Doctors puzzled over bizarre infection surfacing in South Texas

[donsu]

http://www.mysanantonio.com/global-includes/printstory.jsp?path=/news/metro/stories/MYSA051106.morgellans.KENS.32030524.html


If diseases like AIDS and bird flu scare you, wait until you hear what's next. Doctors are trying to find out what is causing a bizarre and mysterious infection that's surfaced in South Texas.

Morgellons disease is not yet known to kill, but if you were to get it, you might wish you were dead, as the symptoms are horrible.

"These people will have like beads of sweat but it's black, black and tarry," said Ginger Savely, a nurse practioner in Austin who treats a majority of these patients.

Patients get lesions that never heal.

"Sometimes little black specks that come out of the lesions and sometimes little fibers," said Stephanie Bailey, Morgellons patient.

Patients say that's the worst symptom — strange fibers that pop out of your skin in different colors.

"He'd have attacks and fibers would come out of his hands and fingers, white, black and sometimes red. Very, very painful," said Lisa Wilson, whose son Travis had Morgellon's disease.

While all of this is going on, it feels like bugs are crawling under your skin. So far more than 100 cases of Morgellons disease have been reported in South Texas.

-snip-

So far, pathologists have failed to find any infection in the fibers pulled from lesions.

"Clearly something is physically happening here," said Dr. Randy Wymore, a researcher at the Morgellons Research Foundation at Oklahoma State University's Center for Health Sciences.

Wymore examines the fibers, scabs and other samples from Morgellon's patients to try and find the disease's cause.
-snip-
----------------------------------------

[Avalux]

1. THIS STORY IS BOGUS. No such thing as Morgellon's disease.

I live in South Texas and I am an Infectious Diseases researcher - no truth to this story. :hi:

[KittyWampus]

7. is this a form of hysteria?

[Avalux]

10. Aren't any cases at all - everything about the story is false.

Someone went to the trouble of putting together a very elaborate prank by linking nonspecific symptoms; could be hysteria.

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. Ho do you explain this website?

http://www.morgellons.org/

[Avalux]

16. Fake.

Please trust my information - I work in the field and this is not a disease.

[Teaser]

21. You're just working at the behest of the pharmaco-industrial complex

You scientists and your crazy degrees and your big ideas...

[Avalux]

25. Actually, if I was -

I'd be promoting a shiny new drug to treat a condition that doesn't exist. :hi:

[Teaser]

31. Tru Dat

*laughs*

New New Fibro-SubCutex! Guaranteed to stop ringworm, psoriasis, crotch itch and imaginary filaments under your skin.

THE BUGS...THEY'RE ALL OVER ME...THE BUGS...THE WORMS...

[proud2BlibKansan]

29. Oh I believe you

I just think it looks like someone went to a lot of trouble putting this hoax together. I am a special ed teacher and I get email alerts of children's health issues. I got this a week or so ago. They also sent a map showing the disease is spreading all over the country. It was a slick website. I had no reason to doubt it and forwarded it to our school nurse. She had received an alert that it was BS. Or I would have believed it.

[Avalux]

37. It's unfortunate someone would do this -

If you ever get something like it in the future, call your local health department or the CDC to verify before sending it on to others. :hi:

[proud2BlibKansan]

38. That's why I sent it to our nurse

She's my own personal local health dept. :)

[insane_cratic_gal]

26. That was created by the person who penned the name.. A mom

of a kid who had the "disease"

more like bedbugs.

She named it herself

Across the country, thousands of people complaining of the same horrifying phenomenon have formed an illness subculture. They share lists of symptoms, medical speculation and tales of run-ins with mainstream doctors at www.morgellons.org, the official Web site of a group called the Morgellons Research Foundation. It was founded in 2002 by Mary Leitao in McMurray, Pa. Leitao named the condition Morgellons Disease--after a disease with similar symptoms mentioned in a 16th-century medical text--while investigating a skin affliction on her then-2-year-old son.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/medicine/1662162.html

[proud2BlibKansan]

30. Munchausen by proxy??

[Teaser]

34. That's what I'm thinking...

ugh...someone intervene soon here...

