force", but I'll refrain from comment on that until I hear exactly what the CDC says on the topic).

Do you want to have Morgellons?

2006-05-03T09:00:00.000-07:00

Okay, so you are ill. You have bad skin, you feel tired, you can't think very well, you itch, you find fibers on your skin, and doctors don't take you seriously.

There are a number of diagnoses that might cover many of your symptoms. But let's assume for now you have a novel infectious disease which we shall call "Morgellons".

Now, how do we know this is a disease?

Let's consider another diagnosis - one that many people feel is related - "Chronic Lyme". Many people seek out a diagnosis of Chronic Lyme, thinking this diagnosis with allow them to deal with their problems. People even report great happiness when they are finally, after much effort, are diagnosed with Chronic Lyme. Believers congratulate one another. Typical quotes from the previous link:

"I feel vindicated"
"It's a milestone to be diagnosed with Lyme disease"
"Congratulations"
"congratulations on getting a diagnosis ! what great good news ..bad news "
"Getting the Lyme dx, I was elated, happy to finally know what I had.."

These people are HAPPY that they have Lyme. Finally they can put a finger on the cause of their fatigue. What's the problem here? There is no Chronic Lyme - people who have had Lyme do not get sicker than people who have not.

Sure, these people are sick - but lots of people get sick, lots of people have chronic symptoms of eczema and fatigue for no known reason. The difference here is that some people are so desperate for a diagnosis, that they either diagnose themselves, or they seek out a doctor who will give them the diagnosis they seek.

The people who choose Chronic Lyme to explain their symptoms are fortunate in that they choose a real disease, that might actually occur in chronic form. It's also fairly new, so the literature is still in flux. The fact that the CDC and AMA dismiss Chronic Lyme does not dissuade them, they choose Chronic Lyme, they seek out a friendly doctor, and they start happily "treating" their disease.

People who choose Morgellons are less fortunate. Morgellons is not based on a real disease, so they have to claim it's an unidentified infectious agent. They still want the joy of validation, they seek a diagnosis. Unfortunately there are no friendly doctors. They are reduced to diagnosing themselves, and forming support groups to diagnose each other, and pescribing each other treatments, to validate and reinforce their own belief.

Statistics show that Chronic Lyme does not exist, at least not in the majority of the group that claims to have it. They are simply unhealthy, as many people are, particularly in America.

Similarly, Morgellons is just a collection of chronic symptoms that are typical of a percentage of the demographic that reports those symptoms. You are not the carrier of some novel infectious agent, you are simply getting old. Seeking a diagnosis of some exotic disease is a very seductive idea. Unfortunately, in all likelihood, you are simply getting a bit older, and are in poor health - in part due to stress, bad diet and lack of exercise.

The seductive diversion of "Morgellons" is an illusion. It is wasting your time, and the "treatments" are probably making you sicker.

Try listening to your doctor.

How good is your eyesight?

2006-04-30T21:02:00.000-07:00

People professing "Morgellons" are usually middle aged white women.

Why could this be?

I wonder if some tiny fraction of Morgellons sufferers are simply people who have fading eyesight, and simply do not realize this.

The "fibers" that are claimed are often very small. Such as the vellus hairs on the back of your hand. They are mostly invisible to the naked eye, but can become visible when lotion is applied, or when lighting conditions change, or when viewed at a different angle. This sudden appearance might make it seem like the hairs are "shooting" out of your skin. The hairs were not there, then they were - at least to your eyes.

This phenomenon might in turn be magnified by poor eyesight, which usually takes a turn for the worse after the age of 35.

Women also tend to use a lot more lotion, which both attracts fibers, and contributes to the sudden "appearance" of hairs (both vellus and terminal) when the lotion is applied.

I'm not saying this explains every case. But it might explain some. You need to eliminate such possibilities before moving on to others.

How good are your eyes? Check here:

http://www.preventblindness.org/eye_tests/near_vision_test.html

Causes of itching

2006-04-29T16:56:00.000-07:00

Dear Morg Folk, I just want to check - have you considered everything listed here?

http://www.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/ent/ent58/ent58.pdf

An if so, can you explain how you demonstrated that none of the things listed here could be responsible for your symtoms?

Like this:

Margellons

2006-04-27T09:13:00.000-07:00

I've change my display name from Morgellons to Margellons, since calling myself by the name of the meme under discussion was confusing to me, hence probably to others. Better to have a name of my own.

The Mental Health Pharma-conspiracy

2006-04-26T09:14:00.000-07:00

The deeper Morgellonites are pushing this story

(http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2006/04/21/eline/links/20060421elin004.html)

The implication being that many doctors and psychiatrist are in league with the pharmacutical industry - and have a vested interest in diagnosing things as psyciatric disorders so that Big Pharma can sell more psychopharmalogical drugs.

This is about as likely as the clothing manufacturers being in cahoots with the dry-cleaning cartels by labling their garments "dry-clean only", when you know perfectly well they'll do just fine in the laundry.

The question to ask (and I'm borrowing here, Seinfelt I believe) is "how would that even work?"

When your doctor suggests perhaps a component of your disorder is mental, then does he get some kind of kickback from Big P? How much might that be? How does that money get to him?

Doctors get paid a lot already. What portion of their income comes from these psych-referral kickbacks?

How does the accounting work? Follow the money. In all the decades of auditing of various health industries - has there been one shred of evidence of such a kickback scheme?

It must be more subtle - the Doctors get paid by insurance companies that get paid by the consumers, who get high premiums because the price of psych drugs is so high. Doctors keep over-prescribing them, so everyone makes money.

