Morgellons: Terrifying New Disease Reaching Pandemic Status

(NaturalNews) It sounds like something from a bad sci-fi movie. People report the sensation of creatures crawling under their skin, mysterious moving fibers appear, and finally bugs and worms pop out. Unfortunately, these terrifying symptoms are all too true. The people having them are experiencing Morgellons, the latest and scariest in the series of bizarre diseases appearing in the last few years, seemingly from nowhere. Morgellons is now reaching epidemic proportions in the U.S. and abroad.

Morgellons is a multi-dimensional disease

Morgellons starts with relentless itching, stinging or biting sensations. Cotton-like balls may appear on the body with no reasonable explanation. Soon skin rash develops along with lesions that will not heal. Many sufferers report string-like fibers of varying color popping out through the skin lesions. These fibers can be black, white, red or even iridescent blue. Others report black specks falling from their bodies that litter their sheets and bathrooms. Eventually a variety of bugs and worms begin to find their way out of the body through the lesions. Other accompanying symptoms include hair loss, debilitating and chronic fatigue, hard nodules beneath the skin, and joint pain.

Morgellons also has a cognitive aspect. People with the disease experience neurological damage that manifests as difficulty concentrating, inability to process and use language effectively, and generalized brain fog. The presence of reduced cognitive ability has made it easier for doctors to dismiss Morgellons and send patients away with a diagnosis of delusional parasitosis, meaning they are imagining they are infected by parasites. After the typical eight minute visit, traditional doctors pull out their prescription pads and write these people prescriptions for antidepressants or antipsychotic medications.

As a result, Morgellons also has a psychological component. Once people become aware that symptoms such as theirs are treated as delusions they are reluctant to seek further medical attention and tend to withdraw from society with their only contact with others being through the internet. They begin living the lifestyle of the leper. Many have to give up their jobs and become dependent on public assistance. This adds to the psychological debilitation of the disease. Not being taken seriously when you know you have a terrifying and devastating disease causes permanent psychological damage.

Morgellon's victims feel the resentment other patients do when they are told it is all in their heads. As Morgellon's progresses and the neurological symptoms become more manifest, patients can become difficult to care for and deal with. Isolated with only the internet, they become less able to effectively care for themselves. Some Morgellons patients have committed suicide.

It is a sad situation that the traditional doctor's visit must often end in a diagnosis, but the doctor is unwilling or unable to take the time to make sure it is a correct diagnosis. The traditional medical set up is frequently unable to deal with patients who present with a variety of diverse symptoms affecting several body systems at one time.

Oakland A's player Billy Koch and his family all have Morgellons. They have been open about their disease and have made some attempt to educate others. Billy had to retire from his baseball career as a result of the disease. Singer Joni Mitchell also has Morgellons, and the disease has negatively impacted her career as well.

Many morgellons victims end up trying to treat themselves

Anyone with Morgellons's symptoms will probably spend a lot of time going from doctor to doctor. While the unhelpful ones simply tell them they are delusional, the helpful ones prescribe a variety of creams used for scabies, ring worm and other parasitic diseases, but nothing works for more than a few days. With no help from the medical community, people with Morgellons turn to the internet where they learn the name for their disease and the names for the parasites that are coming through their skin. As a result of desperation and the lack of information about the disease except from chat boards, many victims end up trying a variety of toxic treatments at home.

Authorities on the disease are emerging

One of the few people to take the disease seriously was Randy Wymore, a neuroscientist at Oklahoma State University Center for Health Science. He received samples from a range of people who claimed the fibers had come through their skin. Although the samples all resembled one another, to him they looked like no other synthetic or natural fiber with which he compared them. He finally asked the Tulsa police department's forensics team to examine them.

The team identified the chemical structures of the fibers and compared them to their database of 800 fibers. They found no match, so they used gas chromatography to compare the fibers to their data on 90,000 organic compounds. The fibers did not match up with any of them. They concluded that the fibers were unknown, and not contaminants from clothing sticking to scabs on the lesions as had been thought by those so ready to dismiss what their patients were saying. Wymore and the forensic team concluded that the disease producing these fibers was very real and very frightening.

Wymore then asked the chief of the pediatrics department at Oklahoma State University Hospital, Rhonda Casey, to take a look at some of the patients. At first she was tempted to dismiss them too, but she began to realize how ill the people were. They had neurological symptoms that included confusion, loss of control of their feet that resulted in difficulty walking, and their mouths sagged when they spoke. Many had been diagnosed with neurological diseases.