[insane_cratic_gal]

35. It's highly probable

I'd hate to think bad about anyone but it seems more probable then a sudden spread of some textile fiber alien crawling under people's skin

[proud2BlibKansan]

40. I used to think Munchausens by Proxy was BS too

till I had a student whose mom was making him sick deliberately. It was a very very sad situation and it took us forever to convince the child abuse authorities what was going on in the family.

These hoaxes really make me mad now.

[SmokingJacket]

11. Interesting article in Popular Mechanics...

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/medicine/1662162.html

Seems that it clears up really quickly when treated with anti-psychotic medication...

[ixion]

18. *snicker*

:rofl: nice one...

[TechBear_Seattle]

13. There are serious researchers who believe it is real

And the disease is Morgellons, not Morgellans.

[Avalux]

17. No serious researchers I know.

If you know who they are, I'd love to meet them and go over case histories. :hi:

[TechBear_Seattle]

20. I don't know any gay Republicans; that doesn't mean they don't exist

:hi:

Not too long ago, "serious researchers" were absolutely certain that Lyme disease was nothing more than hysteria; now we know better. I'm not saying that there is anything to this seeming infection; I'm just that widespread out-of-hand dismissal is not proof that there is nothing there.

Look at the website I linked. Do a Google search using the correct spelling of the name. Being a skeptic means keeping an open mind and looking at what work is being done.

[Avalux]

23. I am not just a skeptic.

Did you read my post above? I live in San Antonio (South Texas) and I am an Infectious Diseases researcher.

If you go to the website, Morgellan's is classified as an Infectious Disease. There is absolutely no data to back up that claim - there's no pathogen, and there's no epidimiological data to show transmission routes.

I really do know what I'm talking about.

[TechBear_Seattle]

27. I'm just saying

If the report is true that most physicians are dismissing this out-of-hand, would the CDC or the local health departments be notified? (I assume that you work in close contact with such an agency.)

It might behoove you and/or your agency actually to investigate the news reports and come to a studied conclusion rather than dismiss the matter. Regardless of whether or not Morgellons actually exists, there will no doubt be widespread panic. The appearance that there has not been a serious study by infectious disease researchers only feeds in to the conspiracies and paranoia. The only way to alleviate the panic is to look in to the matter seriously. Perhaps, as was the case with HIV and Lyme Disease, there really is something to these anecdotes. But until researchers actually do some research, we will never know and rumors will continue to grow and spread.

[Avalux]

32. Studied conclusion - there's nothing to study.

That's the point - the symptoms described in a handful of anecdotal stories on a website do not add up to anything. When a disease like HIV appears, there is a pathogen, a virus, causing the disease. Althought we didn't know exactly what it was, we know it was a virus and that it was legitimate. Same with lyme disease.

This fabricated disease was self-named by a mother and other people have latched onto it - there is absolutely no clinical or microbiological data to give "morgellon's disease" legitimacy.

Science is all about putting the facts or hard data at hand together and showing a pattern or a series of like events to reach a conclusion or a result. It's not about putting together a bunch of vague symptoms and calling it an INFECTIOUS DISEASE.

[demosincebirth]

22. Here is what came when i googled it

http://www.morgellons.org/

[Arugula Latte]

2. Holy crap!

:scared:

on edit: Okay, sparosnare says it's bogus. Hope so! (Whew)

[Warpy]

3. Nowhere on any of the websites about this "disease"

did I find a discussion of the composition of those fibres, except to say they were non textile.

I don't know what's going on in Texas, California and Florida, but nothing I've read so far has convinced me that there is a new disease out there that's being studied seriously.

I've got my skeptic's hat on and rakishly tilted today, in other words.