Consider though, how would that even work? The individual doctor will get paid regardless. If he writes needless pescriptions, he does not get paid more. He's taking a risk of getting caught. So it's better for the individual doctor to get paid as normal, and let others take the risk.

So there HAS to be a kickback scheme involved.

But nobody has ever produced one shred of evidence of any financial irregularities.

And don't point at that Reuters story above - read it first, it explains why they have "links". Their links are most tenuous, and quite innocent looking. Heck, I have links just because I own share in SPY, which includes some pharma companies. Most of you dear readers, if you have a 401K, or other retirement account, will have some shares in a mutual fund that also invest in Pharma. Are you involved?

How would that even work?

Use of Scanners

2006-04-19T14:54:00.000-07:00

The problem with a lot of "Morgellons" photographs is that they look like things that could have been picked up off the bathroom floor. It's difficult to see exactly how they came from someone's body.

Microscopes such as the QX5 are cheap, but difficult to use handheld at the high magnifications.

Scanners nowadays are pretty commonplace, cheap and powerful.

You could use one as a simple microscope to provide photos of fibers in-situ? In fact you could even use it to show the fibers emerging after you apply the tea-tree oil. You'd just have to have some kind of support for your arm.

Fibers are Everywhere - Part 2

2006-04-18T17:58:00.000-07:00

http://www.rense.com/general39/chhmit.htm

"You may be astonished to find them ALL OVER -- your skin. your rug, your mirrors (they seem 'attracted' to mirrors!)... They're in the air, swirling and floating on the slightest air currents. Check your hair -- it is exposed outdoors -- it can 'host' hundreds! Your clothes can glow like galaxies of miniature stars are on them. 'Dust' on every flat surface in your home can be filled with them.
Some wave and squirm, almost as if they're alive."

This is something I noticed myself, when playing around with a black light. I also noticed a white t-shirt (and most white items of clothing) glow bright white. It's part of the dyeing process that makes them white. Plus, laundry detergent glows white. The fibers from these things are the fibers that you see under black light.

It's funny - they make the same case I was making before, fibers are everywhere, yet somehow reason escapes them and they attribute it to aliens and the government's secret mind control chemtrail spraying activities.

Why is it not lint?

"First of all, you can SEE lint on your clothes. You CANNOT see these filaments in regular light EVEN if you are looking right at them. Catch one with tweezers under UV light, keep a firm grip, and turn on the room light. It 'vanishes'! Turn the room light off, turn the UV on, and it's still there"

That's because it's tiny! You can see it under black light because it emits light against a black background. when you turn the light on, it blend in with everything, as it's so small.

"Secondly, there were a lot of people in the 1970's who owned UV lights of this type for illuminating posters and creating a party mood. No one from that era claims to remember this material."

WHAT!? "Er, do you remember, going to a party sometime in the 70's, did you happen to notice, when it was really dark and you were next to a black light, that there were these tiny fibers on people's clothes?" - This is evidence of a vast government conspiracy? - that you can't find anyone who remembers the fibers from a party in the 70s? Well, that could equally well be evidence that detergent manufacturers started using stilbenes in their detergent sometime between 1980 and 2000? Or, it could mean nothing at all. Or maybe that people who decorated with black light did not do much laundry. What do you remember from the 70s? What color were lava lamps? Did pet rocks have hair? Did mood rings work?

"Thirdly - [...] all you need is a microscope [...] a known piece of lint [...] Note the twisted fibers -- they look like rope. These are solid (not translucent), dusty-looking, and have bushy ends. [...] Now pick up a suspected 'CT-UV fallout' filament [...] They seem to made of some sort of prismatic flat filament that twists -- extruded looking, about 1/3- 1/5 the diameter of a human hair laid side-by-side -- obviously NOT fibrous"

Total nonsense. Lint contains all kinds of fibers. Most of them are emphatically NOT twisted like rope, they are single fibers. Brushed cotton/polyester blend fibers also look like a "sort of prismatic flat filament that twists ". They are also about 1/3 the diameter of a human hair. Obviously fibrous.

And then:

"No one posting at Carnicom seems to have access to a photography microscope. We hope that someone with access to such will post some photomicrographs"

How unfortunate. Try the QX5, only $70
http://www.shopdigitalblue.com/product_info.php?products_id=101

Here's some "photomicrographs" of lint. 200x and 60x. Note how there are ALL KINDS of fibers. Probably a few from my florescent white t-shirts. Note the white ones, kind of "sort of prismatic flat filament that twists ", don't you think?

Fibers are indeed everywhere. Perfectly naturally.

UPDATE: Looks like someone got themselves a QX3/5 http://www.rense.com/general39/chem.htm
Strikingly similar to my photos, you think?

It's a Quantum disease!

2006-04-18T12:45:00.000-07:00

Of course!

http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index689.htm

"To ourselves today we know of this quantum disease that afflicts these soulless and faceless Westerners, who have turned from the right knowledge to the lies of these dragons of old, and who lead their lives in insanity of thought and spirit. Caring not for others beyond themselves and like all lower animals craving only those things that are of this world that fulfill their insane lusts"

Makes sense to me!

Why do some hairs move?

2006-04-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

Somewhere herein, Patti said:
"When certain hairs on your head and body move while ones right next to them are dead-still, there simply is no explanation except whatever the "pathogen" is that has invaded our bodies"

Interesting. So, I resolve to investigate:

I look at my arm, it's got a bunch of hairs on them, up to nearly an inch long. I blow on them, they move. I blow very gently, ONLY ONE HAIR MOVES!