Dr. Casey examined the patients, took biopsies of their lesions as well as from their healthy skin. Using a dermatoscope, she was able to observe fibers under completely unbroken skin. She found them embedded in the healthy tissue of the patients as well as the diseased tissue, and admitted seeing the full range of fiber colors. She reported seeing a lesion on a young girl's thigh with black fibers just barely protruding from it, and concluded that she could not have done this to herself.

Another person taking the disease seriously is Trisha Springstead, a registered nurse in Florida who has become a beacon of light for Morgellon's patients in the area. She has seen the fibers come through their skin, and has spent hours with patients extracting parasites embedded so deeply that a needle is required to extract them. According to her, a dermatoscope does not penetrate deeply enough to reveal the full extent of parasite involvement.

CDC begins epidemiologic investigation into Morgellons

In April, 2006, the CDC recommended an epidemiological investigation of what they were then referring to as a public health concern. In January, 2008 they announced a grant to health care giant Kaiser Permanente to test and interview 150 to 500 patients suffering from Morgellons. The study is being done in the Bay Area of northern California, where many Morgellons patients live. Kaiser Permanente doctors have been among the most ready to classify Morgellons as delusional parasitosis.

The National Center for Zoonotic, Vector-Borne, and Enteric Diseases (ZVED) provided statements posted on the CDC website regarding what the CDC now calls "Unexplained Dermopathy (aka Morgellons"). This organization was created in 2007 under CDC's Coordinating Center for Infectious Diseases. ZVED promotes itself as proving leadership, expertise, and service in laboratory and epidemiological science, bioterrorism preparedness, applied research, disease surveillance, and outbreak response for infectious diseases.

The term zoonotic refers to any disease that is able to jump the divide from animals to people. Microbes created for bioterrorism are zoonotic. There are many known zoonotic diseases, such as Lyme disease and malaria. Vectors are the transmitters of disease-causing organisms that carry the pathogens from one host to another. By common usage, vectors are considered to be invertebrate animals, usually arthropods. Technically, vertebrates can also act as vectors, including foxes, raccoons, and skunks, which can all transmit disease to humans through a bite. Mosquitoes and ticks are the most notable disease vectors, although mites and gnats may also carry disease. Enteric diseases are bacterial and viral infections of the gastrointestinal tract that account for an under appreciated burden of morbidity and mortality domestically and abroad.

The involvement of ZVED in creating the CDC webpage for Mogellons clearly implies acceptance by the CDC that Morgellons is a disease involving not just fibers but parasites.

ZVED's vision statement describes three goals: accelerating prevention, control, and preparedness of ecologically mediated microbial threats; global vision, global presence, global reach, and health impact; and working at the intersection of human, animal, and ecological health to achieve healthier people, places, and a healthier world.

The Morgellons, GMO link persists

About the time that Dr. Wymore's forensic investigation of fibers was completed, a specialist in infectious disease detection, Ahmed Kilani, claimed to have broken down two fiber samples and extracted their DNA. He found that they belonged to a fungus.

Meanwhile, Vitaly Citovsky, Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Stony Brook University in New York, discovered the fibers contained the substance Agrobacterium Tumafaciens, the bacteria causing crown gall disease in plants (formation of tumors in more than 140 species of dicot plants). It is a genus of gram-negative bacteria capable of genetically transforming not only plants, but also other eukaryotic species, including humans.

Anonymous samples were provided to Professor Citovsky by the Morgellon's Research Foundation to use in investigating the potential presence of Agrobacterium Tumafaciens in biopsies from Morgellon's patients. Control reactions included samples provided by healthy donors. Only Morgellons, not healthy subjects, tested positive for the bacterium in these studies.

Professor Citovsky issued a statement saying his observation does not imply that Agrobacterium Tumafaciens causes Morgellons, or that Morgellons is indeed an infectious disease. However, he has called for further study to determine (1) statistical significance of data, (2) whether the bacterium is not only present extracellularly, but also causes genetic transformation of the infected tissues, and (3) whether infection of laboratory animals with the bacterium can recreate symptoms of Morgellons.

Agrobacteerium Tumafaciens is a soil bacterium. Symptoms of grown gall disease are caused by the insertion of a small segment of DNA into the plant cell, which is incorporated at a semi-random location into the plant genome. They are parasitic and detrimental to the plant.