[SmokingJacket]

14. I read about it on the internet a few years ago...

I suspect it's either a total prank or the result of some kind of parasitophobic hysteria...

[global1]

4. Probably Spread By The Countless Mexicans Coming Into The US....

illegally over the border. Further justification that we have to close the border off and have it patrolled by our National Guard.
Will * bring this up tonight? (sarcasm)

[proud2BlibKansan]

41. LOL I was just thinking that too

One more reason to control our southern borders and keep those dirty Mexicans from coming across the border. :sarcasm:

[CottonBear]

5. delete. bogus story. n/t

[Jersey Devil]

9. Is it? Over 500 hits on it on Google

including a foundation for the disease.

http://www.morgellons.org/

[proud2BlibKansan]

42. Google doesn't give it legitimacy

It just reflects the number of hits searching for that term.

[Warpy]

43. DEAD GIVEAWAY

There is NO discussion of the "fuzzball" or "fibre" composition beyond saying it's "not textile."

If this were legitimate, you can bet the FIRST thing they'd do is find out what those fibres were made of (collagen? keratin?) and POST IT.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

6. ...

:popcorn:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=222&topic_id=7980

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=247&topic_id=6407

My 2cents - it's probably Delusional Parasitosos. I knew several meth-heads who had the same symptoms.

[donsu]

8. I got this article at the Project for the Old American Century

http://www.oldamericancentury.org/

[AngryAmish]

15. Not again

[Atman]

19. Sounds like a serious case of ...

BRUNDLEFLY!

[insane_cratic_gal]

24. Here's a link, but the person who created Morgellon was a reg person

not a doctor.


http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/medicine/1662162.html


snip:
Across the country, thousands of people complaining of the same horrifying phenomenon have formed an illness subculture. They share lists of symptoms, medical speculation and tales of run-ins with mainstream doctors at www.morgellons.org, the official Web site of a group called the Morgellons Research Foundation. It was founded in 2002 by Mary Leitao in McMurray, Pa. Leitao named the condition Morgellons Disease--after a disease with similar symptoms mentioned in a 16th-century medical text--while investigating a skin affliction on her then-2-year-old son.

[Recursion]

28. CFS

Caveat: I'm not a doctor and this is just my 2 cents.

Like so many problems it's just a sign of our immune systems breaking down due to toxins in the environment, stress, and poor nutrition. Unfortunately, people still have a 19th-century mindset of "1 disease = 1 external pathogen", which worked great for the great infectious diseases of the 19th and early 20th centuries but isn't helping us out much here. And, I'd add, this mindset is causing a lot of trouble. Look at AIDS: we found the retrovirus linked to it 20 years ago but can't seem to fix it because it was only in the past couple of years that we started addressing the immune breakdown as a whole rather than obsessing just about the one virus. Same with the various myalgias, gulf war syndrome, and now I guess morgellon's. There's not just one reason that a person's immune system starts to do bad things; this obsession with finding a single "bug" that's causing it is preventing more effective research from going forward, sadly.

IMO, these immune system / autoimmune problems are the result of environmental pollution and degradation of healthy lifestyles. Neither problem has a solution that makes pharmaceutical companies rich so there's not much money in researching them.

[Liberal Dose]

33. If it's a hoax, then A LOT of people are being fooled.

http://www.cbs47.com/news/reports/story.aspx?content_id=054BB3F6-AD04-44C8-BDA4-15B8ECA03DDD

[sinkingfeeling]

36. There is a link to the Morgellons Research Foundation at OSU and

a picture of Dr. Randy Wymore. Plus tens of thousands of hits.

http://www.morgellons.org/

http://centernet.okstate.edu/whatsnew/rounds/2005/1005.html

I would think Oklahoma State would not be funding a research foundation for something that doesn't exist.

[Celebration]

39. Dr. Schwarz of New Mexico thinks it is real

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=222&topic_id=7980&mesg_id=8101

pseudomonas from bottled spring water is his theory............I put it in the "other" Morgellons thread with the same title.