That one there. It's a longer hair, kind of lonely out there on its own, it's also a bit kinked.

So, here I'm theorizing, that hair is an older hair, that's nearly at the end of its life cycle, it's kinked because its internal structure is breaking down, making it loose rigidity. As it's at the end of its life cycle, its root will not be firmly embedded in the follicle, in fact there is probably another hair growing, pushing it out.

I can blow very very gently towards that patch of skin, and I can't feel the air movement at all. yet the hair still moves and occasionally a few other very isolated hairs move. Since I can do this, it seems quite possible that small air currents might do the same.

The point is Patti - there is an explanation as to why only individual hairs move. I was able to demonstrate this with just a few minutes of experiments. There are probably several other explanations as well. There is no need to go for the most complex explanation possible, just because you can't immediately think of a simple explanation.

"Chemtrails" or "Morgellons is from Europa"

2006-04-18T09:55:00.000-07:00

Chemtrails are a theory that almost makes sense if you don't think about it. It's a gateway fringe theory. Once you accept chemtrails, your mind is permanently open.

Chemtrails to Morgellons is an easy two way road. Consider:

http://educate-yourself.org/lte/morgellonsandchemtrails16oct05.shtml
"I seem to have stumbled upon a chain of information that links Morgellons with Chemtrails, rashes in public schools, increased rate of Cancer, the new bugs found deep in the Antartic with their homeworld of Jupiter's moon, Europa."

Well, now, this sounds very interesting. Unfortunately the link given just goes a site I'd already visited, someone with athelete's foot and a camera.

Here's how "Ken" of "Educate-Yourself" responds:
"How incredible dense of these people at the Moprgellons sites are to suggest that organisms are PRODUCING these fibers when the fibers THEMSELVES are SYNTHETIC FIBERS! "

Oh dear, can't we all just get along? Incidently, if you are interested in the fringe movement, then that web site is a good place to start - they have an excellent list of topics.

I would research Europa, but we were told to leave it alone, it's the exception.

Morgellons in California

2006-04-17T08:44:00.000-07:00

Why is there so much Morgellons in California?

Morgellons.org states:

Note: Although California represents 12% of the US population, 26% of all who have registered with the Morgellons Research Foundation reside in California

Now it's tempting to say things like "California is full of dirty hippy druggies!", but that's not really true. Besides, most of the Morgellons sufferers are nice middle-aged white women.

So, why this disproportionate number of Morgellons sufferes from California?

Note what the above is measuring - it's a percentage of all who have registered with the Morgellons Research Foundation. i.e, over the internet.

How do people find out about Morgellons - on the internet.

How do people share their photos of fibers - on the internet.

How do people form communities to share stories of their illness?

The internet - a common factor in Morgellons suffers.

Morgellons is an interesting syndrome because of the visual aspect - fibers, and hence photos of fibers. Lots of sites have many many photos of fibers. These sites really need a broadband internet connection (DSL or Cable Internet).

In June 2004, California had 13 broadband lines per 100 persons, and the rest of the US had 9.

http://www.m9systems.com/broad_dep_2.html

Could it be that there is more Morgellons, because there is more broadband?

These simple figures don't tell the whole story either - California's population is clustered into cities. The Morgellonites in CA also cluster around the four major population centers. In those population centers, the access to broadband internet is unparalleled through the United States. People in Urban California have the best availability to broadband internet in the country.

If Morgellons is a phenomenon fueled by the internet, then obviously there would be more cases in California.

California is a unique state in many ways - perhaps there are some other factors?

The Chain of Chance - Introduction

2006-04-16T14:40:00.000-07:00

In the book "The Chain of Chance", by Stanislaw Lem, a detective is investigating a series of mysterious deaths occuring to foreign businessmen at a seaside spa. If you'd like to read the book, then don't read this article, as they share many of the same themes.

Consider a magic trick - a performer is in a fairly large theater, it holds 2000 people. He asks them all to take out a coin and flip it. He then asks all the people for who the coin comes up heads to flip it again. This repeats, and more and more people are eliminated. Eventually after ten tosses, only one person remains - the magician calls this person to the stage, the winner.

Now consider this from the point of view of the person who "wins". They flip the coin, it comes up heads - they flip it again and again, it keeps coming up heads! Something must be going on? From their perspective, the continual heads is very surprising.

But it had to happen to someone.

Consider now, that 5% of the US population have some form of Eczema. That's about 15 million people (out of a total US population of 300 million)

Consider furthur, that 2.2 million Americans have Obsessive-Compulsive disorder, that's about 0.73% of the population.

Now, assuming an even spread, then of our 15 million people who have eczema, then 0.73% of them will have both eczema and OCD. That's 110,000 people.

The numbers get larger if we consider the number of americans who have a Major Depressive Disorder. That's 9.5% of our 15 million, or 1,425,000 people who have Eczema and a Major depressive disorder.

So out of those, who also has Fibromyalgia? Well, the prevelence of Fibromyalgia is 1.36%, so out of the people who have a major depressive disorder, and Eczema, then 19,380 also have Fibromyalgia.

So that means nearly 20,000 people will have the combined symptoms of:
- Eczema
- A Major Depressive Disorder
- Fibromyalgia.

That means they will have
- Intense itching
- Rash
- Lesions
- Major Depression
- Abnormally irritable mood
- Fatigue
- Brain fog
- And several other symptoms.