DNA transmission capabilities of Agrobacterium have been extensively exploited by biotechnologists as a means for inserting foreign genes into plants. They discovered the gene transfer mechanism between Agrobacterium and plants, and developed methods to alter Agrobacterium into an efficient delivery system for gene engineering in plants. This is done by cloning the desired gene sequence into the transfer DNA (T-DNA) that will be inserted into the host DNA. Under laboratory conditions the T-DNA has also been transferred to human cells, demonstrating the diversity of insertion application. The mechanism through which Agrobacterium inserts materials into the host cell is very similar to mechanisms used by pathogens to insert materials (usually proteins) into human cells.

For more information:

http://www.cdc.gov/unexplaineddermo...

http://www.cdc.gov/nczved/

http://www.psychologytoday.com/arti...

http://www.naturalnews.com/023004.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agroba...

I leave you with this:

COLLEMBOLA (SPRINGTAILS) (ARTHROPODA: HEXAPODA: ENTOGNATHA) FOUND IN SCRAPINGS FROM INDIVIDUALS DIAGNOSED WITH DELUSORY PARASITOSIS

Most also reported salt like crystals falling from their skin, they were all called DOP but turned out they have collembola infestations (tiny insects) which by the way, pseudomonas putida which I mentioned above that makes plastic (do some research) is the favorite food of this insect. Glitter was so much a part of it it's now on their questionaire.

The Gut of the Soil Microarthropod Folsomia candida (Collembola) Is a Frequently Changeable but Selective Habitat and a Vector for Microorganisms

A Quote:

F. candida (Collembola) preferred to feed on Pseudomonas putida and three indigenous gut isolates rather than eight different type culture strains.

Remember, these Collembola were found in folks who went to doctors and said they were infested with parasites and then told they were crazy, but later, it turns out there were not.

Now, look at what "pseudomonas putida" (our favorite food of Collembola can also do:

Training bugs to eat plastic… CSCB researchers team up to convert polystyrene into a biodegradable plastic

Don't tell me I'm crazy, I know far more about what is going on that you might think I do. The pieces of the puzzle add up as to what is going on in my body, something in my body (a man made chemical process I believe) is creating plastic in my body, and pseudomonas putida can readily do that from what is laying around in the human body, do some research, and it is the favorite food of the parasite they are finding in people. We have done our homework, like I say, we'd have to sit down and have a conversation for me to truly convey the condition and possible causes.

Finally, like I said Dr. Wymore cultured "pseudomonas putida" off of actual Morgellons fibers, is this all coincidence? Am I so insane and delusional sounding to you, hardly.

Interview with Dr. Wymore

Individual red and blue Morgellons fibers were placed in bacterial media and cultured at body temperature. Isolates of those bacterial populations were grown on lab preparative media, blood agar, chocolate agar and a type of media that tends to support fungi better than bacteria. The bacteria were stained with various stains and observed both alive and dead. The bacteria were separated out into pure cultures (I think). PCR was performed and the amplified DNA was sent to a commercial sequencing lab to do the DNA sequencing. Two different bacterial species were identified. They were: a) Pseudomonas putida and b) Corynebacterium efficiens.

This is but one, there are other, very good theories. But whatever is in me is some very strange stuff, and causes different things to occur depending on what it finds laying around in my body that it can use, and it attracts bugs to us like we are rotting logs.

Read my post above about Collembola and "Pseudomonas putida", I'm sure my remark about bioluminescence sent you over the edge, I'll leave you with this:

A bioluminescent derivative of Pseudomonas putida KT2440 for deliberate release into the environment

