Morgellons - Weird 'Alien' Bug Hits Thousands In US

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http://www.schmoo.co.uk/morgellons.htm Morgellons - Weird 'Alien' Bug Hits Thousands In US 'Over 1000 people in Texas, Florida and California are saying that they are suffering from a nasty new skin complaint, but doctors are telling them they are 'delusional'. It is a weird 'bug' which sounds like something from an 'X Files' script, but it seems to be real, despite official denials from the US medical establishment. No one knows what it is, and most people suffering from it are told they are suffering from 'Delusional Parasitosis' by their doctors.' morgellons bug Morgellons - Weird 'Alien' bug hits USA Over 1000 people in Texas, Florida and California are saying that they are suffering from a nasty new skin complaint, but doctors are telling them they are 'delusional'. It is a weird 'bug' which sounds like something from an 'X Files' script, but it seems to be real, despite official denials from the US medical establishment. No one knows what it is, and most people suffering from it are told they are suffering from 'Delusional Parasitosis' by their doctors. However, now there is mounting evidence that it is the doctors and the US medical establishment who are 'delusional', not their unfortunate patients. There are currently over 1,100 hundred known cases in the U.S., mostly in Texas, Florida and California of what is being called 'Morgellons', and it is spreading. Bugs crawling under your skin Victims feel like bugs are crawling under their skin. They have little blue fibers, and black specks and white threads coming out of their skins. Under the skin, those fibers are connected to what appears to be a cluster of fibers or in some instances, parasitic looking organisms. One Morgellons patient Eric Roberson said, 'It's almost like they're intertwined with your muscle tissue," "The lesions start out as bumps that are itchy, little round raised bumps. The fibers are quite alarming." said another. "When you lay down, as soon as your head hits the pillow, your hair starts crawling," says Becky Bailey. "It gives you the sensation that you have worms under your skin or rats crawling on you," says Miles Lawrence. Another victim, Becky Bailey moved out of her Austin, Texas home and into a trailer hoping to escape the bugs that torment her. "We ripped out our carpet and burned our carpet and furniture and move out into our R-V and they were still on me." A victim in California Dillon King committed suicide because he could not stand the feeling of bugs crawling under his skin any longer. His mother is quoted: "The hardest thing was seeing him just get worse all the time". King's fianc¨¦e, Elizabeth Strong, says she thinks he picked up some kind of 'weird infection', and that she's now beginning to show the same symptoms. "It started as a small sore and kept spreading," she said. The Morgellons Research Foundation, which is campaigning for more research to be done, reports that unexplained hair loss, as well as a hardening or thickening of skin is also a common symptom and that many people report lymphedema, profound fatigue, and joint pain. Objects described as granules are often found associated with skin lesions as well and several victims have had lymph nodes surgically removed due to obstruction. The fibers have been analyzed by FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy) and have been identified as cellulose. Since true fungi are not able to synthesize cellulose, the Foundation is currently focused on the 'Oomycetes' class of fungus-like organisms. Apparently 'Pythium insidiosum' is the only Oomycete which has been documented to cause human infections. Skeptic doctors and the 'Matchbox Sign'. Morgellons victim Jane Waldoch, a nurse for 24 year says she finds fibers that look like crunched up bugs in her sheets every morning. They come from the dozens of sores that cover her arms, legs, back and neck. She began collecting samples of what was coming out of her skin. She thought it would help her doctors diagnose this bizarre and painful skin condition. She was wrong. Doctors took it as a sign that Jane was delusional. "One of the hallmark clues to delusional parasitosis is what they call the matchbox sign. I guess in the older days people would take their samples in little match boxes to their physician," she says. Mary Leitao, a biologist and the executive director of the Morgellons Research Foundation, said doctors have become ¡°a brick wall. They have their answer, and they aren't open to discussing the possibility they could be wrong.¡± ¡°They are so smug and sure they are right,¡± she said. Dr. Peter Lynch of the University of California, a dermatologist for 40 years, is one of the few skeptical experts who have been willing to even talk on the record. Other have ignored emails and telephone calls. He said ¡°If there were a peer-reviewed study, with 15 or 20 patients who have the same exact thing in their skins, then maybe I¡¯d believe it,¡± ¡°When fiberglass curtains first came out, many people with skin conditions were diagnosed with delusions of parasitosis (DOP). But studies showed these patients had tiny (fiberglass particles) in their skin.¡± ¡°Anecdotal evidence doesn't carry much weight,¡± Lynch said. ¡°There are many anecdotes of alien abductions, but that doesn't mean they are true. And as for the pictures, you can see pictures of the Loch Ness Monster on the Internet, too.¡± Leitao and other members of the Morgellons Research Foundation are not impressed with these arguments and point to the mounting evidence. Californian microbiologist Jenny Haverty for example, has done research on the mystery malady. Her findings point to something very definitely physical going on. "I accepted specimens from four different people in four different counties in the Bay Area, and I looked at them very carefully over and over again under the microscope," she said. "The colors and shapes of the fibers of each individual were very, very similar." She reports that tests on similar fibers taken those of several other patients in the Bay Area show them to be tiny tubes of protein. But how and why the filaments are formed remains a mystery for now. Evidence of link to Lyme Disease http://www.schmoo.co.uk/morgellons.htm