Some of these 20,000 people meet one-another and compare symptoms. They find they have the same symptoms. They figure they have the same disease. They call it Barstow Syndrome after the town it was first discovered in. They form a support group, they start a web site, more people find out about it, everyone thinks it's a real disease. They start to speculate as to the cause of the disease.

But there is no Barstow Syndrome - they are simply the 20,000 people who were unlucky enough to get combined Eczema, Major depression and Fibromialgia all at the same time. From their point of view this is very unlikely. But right now, 20,000 people HAVE all three problems. It's just simple statistics. It's unfortunate for them, but it's nothing special.

The Barstow Syndrome Research Institute dislikes this analysis. How likely is it, they ask, that all these people, thousands and thousands, all have the exact same symptoms? Well, as we just saw, it's not only likely, it's inevitable. Like the guy who tosses heads ten times in a row - it just had to happen to someone. It HAD to happen to 20,000 people.

The Chain of Chance

2006-04-15T17:30:00.000-07:00

How many people in the USA have both Eczema and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder? Of these, how many also have Fibromyalgia?

More to come later, when I work out some numbers.

The far side of Morgellons meets the near side.

2006-04-14T18:03:00.000-07:00

In the Morgellons community, there are several folk who think that their problems are due to some kind of genetically modified organism, typified by this post from TamTam

Fibers are stray target of experimental biology.
In particular experimental micro biology class 3 (C3)

That cellulose type fibers move on its own is because it are micro organisms that go dormant (pseudo apoptotic) In particular micro organisms that breath and become static because of low metabolism.
During formation they show nerve cell type behavior.

Nerve cell type behavior they will show in particular when they unite as a fiber most resembling a shaft that is related to the mold of the cyanobacterium.

This dominant type gene expression in the form of a semi autonomous and sensing fiber is in fact a break away group cell.
A variant form.

Its character is inbetween plant(cellulose) and insect (chitin)cell.

Single cell micro organisms with an aquired property called quorum sensing will make the organisms act multi cellular.

Quorum sensing is a stem cell like property.
Quorum sensing micro organisms unite hence differentiate during formation of a multi cellular organism.

Hence multi lineage differentiation synonymous with stem cell.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fast dividing tissue forms a base(culture medium) for this organism.
This type target can only be kept alive and cultered in test animal.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fibers show inbetween behavior like "plant cell that think they are insect cell"

The agent its intermediate stage resembles a protoplasm.
A transparent cloud with basic properties preserved.

All elements are quorum sensing
All elements differentiate

check: chitin / cellulose wound dressing

TamTam writes in an unusual way. Declarative sentences with little explanation. This reminds me of the way AIs are portrayed in Science Fiction. Or perhaps someone with a brain wired a particular way - maybe Asbergers (not that there's anything wrong with that, Bill Gates has often been diagnosed with Asbergers).

TamTam is probably responsible for this video:

http://www.silentsuperbug.com/

Which shows text similar to the above, overlaid on footage of some microscopic video.

Interstingly, mainstream Morgellons hits fringe Morgellons when Randy Wymore analyses this video on mogellon.org
http://morgellons.org/rwupdate.html
He basically says "there is no science here", but uses several more word, trying to be kind.

Morgellons Fiber Photo Galleries

2006-04-14T15:53:00.000-07:00

There are a surprising number of Morgellons photos on the web. There seem to be a few basic types. Here's a few, who knows, maybe someone here is actually infected with something?

Morgellons.org - Images page
http://morgellons.org/images.html
Scabs and lesion scraping with cloth fibers (probably cotton) embedded in them. Two stained photos of paper fibers. Some SEM photos of slightly crusted skin with a few fibers seming to poke through, probably vellus hairs and stray paper fibers.

Ron Wells - Critter
http://rewells.com/Ordeal/page2.htm
Several close-ups of a largish sebum plug (hardened zit or blackhead), from his nose.

Ant Guy - Photos
http://antguy.50megs.com/photo.html
Various - sebum plugs, dead insects, tufts of fur, flakes of skin,

Carrie, Orion and Patti from Lymebusters - Photos
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/lymebusters/my_photos
A mixed bag - some poor quality microscop pictures of nothing. Some hairs and fibers (described as filaria - parasitic baby worms). Scabs. "Amber fluid" (sebum). Fungal toenails.

Cherokee Chas
http://www.texramp.net/~chazman/MorgImgs.htm
All scabs with clothing fibers embedding in them.

Ruth - Stormsky22000
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/stormysky22000/my_photos
Dead insects. Hairy scabs. Congealed blood and fluids with fibers. Sebum plugs. Possible colon polyp or worm. She even has one photo titled "tissue stuck on lesion becomes..." Ya think?
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/stormysky22000/detail?.dir=effc&.dnm=54ae.jpg

Uk Guy
http://morgellons.shutterfly.com/action/
Sebum plugs, hairballs, loose fibers, and combinations of the above.

Funtigo - Ann Dill ?
http://www.funtigo.com/AnneDill?g=1029121&cr=1&amp;amp;amp;rfm=y
Huge page with lots of photos. Mostly skin flakes, coagulated blood, possibly mixed blood/sebum.

Another Pattie
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/pattismorgellons/my_photos
Plant Material. Tissue fibers. Sebum fragments. Fuzz balls. Things "from urine" ! I can't go on...

