You need to seriously get over yourself and revisit your thinking on this. See the work on NeuroLyme done by Dr. Brian Fallon (impeccable credentials) at Columbia University. More importantly- read “On the Take” by Jerome Kassirer- a former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine- to understand the compromised state of medical research today- and KNOW that the research on Lyme is politically and financially driven.

Also, try telling that that to the families of two people who are now catatonic in nursing homes at 61 yrs old and 44 yrs old respectively, because their tertiary, late stage Lyme went misdiagnosed for YEARS due to the misinformation from the CDC and AMA (who you so readily defend, as if they are as pure as the driven snow)

Also, do try to remember the history of ulcer research- chronic Lyme will be vindicated because more and more physicians are getting it ON THE GOLF COURSE! And recovering only after long-term antibiotic treatment.

Sorry, you are wrong that there is no such thing as chronic Lyme- I had it and have been medication free for two years- but my entire family went through hell until it was finally diagnosed by a “friendly doctor” who became interested in it after her 12 year old son did not get well with a ten day course of antibiotics.–>

It seems very apparent that something terribly wrong took him over (as well), and his involvement seems to have come about as him having seen a prime opportunity to take advantage of easy prey for some fast bucks.

Everything the discerning reader sees about Mary Leitao, within those news articles, spells it all out quite clearly.

She had a fixation, and an ill conceived perception of reality. The dermatologist added insult to injury, making her feel humiliated, having thought he was really taking her seriously, when, in actuality, he was merely humoring her.

A couple of her other very telling quotes, which I didn’t include here, are, “The saying is ‘the disease is the patient,’” and “Only those willing to look outside the book move from technician to scientist.”

Poor Mary took awfully drastic measures to regain her dignity, but…she has herself in the limelight. At what cost, though, making such a spectacle of herself, and doing it at the expense of other sick people with the same problem.

Without her facilitating the madness of so many, with her made up disease, and its research foundation, people would have stood a better chance of recovering from their ills.

SICK

The Morgellon’s Foundation — named for an early description of a similar-sounding illness — was formed in 2002 to help the people most doctors won’t believe. Some doctors interviewed said the foundation is dangerously reinforcing peoples’ mental illnesses.

But the foundation’s spokespeople said the knee-jerk diagnosis of delusions is the problem, not their questions or the evidence they offer. Morgellons’ members encourage further investigation into what they consider a health mystery. But they said researchers don’t seem interested in new data and dismiss their information as quackery.

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.

Mary Leitao of McMurray, Pa., she said she began the group out of desperation. Her son, Andrew, now 5, began complaining of things crawling on his skin and was breaking out in lesions when he was 2.

Leitao, who has a degree in biology and who has worked as an electron microscope operator and a chemist, saw the fibers and the “fuzzballs” in Andrew’s skin lesions. She took him to an infectious disease specialist at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

At first, she said, the specialist thought the skin condition was an unusual case of scabies and prescribed a cream-based medicine. When that didn’t work, the doctor assured her the lesions weren’t caused by anything infectious and Andrew was referred to a dermatologist.

Leitao said the dermatologist was initially fascinated by the blue fibers sprouting from her son’s skin lesions.

“The doctor looked at everything I showed him,” she said. “He examined Drew’s skin lesions using the handheld microscope I brought. He was so amazed at the blue fibers coming straight out of a skin lesions that he called his physician’s assistant over to look at them.”

She showed the doctor how the fibers glowed under an ultraviolet light.

“The dermatologist admitted he did not know what made the fibers, but was not willing to help me find out,” Leitao said. “His final diagnosis was eczema. He gave my son topical eczema medication, which did not help.”

As she left his office, she saw the doctor going out to lunch with his wife and 4-year-old son.

“Not a care in the world,” she said. “What is wrong with these guys? No innate scientific curiosity or human empathy?

“I realized I was on my own.”

It all started with a young boy named Drew…

When her son developed a mysterious rash her natural instinct was to look at a sample of the rash under a microscope. What she found was not what she expected, nor has the response from the medical community been what she expected, either.

A recent photo caption:

RECOVERING: Mary Leitao, director of the Morgellons Foundation, plays with her son Andrew, who is recovering from Morgellons’ disease. Doctors had diagnosed Andrew with eczema, a common skin ailment although his symptons mirrored those with Morgellons’ disease.

Leitao’s motivations come from her 6 year old boy Drew. Four years ago, he began to feel the itch.

“He started describing bugs. He said, mommy, bugs, and he would scratch.”

Then came the sores that shed the fibers. Mary took drew to the doctor and the doctor said it was nothing to worry about.

“I was going to find an answer, or I was going to have to take my life, that’s all there was to it.”

(OMG,HUH?)

Most doctors interviewed dismiss alleged evidence that medical science has overlooked what patients are calling “Morgellons’ disease” and insist that the patients are delusional.

Mary Leitao graduated magna cum laude from the University of Massachusetts with a BS in Biology. She has worked in various capacities for the Harvard School of Public Health, Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. When her son developed a mysterious rash her natural instinct was to look at a sample of the rash under a microscope. What she found was not what she expected, nor has the response from the medical community been what she expected, either.

And so…

This mother, it says, followed her “NATURAL INSTINCT” when her toddler conveyed he felt like he’d had bugs on him (how else can a tiny child describe itchy-crawling sensations?), and he developed a rash, then sores, which fibers adhered to, and she went FOR HER MICROSCOPE?! That’s a “natural instinct” of a mother? Just listen to her, thinking that the dermatologist and his physicians assistant were so fascinated by the FIBERS SHE SHOWED THEM WITH THE HAND HELD MICROSCOPE AND A BLACK LIGHT SHE BROUGHT IN WITH HER!!!!!

WTF? Oh yeah, that was fascination they had all right. (ouch)

Why did she not learn what a diagnosis of ezcema meant, and when the topical medicine didn’t work, communicate that to her son’s doctor and try another one, like everyone else with a child diagnosed with eczema?

The preceding excerpts can be found in the following artcles:

http://tinyurl.com/gulng

http://tinyurl.com/lxkyx

Quite a mess she’s created with her problem, and I see no end in sight.

God forbid the morgies end up having things result in some new mental health legislation, since they have such a letter writing campaign to capitol hill and all public health agencies.

God bless ‘em all.