Mysterious Morgellons Disease: Biotechnology Gone Awry or Simple Psychosis?
Pastor Dale Morgan
Mysterious Morgellons Disease: Biotechnology Gone Awry or Simple Psychosis?*
by Mel Possehl
(NaturalNews) There’s a feeling of bugs crawling under your skin, day
and night; continuously haunting you. Sharp stings from what feels like
bees constantly torment you, keeping you awake for days on end. Intense
burning and itching from these unseen forces invade your life, robbing
you of your everyday activities, causing fear and agony as the time
wears on, with no end in sight. To top it all off, to your horror you
discover that strange red, blue, black, white, and translucent fibers
are literally coming out of your pores, accompanied by strange black
specks. Then the fatigue and joint pain begin.
Sound like something out of a science fiction movie? It’s not. Everyday
thousands of people across the country are experiencing these horrible
symptoms. Many times, their family and friends do not believe, and leave
them to endure their suffering alone. They are called crazy. They are
told they have delusions of parasites, or DOP for short. They are
labeled, ridiculed, humiliated, and most of all, scared. They have a
condition known as Morgellons Disease.
History
A distraught mother, Mary Leitao, named Morgellons Disease, also called
Morgellons Syndrome or the fiber disease, back in 2002. Her then 2 year
old son, Drew, had a rash on his chin that would not go away, and he
kept complaining, “Mommy, bugs”, and pointing to it. She found
dandelion-like tufts in it and, being a biologist, studied them under
her microscope. They were nothing like she had ever seen before.
After having been dismissed by multiple pediatricians, allergists, and
dermatologists, even labeled as having Munchausen's by proxy, she
started her own research. This lead her to discover a 17th century
French medical article describing an infliction named morgellons, in
which black hairs emerge from the skin of the children inflicted.
Although there is nothing to link the two, at least now she had a name
for it.
She put up a website, morgellons.org, hoping to get professional help.
Instead, she began receiving numerous letters, emails, and phone calls
from people with the same symptoms. Realizing the scope of the problem,
she started The Morgellon’s Research Foundation, a non-profit she runs
from the basement of her home. People with symptoms can now go to her
site and register as sufferers of the illness. As of this writing, April
4, 2008, there were 12,106 registered affected families.
The Medical Community
In medical circles, the people suffering from this affliction are many
times labeled as delusional. The fibers brought in are thought to be
just another part of the delusion, called ‘matchbox’ or ‘Ziploc’
symptoms, coined for the containers patients use to bring in specimens
as ‘proof’. Dr. Noah Scheinfeld, an assistant professor of dermatology
at Columbia University, stated in a CNN interview that the disease is
all in their heads, people are picking at themselves, and they are doing
it for various reasons. He further explains that when they have the open
sores, they shove the fibers in themselves.(1)
Even searches for Morgellons on the American Academy of Dermatology
website as well as the Infectious Diseases Society of America produce no
results. Some people believe this collective dismissal is Semmelweis
Reflex, a term named for a 19th century physician who was ostracized by
his colleagues for believing doctors should wash their hands between
patients, thereby reducing the instance of puerperal fever. It is
characterized by the dismissing or rejecting out of hand any
information, automatically, without thought, inspection, or experiment.
Other professionals, however, are not so quick to dismiss.
Randy Wymore is an associate professor of pharmacology and physiology at
Oklahoma State University, and is now the Director of the OSU-CHS Center
for the Investigation of Morgellons Disease. He put out a formal
position statement(2) in June of 2007, stating, among other things, that
the condition known as Morgellons is not delusions of parasites,
neurotic excoriations, or the DOP-like symptoms that can be found in
crystal-meth users or other addicts, nor is it those symptomatic with
severe skin problems.