Tea-tree objects identified

2006-04-11T20:00:00.000-07:00

(The latest version of this article can be found here:
http://morgellonswatch.wordpress.com/2006/04/11/tea-tree-objects-identified/)

Over on the incredibly long biology-online thread, someone was going into great detail on his experiences with tea-tree oil. He posted a link to a photo album:

http://morgellons.shutterfly.com/action/

I'd expect a lot of fiber photos, but was surprised to find most of the photos were of things that looked like blobs of some kind of gelatinous stuff, like this:

(lots more on the site, check it out).

Intrigued, I read that all he did was rub tea tree oil on his arm, and the fibers appeared. Fibers? He must include these blobs as some kind of compressed fiber.

Anyway, I got some tea tree oil and rubbed it onto my arm - smelly stuff!

Nothing seemed to be happening for a while, I notice the small hairs stuck to the skin, maybe that's what people were seeing. Hmm, or maybe as the oil drys, the hairs pop up?

Nothing really going on, I stared at my arm, shining a flashlight, wishing I had a magnifying glass. Then suddenly I noticed a tiny little speck at the base of one hair. Whoa! I'm infected! I pinch the skin, and gently scrape it off with a sharp knife, and transfer it under the microscope, x200.

Hey, that looks familiar - it's a "fiber" thing. I have Morgellons!

Zoom out a little:

It's about 1mm long, 0.25 mm wide. Not sure where that fiber came from.

Okay, so I'm not itching. I probably don't have Morgellons. So what is this thing?

It's a sebum plug.

Hair on your arms is rooted in little pits called follicles. Sebaceous glands in the follicle secrete an oil substance called sebum. The follicles can become blocked (both with or without a hair growing from them). A plug of sebum forms in the follicle and can harden.

Tea tree oil dissolves the material (skin and hardened sebum) blocking the top of the follicle, and allows the sebum plug to emerge. Tea tree oil is a well-known treatment for blocked pores.

Tiny fibers could quite easily become trapped in the follicle and become part of the sebum plug. Not many of the photos actually have fibers though.

Shutterfly guy - you are collecting sebum plugs.

He also has a video of a sebum plug dissoving in some alcohol. It's quite an energetic dissolution - titled "supernova". Sebum is fat, alcohol dissoves fat. Fat is semi-soil and dissolving it is a naturally violent reaction due to localized changes in surface tension and density.

Here's the big picture of my sebum plug, produced from my arm by the application of tea tree oil.:

Not photos of Morgellons.

Here's another sebum plug (60x)

You can see how people might think it was some kind of fibrous organism

(The latest version of this article can be found here:
http://morgellonswatch.wordpress.com/2006/04/11/tea-tree-objects-identified/).

Fibers are Everywhere

2006-04-11T15:36:00.000-07:00

Right now you are surrounded by billions of fibers.

This is perfectly natural, since fibers are everywhere. But if you think you might have a fiber disease such as Morgellons, then you need to able to distinguish normal fibers from fibers that are part of the disease.

Here's a quick experiment. Turn your monitor off for a second and look at the screen. Covered with dust right? Look closer (get a magnifying glass if you have one), you will see the dust is mainly comprised of tiny fibers, about 1/16th of an inch long (1mm or so).

Where do they come from?

The biggest sources of fibers in the home are paper products and clothing.

Paper products are things like facial tissues, toilet tissue and paper. Paper is actually MADE from fiber. When you tear paper, the edges look like this (60x magnification):

That's just regular letter sized paper, the kind you use in your printer. Paper is actually made of millions of fibers!

Here's the same piece of paper at 200x

Those are some pretty serious fibers. Tiny though, only about 20 microns in diameter. They are visible to the naked eye if you have good eyesight.

Another common paper product is facial tissues such as Kleenex. Here's some Kleenex at 60x:

See it's just like paper, made from millions of fibers - the fibers are just more spaced out to make it softer.

All paper products are basically the same, made entirely from cellulose fibers (extracted from wood).

What about clothes?

When you wash your clothes and dry them in the dryer, some of the fibers in the clothes come off, and that's what makes the lint. If you look at lint under a microscope, it looks like this:

You can see it's made from all different kinds of fibers, all different colors. Both from the clothes that were in the dryer, and other fibers the clothes might have picked up as you wore them, perhaps in contact with other clothes, or the clothes of other people you touched, or off furniture.

When paper, clothing or furniture shed fibers, the tiny fibers float around in the air and land on surfaces. Often they will land on you. If you take a fresh post-it pad and dab the sticky part over your face a few times, you will find it get quite a few fibers on it. Like this (10x):

Here's a close-up (60x):

Not many, but I bet you did not think there were any fiber on your face, eh?

So, all these fibers flying everywhere from natural sources. If they touch something soft, they stick to it. So you tend to always find a few embedded in (and under) scabs or any mucus-like stuff you have one your body. Like this:

Notice how the fibers here are just the same as the lint in the dryer. This indicates they are probably fibers from clothing. Paper fibers are probably there as well, just a bit harder to see.

What can we conclude?

There are lots of fibers on every surface and floating around in the air. This is not a bad thing, as the fibers are just paper or clothing fibers. The fibers will get on your skin, and get inside any damp lesion.

It's almost impossible NOT to find fibers on your skin. Everyone has them, just most people don't notice them, since they don't look closely enough.

Failing to make connections

2006-04-11T14:58:00.000-07:00

http://www.biology-online.org/biology-forum/about1958-1152.html

"Also, I have noticed that for me the colour of the fibres depends upon what colour is next to my skin. I was getting a lot of red fibres when I was wearing a red thermal. I have stopped wearing red and they changed to blue. I'll make a note when I change back to red."