Recombinant derivatives of Pseudomonas putida strain KT2440 are of potential interest as microbial inoculants to be deliberately released for agricultural applications. To facilitate tracking of this strain and its derivatives after introduction into the environment, a mini-Tn5-'luxAB transposon was introduced into the chromosome of P. putida KT2440, yielding strain P. putida S1B1. Sequencing of the DNA region located upstream of the 'luxAB genes and similarity search with the P. putida KT2440 genome sequence, localized the transposon within a 3021-bp open reading frame (ORF), whose translated sequence showed significant similarity with the hypothetical YdiJ proteins from Escherichia coli and Haemophilus influenzae. A second ORF adjacent to and divergent from the ydiJ sequence was also found and showed significant homology with various LysR-type transcriptional activator proteins from several bacteria. Disruption of the ydiJ locus in P. putida S1B1 did not affect the survival of the strain in unvegetated or vegetated soils. Bioluminescent detection of P. putida S1B1 cells enriched in selective media directly from soil allowed detection of culturable cells in soil samples over a period of at least 8 months. The addition of the luxAB biomarker facilitates tracking in the root system of several plant species grown under sterile and non-sterile conditions. The correlation of the bioluminescent phenotype with the growth activity of P. putida S1B1 cells colonizing the root system of barley and corn plants was estimated by monitoring ribosomal contents using quantitative hybridization with fluorescence-labeled ribosomal RNA probes. A correlation between inoculum density, light output, and ribosomal contents was found for P. putida cells colonizing the root system of barley seedlings grown under sterile conditions. Although ribosomal contents, and therefore growth activity, of P. putida S1B1 cells extracted from the rhizosphere of corn plants grown in non-sterile soil were similar to those found in starved cells, the luminescent system permitted non-destructive in situ detection of the strain in the upper root system. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11102686

The truth is sir, you really are the one that is missing the facts, living in a delusion that what I am saying cannot be happening. Most of you have no clue what is happening, growing in the fields around your homes, being released into the environment with zero regulation.

I'm sorry, I just cannot fully explain what a Morgellons sufferer goes through, all of the symtpoms and experiences we go through, the descriptions you read in the media just barely begin to really explain it.

I am closely acquainted with another Morgellons patient, sharing some but not all of the symptoms you've described. I witnessed some of the unusual material being ejected from the skin. Whether this is a single unexplained syndrome, or a combination of known disease processes manifesting in unusual ways, I am convinced it is "real" in some patients. Some psychopathology is inevitable, whether primary or secondary, as no person harboring these physical symptoms could avoid being depressed and anxious, at a minimum. Best wishes to you.

Thanks, I think if one takes the time to look at the information I posted above regarding the study that found Collembola (a tiny insect) in those previosly written off as delusional, and that thier favorite food is Ps. Putida, and that Ps. Putida turns oils and other material into platic and that Dr Wymore cultured it off actual Morgellons fibers (but didn’t know in 2006 what the signifance was) and that they use this as a standard building block in GMO Corn and Soybean applications and that they have gene spliced bioluminescense into so they can trace it, it’s really not that far fetched at all. In fact, since Ps. Putida is a common soil bacterium (that has been hopped via GMO) this could explain how Morgellons existed back in the 1600’s from whence the name comes, perhaps somehow this got into people back then by some strange twist of fate, only now we’ve screwed with it, and it’s gone world wide through the food supply, but now, it’s more virulent and built to withstand anything. But there is more to it, it’s just not Ps. Putida, there is a good case to be made for an “Oomycete” playing a role in this as well, a very good case actually.

“I also had an uncle who would complain about bugs and other creepy crawlies on his skin.

Don’t rule out delerium tremens.”

Sometimes I think the internet does more harm than good.

In 2003 I woke up one morning blind in one eye. I was also suffering chronic fatigue, a sensation of water dripping down my legs, and a weird sensation of a “worm” moving in my head behind the affected eye.

(I didn’t really think there was actual worm -that’s just how I describe the sensation)

The first suspect on the list was MS, and that’s how they treated - infusion with steroids.
It took 2 weeks for the vision to come back, and I went through my 1st set of MRI’s.
During that time I was scouring the internet plugging my symptoms into search engines and coming up with all sorts of bizarre possibilities.

My MRI’s were clean. They ordered MRIs after another 6 months (6 months I spent online obsessing over it all)

2nd set of MRIs were clean. No MS - no nothing. The doctor told me to “put it out of your head - it was most likely a strange virus that caused your optic nerve to swell”

The eye doctor said neurological pain can have very strange sensations - he thought the “worm” in my head was due to the inflamed optic nerve.

It took awhile to put it out of head - but once I stopped trying to diagnose myself online I sure was alot happier.

Believe me I know about Lyrica. I cannot take it any longer. The swelling it caused in my joints was unbeliveable!

It must be nice reserving your judgment until the CDC study is finished! Meanwhile thousands suffer because there is no "study" to back up their claims!

Scythian, you have our prayers, I Know what It feels like to be be the only one. I am here for you if you need to talk! My beloved husband, saltnlemons, another FReeper has stood with me these 20 years. He is better at the keyboard then I am! Some days it really hurts to type. May God Bless you & your family!

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