He also states that at this time, they do not know the cause of
Morgellons, what the fibers, specks, or other ‘shed’ material is
composed of, nor any effective treatment. He has studied the fibers, and
with the help of the Tulsa Police Department’s forensic lab, concluded
that they do not match any of the 900 or so commercially available
textiles in their database. They even tested if it matched any of 85,000
known organic materials by heating it to 700 degrees F, which should
have vaporized it, but had no effect.(3) He has a team in place and is
hopeful that with thorough research, they will begin to find answers to
shed some light on this mystery.
Ahmed Kilani is an infectious diseases microbiologist who runs Clongen
Laboratories. He has ran tests on the fibers from victims for such
things as leishmaniasis, a disease transmitted by sand flies, as well as
protozoal infections and fungal disease, only to come up empty handed.
He is now serving on the MRF scientific advisory board.(4)
Not Just the Medical Community Is in Doubt
Delusions are commonly defined as a fixed false belief, and are used in
everyday language to describe a belief that is false, fanciful or
derived from deception. The psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers
was the first to define the three main criteria for a belief to be
considered delusional in his book General Psychopathology. These
criteria are:
* certainty (held with absolute conviction)
* incorrigibility (not changeable by compelling counterargument or proof
to the contrary)
* impossibility or falsity of content (implausible, bizarre or patently
untrue)
Based on these parameters, is it possible that thousands of people,
across the country and some in other parts of the world, are all
suffering the same delusion? Could this really be just a fake illness,
or a mix of illnesses perpetuated by the internet? Some say yes, such as
a man only named as ‘Michael’, who runs the website MorgellonsWatch.com
. He contends that the evidence indicates:
1. The fibers are environmental and unrelated to any illness
2. Morgellons is not a distinct disease
3. People who think they have Morgellons "probably have a mixed variety
of physical and/or mental illnesses.”
There is an active forum at the site as well, some claiming to have the
illness and many debunking any news that comes out about it. While there
is never anything wrong with an active debate, Dr. Wymore warns in his
statement:
“Amateur debunkers carry no weight in academia and have no relevance in
the discussion of Morgellons Disease in the scientific community”.
He goes even further with an invitation:
“...to any amateur debunker who feels they can compete in the
professional scientific arena to submit an abstract to a conference or
manuscript to a scientific journal”.
He believes that the results would be “laughable” –- though probably not
to the debunker.
From what I have found on these sites, there are definitely lively
arguments, some that make sense, and others that do not. None has
answered the question of how or why so many people could come up with
the same symptoms, such as fog-headedness, fatigue, joint pain, itching
& burning, and the same odd matching fibers of various colors that
fluoresce under light, that doctors have found and extracted from under
unbroken skin.
Theories
As with any mystery, Morgellons has no shortage of theories. A common
theory is governmental experimentation through chem-trails. Others
believe it is warfare -- biological weaponry from terrorists. Some even
believe it is something in the water, put there for population control.
A few people believe it is aliens. The most popular theories, on the
other hand, seem to revolve around biotechnology and nanotechnology,
which may not be far off.
Take for instance the findings of Vitaly Citovsky, a plant biologist
whose lab showed that Agrobacterium, bacteria that utilizes horizontal
gene transfers to cause tumors in plants and is a key factor in genetic
engineering, could transform organisms by transfer of DNA, including
human cells. He was contacted by the MRF to investigate the potential
presence of the Agrobacterium in Morgellons patient’s biopsies. His
control included healthy donor samples as well as those from the
patients. Only those with Morgellons tested positive. He put out a
statement on his involvement in the research in which he says that these
findings do not prove that Agrobacterium causes Morgellons nor that it
is in fact, an infectious disease; only that the results indicate the
need for further research.
Transgenic crops and horizontal gene transfer have been seriously
debated topics with the emergence of more and more genetically
engineered food. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, Director of the Institute of Science in
Society, has studied this in depth, and has made frequent
representations to the government on the topic. Her concerns are over
the spread of transgenic DNA. Due to DNA being present in all
environments, and the fact that cells can take up free DNA, it is not
just the cross pollination of crops that is worrisome, but the transfer
to unrelated species as well.