Is this a clue? Is it possible the fibers sense what color you wear and change color to match - some kind of camouflage?

Or... could the fibers actually be coming from the clothes you wear?

Fibers, as I shall explain shortly, are everywhere.

Objects emerging from lesion on child's lip are Kleenex fibers

2006-04-11T12:26:00.000-07:00

(To add comments, please visit the new blog location)

Morgellons.org has, for a long time (since 2002), shown two pictures titled:

Objects emerging from lesion on child's lip at 200x

The two photos were probably taken with a QX3 microscope, and have an image size of 512x384 pixels (standard size for QX3 and QX5 microscopes) and they exhibit the characteristic lighting of QX microscopes.

Here is one of the photos from Morgellons.org:

Here is a photo I took on a QX5 at 200x

Notice the similarities. The size of the "structures" are almost identical. They exhibit a characteristic "flattening" in places. They have similar lengths, thickness and variety.

What are they? Kleenex tissue, stained with blood.

Here's the same thing at 10x

The only difference here is in the color, which can be accounted for by the lighting, and the amount of blood soaked into the sample. Mine just had a tiny bit of blood on it, so the fibers are not fully soaked.

So, the fibers that were found in a lesion on a child lip look exactly like Kleenex soaked in blood. Does it seem at all unlikely that if you (or your child) has some seeping lesions on their lip, then they might at some time dab them with a Kleenex, perhaps leaving a few fibers?

Morgellons.org also says the fibers "have tentatively been identified as cellulose". What is Kleenex made from? Cellulose (refined from wood pulp).

While this does not explain the dark fibers in other photos, it's an obvious and simple explanation for the "Objects emerging from a lesion", and Morgellons.org should no longer be claiming that these are somehow unusual, unidentified, hyphae-like structures.

They look exactly like Kleenex fibers, soaked in blood. That's probably what they are.

(To add comments, please visit the new blog location)

CliffMickelson: MORGELLONS WHAT WE DO AND DON'T KNOW ABOUT THE FIBER DISEASE!

2006-04-10T14:22:00.000-07:00

CliffMickelson: MORGELLONS WHAT WE DO AND DON'T KNOW ABOUT THE FIBER DISEASE!

CliffMickelson is a very interesting writer. He has spent some considerable time picking scabs, and theorizing about what might be contained therein. His musings make for some most amusing prose.

Similar to morgellons

2006-04-10T12:33:00.000-07:00

Somatization Disorder is a chronic condition in which there are numerous physical complaints that are caused by psychological problems.

Conversion Disorder is a similar condition

Polysymptomatic syndromes such as nonatopic, self-reported chronic sensitivities to multiple environmental chemical agents, or Multiple Chemical Sensitivities

Maybe Fungus

2006-04-09T23:32:00.000-07:00

Maybe some suffers have fungus?

http://www.doctorfungus.org/mycoses/human/human_index.htm

Seems reasonable

Tinea actually has hyphae and spores and is very common

Less common is T. pulvinata.

There are 20 species of dermatophytes

DermaTechRx

2006-04-09T16:35:00.000-07:00

Is it SCABIES?

Or is it really an Unidentified Parasite?

Or a total rip-off?

The site http://www.cure-skin-parasite.com/ is preying on the fears of people who think they have something along the lines of Morgellons.

They have a ridiculously long home page - fully of testemonials like

" Doctors said I was delusional and I knew what I had.. Those things hurt and I couldn't sleep! I had spent literally thousands of dollars on doctors & treatments that didn't work! I can finally say, after using your products and doing everything you suggested, I am finally parasite free! "

I'm convinced!

Unfortunately they have such a wide range of products for sale, that I don't know what to buy. Looks like the best value is the "Human Mite and Unidentified Parasite Family Superpack", recntly reduced from $339.95 to $199.95. Sweet! What do you get?

2-8oz. Mitactin Spray
1-8oz. PuraCleen Healing Spray
1 Gallon Rejuvenating Body Wash and Skin Conditioner
1 Gallon PuraCleen Disinfectant Cleaner
1-Free 2oz.Mitactin Salve
1-Mud Pack

Okay - let's look at their "Mitactin Spray", normally $39.95 for 8oz (or $199.95 for a Gallon). The ingredients are listed as : "Nonionic and anionic surfactants ". A surfactant is a "wetting agent", something that reduces the surface tension of liquids. Soap is a surfactant. Nearly all cosmetic creams contain one or more surfactant. How is this special? What does it do to the mites that any other soapy spray would not? Can't I just make my own from water and some 2-in-1 shampoo?

Solution of nonionic and ionic surfactants is used in the pesticide industry as "Adjuvants" - an additive to make the pesticide "wetter" and to spread over the surface of plants more. Perhaps that's where they got the idea from - pesticide without the harmful chemicals!

Next Up: The PuraClean Healing spray 8oz for $39.95 - now this actually has an active ingredient: Benzalkonium chloride. Yup, just one - and it's the same active ingredient as is in several other products, like the ringworm cream, and the skin burn cream. What is Benzalkonium chloride? It's "A yellow-white powder prepared in an aqueous solution and used as a detergent, fungicide, bactericide, and spermicide". According to Wikipedia it "must not be mixed with anionic surfactants" Whoops! Better not use it with your Mitactin spray! And don't use soap!

But benzalkonium chloride is at least known to work, such solutions are "rapidly acting anti-infective agents with a moderately long duration of action. They are active against bacteria and some viruses, fungi, and protozoa." - nothing about mites though. Probably covering the bases.

