Morgellons Makes Money

If you search for “Morgellons” on Google, you get three ads under “Sponsored Links”:

Cure for Skin Parasites
got Morgellons Disease? We did
Dr. Uppal agrees
www.be-healthy-forever.com

Scabies? or Skin Parasite
Learn the difference for quick cure
Recommended by doctors – safe
www.cure-skin-parasite.com

Morgellons Disease
Natural Remedies for Morgellons
Information and Recommendations
www.renewalenterprises.com

The first site, “be-healthy-forever”, says that Morgellons is Hookworms, and tries to sell you a book for $120, explaining the “cure”, along with a “propriety blend” of oils, for $350, and a full treatment package for $1500.

The second site, “cure-skin-parasite”, is dermatechrx, which I have discussed before. They say Morgellons is “unidentified”, as if the word “unidentified” somehow clearly defines something. (“Do you have “unidentified”? You need “this”!). They simply sell variants of Bactine, for vastly inflated prices. A few gallons of disinfectents and some antiseptic cream comes to $400.

The third site, “renewalenterprises”, says that Morgellons is Lyme, and recommends “the use of supplements that treat viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungus”, just to cover all the bases. Of course, it also says “These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.” They give a long list of “treatments” that are “ESSENTIAL”. The full course is about $500 for about a month’s supply.

And the sad thing is: people will buy this stuff, and in all probabilty they will simply damage their weakened skin even more, continuing the cycle of itching, scratching and lesions.

Of couse, such snake oil is nothing new. It’s not going to go away either. The FDA is not doing a good job here.

Morgellons also makes money for the more serious practicioners of medicine. It was reported on Lymebusters that Nurse Practicioner Ginger Savely charges $500 for a session. Upon seeing a patient with persistent unexplained pruritus and/or neurotic excoriations, she can refer them to a dermatologist who is qualified to make a specific diagnosis, or she can diagnose them with the catch-all “Morgellons”, and begin a course of unconventional treatments that takes several months, at $500 per session, followed by very expensive “phone visits” . For the latter, she was effectivley expelled from Texas by the Texas Medical Board.

This thread on Lymebusters suggests even higher prices:(registration required):

http://lymebusters.proboards39.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=rash&thread=1148324262&page=1

London2146:
Curious here- Is it true her apointments range in the astronomical figures these days?

Patti:
London, I know that sounds (and is) so expensive but all the LLMDs charge these huge figures.

01tr3v (trev)
Her fees are $1000 to see you and she also has some type of structured telephone fee with is rediculous. Its something like 200 for the first 15 minutes, then 175 for the next 15 minutes and so on.

tonie
Yes, the fee to see her is correct. I’d gotten the info emailed to me,

People push Morgellons for a variety of reasons. For some, those reasons might include money.

July 10, 2006 by Medical Professional Quackery

Morgellons Case Definition

You get a lot of different reports of fibers.  Some people find fibers in lesions, some wipe them off their skin, some are short, some long, all different colors, some hard, some soft, some move, some grow, some pop in and out of the skin, some are microscopic, some hair sized, some like threads, some are like spaghetti strands.

Why so many different types of fiber?

I think the problem is with the Morgellons Research Foundation case definition, which describes the fibers thusly:

“[the fibers] are generally described by patients as white, but clinicians also report seeing blue, green, red, and black fibers,”

That is it, no particular diameter, length, morphology, ductile or brittle properties, opacity, smoothness, curvature, solubility, texture or any characteristic other than them being one of a number of colors.

So, anyone who finds any fiber “in or on a lesion”, OF ANY KIND WHATSOEVER, will fit the case definition.

What exactly is the MRF doing?  Presumably they are not stupid, they have a few PhDs in there, and Leitao has a degree in biology.  Can’t they see that with this ridiculously broad case definition, nobody will take them seriously?  If Morgellons is real, then they do the real sufferers a great disservice in having such an inclusive case definition.
I think that the reason they do not refine the case definition is that they are stuck in the same “non-judgemental” mindset that prevails at Lymebusters.  Not wanting to exclude anyone, they include everyone.  The case definition covers the ailments of about 50 Million Americans with some kind of MUPS.  Anyone who chooses, can simply say they have Morgellons, and the case definition will agree with them.   According to the case definition, I have Morgellons.

I challenge the Morgellons Research Foundation to either update their case definition, or explain themselves.

July 5, 2006 by MRF Science

“This” Disease

What we have here, is a failure to communicate.

“I have this disease!”, “this disease is real!”, “I have this”, “the symptoms of this…”, “this terrible disease”.

The problem here is one of language. Saying “this” makes “it” sound like a real disease that has been discovered and that people have been diagnosed with. “This” indicates something concrete, but is being used for something intangible.