She also states that “horizontal gene transfer is one of the most
serious, if not the most serious hazard of transgenic technology”. She
has been bringing this to regulator’s attention since 1996, when she
says there was “already sufficient evidence to suggest that transgenic
DNA in GM crops and products can spread by being taken up directly by
viruses and bacteria as well as plant and animal cells”.(7)
What is a main transfer source for this DNA? Agrobacterium tumefaciens,
the same bacteria as those found in the Morgellons patients.
Further disturbing is research that I have found being conducted by the
National Textile Center. Their goal is as follows:
“To develop fabrics that contain micro-fabricated bio-environments and
biologically activated fibers. These fabrics will have genetically
engineered bacteria or mammalian cells incorporated into them, that will
enable them to generate and replenish chemical coatings and chemically
active components”.(8)
What does this mean? They want to make drug-producing bandages, clothing
that has genetically engineered bacteria on it that eats away a person’s
body odor, and even clothing that cleans itself by way of regenerating
dust and water repellent.
This is aptly referred to as biologically active fibers and
micro-environments. This is not something that is far off in the future
either. Their annual report, dated November 2001, states:
“We have genetically engineered bacteria that allow for the non-invasive
quantification of bacterial viability and function in fibers and
fabrics. We are developing techniques for introducing and culturing
these bacteria in select hollow fibers”.
Hmm, sounds oddly familiar.
One researcher in particular, Dr. Hildegarde Staninger, has done
extensive research into the field of nanotechnology and its relationship
to Morgellons. While the body is well equipped to rid itself of toxic
materials, she says this is not the case with nano-size foreign bodies,
as in the case of Morgellons, saying they “have a mind of their own as
it riddles the body with its fibers and continuous self-replication”.
She further believes that “its environmental impact will be far greater
than DDT, PCB’s and asbestos have ever been”.(9) It is indeed a very
frightening outlook.
Whether any of these theories are in fact related or not is yet to be
determined. The only thing that is known for sure, at this point, is
that people are suffering. Thankfully, due to a major upsurge of
complaints and contacts from people in recent years, the CDC has finally
decided that this “Unexplained Dermopathy” warrants some investigation,
and has contracted Kaiser Permanente in Northern California as a partner
to investigate the affliction. They have strict parameters as to who
will be eligible to participate in the study, and are putting a
time-frame of 12 months or longer on the project.
Hopefully in time they will be able to find answers to the questions
plaguing the victims of this horrible disease.
References:
1. "CNN.com - Transcripts - Aired August 19, 2006 - 08:30 ET". CNN.
April 4, 2008 ((http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/...) .
2,5. Wymore, Randy S. "Morgellon Position Statement". Oklahoma State
University Center for health Sciences. April 3, 2008
((http://www.healthsciences.okstate.edu/m...) .
3,4. Schulte, Brigid. "Figments of the Imagination?". The Washington
Post. April 3, 2008 ((http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co...)
"Delusions". Wikipedia. April 4, 2008
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusions) .
6. Citovsky, Vitaly. "Clarification from Vitaly Citovsky". Morgellons
Hope. April 3, 2008 ((http://www.morgellonshope.com/index2.ph...) .
7. Ho, Dr. Mae-Wan . "Recent Evidence Confirms Risks of Horizontal Gene
Transfer". Institute of Science in Society. April 3, 2008
(http://www.i-sis.org.uk/FSAopenmeeting.php) .
8. "Development of Bio-Active Fabrics - National Textile Center Annual
Report: November 2000 ". The National Textile Center. April 3, 2008
((http://www.ntcresearch.org/pdf-rpts/AnR...) .
9. Staninger, PhD, Hildegarde. "The Staninger Report - Morgellons: A
Nano-911 Foreign Invader". Integrative Health Systems, LLC. April 3, 2008.