Bactine is a benzalkonium chloride spray. About $20 for 8oz. You can get 32oz for $6. It's sold as "Foot Rot and Ringworm Spray for cattle,horse, dogs". Some people are allergic to benzalkonium chloride.

Moving on, what do we get in our "1 Gallon Rejuvenating Body Wash and Skin Conditioner"? The "active ingredient" is again benzalkonium chloride, but we also have "hydrooxyethyl cellulose, propylene glycol, cetyl trimethyl ammonium chloride, octoxynol - 9, methyl paraben, citric acid, fragrance. " All these are normal inactive ingredients in cosmetic creams, except for octoxynol-9 which is a spermicide and an inhibitor of various pathogens. Huh? Sounds like an active ingredient to me. It's actually a non-ionic surfactant, perhaps as used in other potions.

Then: "1 Gallon PuraCleen Disinfectant Cleaner" ($69.95) - Purified water, cetyl trimethyl ammonium chloride, fragrance, color. and an active ingredient: Benzalkonium chloride. Just like the other things we got in the pack.

A note on "cetyl trimethyl ammonium chloride" aka Cetyltrimethylammonium chloride aka CTAC, aka cetrimonium chloride (and lots of other names) It's a cationic surfacant. Calling it CTAC is a bit obscurantist, as it's better known as Cetrimonium chloride. It's generally used in conditioners.

If you really want some of the magic ingredeint, Benzalkonium chloride, it's generic Zephiran, you can get it extra strength at Trask Research - where they make 1:750 aqueous solution. One gallon for $99.95. More expensive? but wait - for dermatology applications up to "oozing and open infections", you can use a 1:5000 solution. So that makes about 6.5 gallons, or just $15 per gallon! Yay! And a gallon is $640 worth of PuraClean Healing spray!

Finally the feebies - Micatin Salve is like Micatin spray, but as a salve, exact same ingredients. The "Mud Pack" contains "Diatomacious Earth, Rosemary Oil, Tea Tree Oil, & Antimicrobial formulas" and is "Manufactured in our FDA approved lab"

What does the FDA Recommend for lice?
http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/lindane/lindaneQA.htm#14
Scabies:
Crotamiton cream and lotion 10% (Eurax) - Rx
Permethrin cream 5%, (Acticin, Elimite) - Rx
Permethrin cream rinse 1% (Nix) - OTC
Head and pubic lice:
Malathion lotion 0.5% (Ovide) - Rx
Pyrethrum extract 0.33% with piperonyl butoxide shampoo (Rid) - OTC
Permethrin cream rinse 1% (Nix) - OTC

Hmm, DermaTech has none of the above.

How do fibers get under the skin?

2006-04-09T15:44:00.000-07:00

Fibers in Morgellons people are often described as being "under the skin", or "in the skin". They are also described as "coming out of the skin" when various liquids are applied.

However, the "under the skin" usually seems to refer to being "from a lesion", or "under a scab". Scabs form over several days, and it's quite possible the fibers might simply become mixed in with the normal lesion seepage, and become encased in the scab.

The skin's integrity has been compromised - there is a hole in it, so any kind of contaminant can get in it.

Likely sources of fibers:
- clothes
- tissues
- bedding
- pets
- airborne fibers from any number of sources

Another thing that might be mistaken for a fiber is a "vellus hair". This is a tiny hair, less than 30 microns in diameter, found all over the body, but almost invisible to the naked eye.

If some fibers are vellus hairs, then they are already in the skin. Ingrown hairs are possible explanation.

What about the application of liquid causing the fibers to come out?
- for fibers that are nearly invisible, getting them wet can change the refractive index, causing them to be more visible.
- coating fibers or hairs with a liquid increases their effective diameter, making them more noticeable.
- application of liquid can cause "goose-bumps", causing hairs (including vellus hairs) to stand on end, and become more noticeable. The bump in the skin may be interpreted as the fiber "pushing" itself out of the skin.
- wet skin will attract air-bourne fibers, which will then stick to the skin.
- applying the liquid will cause some hairs to stick to the skin, as the liquid dries they will gradually pop up, making it look like they are coming out of the skin.
- some liquids may make hairs and fibers actually less noticeable (depending on both the liquid and the fiber). Again, as the liquid dries, the hairs will become noticeable.
- some liquids contain salts. As they dry, they deposit the salts on the surface of vellus hairs, leading to increased visibility.

Eczema vs. Chemtrails

2006-04-09T15:29:00.000-07:00

Google search for morgellons eczema = 494 results
Google search for morgellons chemtrails = 420 results

A lot of people believe that chemtrails are connected to Morgellons. Chemtrails afficionados often point to "fibers" being found in chemtrails, so it's a natural link.

An early exchange

2006-04-09T14:51:00.000-07:00

Back in July 2002, Mary Leitao posted a request for help on the medhelp.org buletin board, and entered into a brief discussion with Dr Rockoff (a dermatologist). Dr Rockoff was very polite. After a few back and forth exchanges the thread devolved into a "me too!" state.

Dr Rockoff's responses are very reasonable, and should be a model for similar exchanges.

http://www.medhelp.org/perl6/dermatology/messages/31706a.html

Atopic Dermatitis, Scabies, et al.

2006-04-09T14:38:00.000-07:00

Patients claiming to have Morgellons frequently present symptoms of Atopic Dermatitis (which is coded 691.80, amusingly I saw someone claim this was the insurance code for morgellons - that's probably what the doctor told them so they would get their prescription filled).

http://www.niams.nih.gov/hi/topics/dermatitis/

and

http://www.aafp.org/afp/990915ap/1191.html

Atopic Dermatitis symptoms are:
- Itching
- Rashes
- scratching
- Inflammation

How does Morgellons differ from Atopic Dermatitis?