When someone says “I have this disease”, they really mean “I have some of the symptoms listed on the Morgellons Research Foundation web site, I found some fibers on my skin, so I’m assuming both that Morgellons is a real disease, and that I have Morgellons”.

Being a language problem, we can’t do much about the problem, we can’t change the language, we can’t even explain the problem very well. But we can be aware of the problem.

“This Disease” is a linguistic shortcut that allows you to travel from symptoms to diagnosis without the usual logical and scientific steps that are required inbetween.

July 4, 2006 by Science

Morgellons vs. the Ulcer

This is Helicobacter Pylori:

Heliobacter Pylori

It’s a bacterium that lives in the stomach. About 40% of Americans are infected with it. In most people it does nothing harmful, but for some people it is involved in the production of stomach ulcers. Treatment with antibiotics that target H. Pylori will cure and then prevent the recurrence of stomach ulcers.

What has this to do with Morgellons?

Firstly, the story of the discovery of the connection between H. Pylori and ulcers is a rather romantic one. Scientists originally were unsure what caused ulcers, but though stress or eating spicy foods might contribute. One maverick scientist though that bacteria might be involved after a colleague found some H. Pylori via biopsies of people who had ulcers. This was just 25 years ago, in 1981.

His peers though this idea was crazy, as bacteria could not establish colonies in the harsh acidic environment of the stomach. To prove them wrong, the scientist drank a bunch of the bacteria, and got sick. He then found that H. Pylori was living in his stomach. Subsequent research demonstrated a clear link between H.Pylori infection and Ulcers. The scientist went on to win the Nobel prize for his work.

Mary Leitao, the founder of the Morgellons Research foundation has this to say about H. Pylori.:

My take on why this organism has not been identified is similar to what happened with the discovery of Helicobacter pylori and ulcer disease.

So, is there any similarity here?

No.

In 1981 Peptic ulcer disease was very well documented. Several million cases of peptic ulcers were diagnosed each year. The clinical manifestations of Peptic ulcers were clearly defined. A clear diagnosis could be given. The existence of the ulcer could be determined via X-Ray and endoscope. Effective pallative treatments were available. They simply did not know what caused them, or how to prevent them.

In 2006, there is no scientific documentation on Morgellons. No cases have been documented in a clinical setting. No diagnosis of Morgellons can be given, no standards exist for determining if the disease even exists. Since we don’t know if it exists as a distinct disease, we don’t have any treatments for it. You cannot find a causative agent for something that is not defined.

The first step towards finding a treatment for a new disease would be to establish that the disease actually exists. This has not been done for Morgellons. How can you tell if you have cured something if there is no standard for saying if you have it? With ulcers, the connection is clear, you can tell if someone has an ulcer with endoscopic examination. You can tell if they have H. Pylori infection with a sample and culture. Statistical studies show that without H. Pylori there are no ulcers.

Since there is no standard for what constitutes “Morgellons”, there is no standard for what constitutes “cured of Morgellons”. If the Morgellons Research Foundation wishes to be taken seriously, they must first take the step of clearly demonstrating that the disease actually exists.

Then we can move on, and examine the effectiveness of tests and treatments.

Mary Leitao, you can’t identify a causitive organism before you identify the disease.

We know what ulcers are. What is Morgellons?

July 2, 2006 by MRF Science

Ginger Savely

One of the few people who will “diagnose” Morgellons is a nurse practitioner called Ginger Savely.

Ms Savely appears on several of the TV News stories, including the CNN report. She seems quite professional, and caring of her patients.

I found this post about her

RE: Ginger Savely InformationShe costs $500.00 a visit. Her specialty is Lyme, and when she started getting so many patients with Morgellons symptoms that tested positive for LD, she worked with them also and noticed they often got better when treated with LD drugs.

She practices in San Francisco under the direction of Dr. Stricker, but, I believe, she stills lives in Austin.

Ms Savely practices in San Francisco, since she was essentially banned from practicing in Texas by the Texas Medical Board, due to her excessive tendency to prescribe antibiotics where they were not indicated by conventional medical standards.

Several of her patients from Texas apparently now visit her in San Francisco, they must be quite convinced she is correct.

Since Morgellons is not a recognized disease, the $500 per visit must presumably be paid out of pocket.

On a recent on-line chat, Ms Savely solicited new patients (” Patients who want to see me in San Francisco need to send an email to lymesf@gmail.com asking for a new patient packet.“).

I imagine that with all the publicity Nurse Savely has been having, she must be getting quite a few new patients. At $500 a visit.

[update 7/17/2006] Nurse Savely is perscribing some unusual therapies – consider this post:

http://lymebusters.proboards39.com/index.cgi?board=rash&action=display&thread=1153061762

“I’m on my 3rd week now of taking 100 mgs twice a day – of Mebendazole (same as Febendazole, I think) that Ginger Savely prescribed me.