And how does it differ from scabies - it seems with all these known diseases out there that cover the symptoms, why invent new diseases? Scabies actually is caused by a mite that burrows into the skin.

A long thead with a sprinkling of rationality

2006-04-09T14:14:00.000-07:00

An interesting thread over here, on a mainstream forum:

http://www.biology-online.org/biology-forum/about1958.html

Particularly interesting are the posts by "CliffMickelson", someone who also seems to be devotee of Chemtrails and other unusual sky phenomena. Also of note is "tamtam". Both big on the quorum sensing, etc.

Hypha? Hair?

2006-04-09T11:40:00.000-07:00

Consider the photos here:
http://www.morgellons.org/symptoms.html

* "These structures can be described as fiber-like or filamentous"
* "The unknown fibers associated with skin lesions can be described as coenocytic (aseptate), smooth-walled, branching, filamentous objects. The fibers have been analyzed by FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy) and have tentatively been identified as cellulose."
* "The fibers are clearly hyphae-like structures, and yet, do not fall within the description of known hyphae or pseudohyphae"

So can the items in the photos be described as "coenocytic" or "hyphae-like"? The two photos are titled "Objects emerging from lesion on child's lip at 200X". Now given this "200X", how long does that make the "objects"? We can't really say, as the images themselves could be scaled to any size. But approximately, the "fibers" on my screen are 40mm long, and 2mm thick. This makes them 0.2mm long, and 0.01mm thick. (200 microns by 10 microns, where 1 micron=0.001mm). This puts them approximately in the same scale as hyphae (the living, growing parts of fungi, tiny tubes filled with cytoplasm and nuclie).

On an old page at morgellons.org, that is still up, but seemingly not linked to, it says:
"The fibers are clearly hyphae-like structures, and yet, due their immense size (150 microns wide), they do not fall within the description of known hyphae or pseudohyphae. "
Huh? Even if measuring off 1:1 the screen, then at 200x magnification, 150 microns would appear as 30mm wide (about an inch). Plainly the objects are not 150, and are more like 15 microns thick. Either that or the photos are labled incorrectly. However, the SEM photos clearly show "fibers" that are about 15 microns.

Hypha can be both septate and aseptate (Coenocytic). Septate hyphae are divided by cross section segments called septa. Aseptate hyphae are not. Detrmining if a structure is septate or aseptate is difficult with the images provided, as the most of the structures are out of focus. The clearest structure (in the first image) actually shows some evidence of being septate, rather than aseptate. The picture appears to have been taken with reflective light (from above), and a better determination could be made with transmissive light (from below). Additionally, the specimen should be mounted on a slide and stained to enhance contrast.

Additional stained images are given here:
http://www.morgellons.org/images.html

However, this photo does not resemble the first photos at all, clearly they are different structures, much longer, and smoother.

Then we have some SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) photos. These photos reveal surface features.

Here we have a scale, showing the object is about 15 microns thick. Human hair is generally described as "60-100 microns in diameter", which would seem to eliminate that as a candidate. However, that is the diameter of full grown head hair (a "terminal" hair). Finer new grown body hair will emerge with an initial diameter that is much smaller, children are covered in "vellus" hair, which has a diameter of under 30 microns.

Going back to the first photo, since the "structures" here are from a lesion on the lip of a child", and the lesions clearly extend beyond the actual lip surface, then is it not reasonably to think they might be vellus hairs, coated in some viscous liquid (blood, puss or sebum)?

In this photo of the site from which the specimen was obtained:

You can clearly see what look like vellus hair in the lower portions of the image

Use of words

2006-04-09T10:50:00.000-07:00

Morgellons proponents sometimes use technical language in describing their findings. I feel this clouds the meaning somewhat.

consider:

http://www.morgellons.org/symptoms.html
"The unknown fibers associated with skin lesions can be described as coenocytic (aseptate), smooth-walled, branching, filamentous objects. The fibers have been analyzed by FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy) and have tentatively been identified as cellulose."

What does this mean?

coenocytic - I like how this is "explained" as being "aseptate", as if this will somehow help the reader understand. Of course, you can look these words up, on the internet.

Coenocytic basically means cells with multiple nuclei. Aseptate can mean the same thing, but more literally means lacking the cell walls (septate) between nuclei. This type of cellular growth is typical of the threads of many fungi and some algae. See:
http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/faculty/wong/BOT135/Lect03_b.htm

"Smooth walled" seems a little odd, as the example photos at the top of the "symptoms" page do not look smooth walled at all. The next set of photos show some very thin black fibers, that appear at first glance to be smooth walled (but you can't really tell), which surround a much thicker white fuzzy object. Where did "smooth walled" come from?

"FTIR" is your standard chemical spectography thing. You measure the absoption of various wavelengths of light, and that gives you graphs you can compare against known substances to see if it matches. A tentative identification as "cellulose" is not surprising. Cellulose is the most abundanant form of living biomass on the planet. Cotton, for example, is composed largely of cellulose (91% cellulose, 8% water, 1% other).
http://www.tis-gdv.de/tis_e/ware/fasern/baumwoll/baumwoll.htm. Other cellulose fibers are linen, ramie, rayon, tencel and lyocell all of which are almost purely cellulose. Paper and paper tissues are also largely comprised of cellulose fibers.