I don’t have the crawlies or itchies anymore, but my face still tingles with slight itchies. And I’m still removing “larvae” looking things from my face. But as far as my body, everything has stopped.

July 1, 2006 by Medical Professional

How many people have Morgellons?

The Morgellons Research Foundation has been organizing an effective media campaign in recent months. The media, especially local television, but now even CNN, has been lapping up the sensational aspects of the story. MRF has been spoon-feeding them little factoids that the media parrot out on-screen, with no question as to the validity or meaning behind what they have just presented to the public as established fact.

One thing that gets reported is the number of people who “have Morgellons”.

CNN: “thousands of others from various parts of the country complain of similar ailments”

FreeMarketNews.com: “Morgellons Disease, characterized by “a parasite-like infection that literally makes the infected person’s skin crawl,” has been diagnosed in thousands of patients in Florida, Texas and California, according to reports”

Reno-Gazette: “the foundation has registered more than 4,000 households nationwide in which at least one family member suffers from Morgellons”

KATU: “There are more than 4,500 people across the country who report they are suffering with Morgellons.”

Where do these numbers come from? If you go to morgellons.org, you will see a counter that currently says: “Number of Registered Households: 4512”.

This number comes from what is possibly the least reliable statistics gathering tool available, a tool so innacurate it usually comes with a disclaimer “not scientific”. That tool is the Internet Survey.

All that “4512” number reflects is the number of times the following survey has been completed:

Symptoms: (check all that apply)

o Lesions or sores
o Fibers or filaments on skin
o Itching or stinging
o Hair loss
o Joint pain
o Fatigue
o Granules or specks on the skin
o Biting or crawling feeling on the skin
o Mood disorder
o Memory or concentration problems
(ex: ‘brainfog’, short term memory loss)
o Vision problems
o Edema or swelling
o Other

Diagnosis by a physician: (check all that apply)

June 30, 2006 by MRF

The Trouble with Cotton Socks

A few people on Lymebusters have problems with their socks:

BLW
I threw away my shoes and wore old socks and treated my feet with tea tree oil. This seemed to stop the pain.Yesterday I put on a laundered, fairly new pair of cotton sweat socks. I think I got them recently from the Dollar Tree store. Wow, my foot pain came back and feet started peeling on bottom.Also, when I did my castor oil rubs on my arms last night, I started getting out ‘white, cotton looking’ fibers instead of my normal black ones. Like the socks had entered my system.

H
I was applying a lot of different creams prescribed by the dermatologist and thought that what was happening was that the material from my socks was being caught up with the cream and being drawn into my foot. However, it is definitely being absorbed as a couple of weeks back I wore a pair of black socks with purple heels and toes – that evening when I was getting undressed a purple fiber about an inch long and quite substantial emerged from my heel.

JH
Just a suggestion, but drop the socks into boiling water before ever wearing them, then wash with borax and machine dry

B
For a while I wore plastic zip lock bags (cut to fit like a sock)over my socks so as not to keep contaminating my shoes. I also started throwing away my socks each day. I have been spending a bundle on socks. […] Now, however, a new situation has developed. It is minor compared to the previous foot infestation. Each night when I take off my white socks to throw them away, there are all these pieces of cotton fiber from the socks in webs between the toes and even balled up knots of sock fiber.It is not the sort of thing one goes to the doctor to show and tell,but each night it strikes me as very odd. First of all, the fiber is not on the top or bottom of the foot where the sock torches the foot but rather it is in between the toes. Maybe a single piece of fiber could go between toes occasionally. But every night to find a network of sock fiber BETWEEN the toes suggests some unaccounted for activity happening on my feet at the toe area.I do not wash these new cotton socks before wearing. I have never washed new socks before the first wearing. I have never had fibers stuck in webs and balls BETWEEN each of the toes. […] Yes, I have worried that the fibers are being drawn into the foot by these microscopic critters. They are definitely pulling fibers out of the new socks and practicing their knitting between my toes.

BC
Our shoes and socks were very infected with the white and black balls and fibers. We got news shoes and Gold Toe socks that are kinda thin with lots of nylon. I spray my feet, shoes, and socks with Woodward’s Diabetic Basics Instant Foot Sanitizer with benzalkonium chloride. This works pretty well but I still have toenail fungus.

22
My elderly friend with morgs bought some micatin spray from Dermatechrx and sprays it on her clean socks inside out the night before. It was on sale or she would not be doing this. She has clipped all of the cotton linings out of her underpants carefully leaving the rayon or nylon ones and then after these are laundered, soaks them in rubbing alcohol in ziplock bags.

H
Lots of different and inspired approaches as per usual. I’ve been washing the socks in Borax and changing them a few times in the day but didn’t wash them when new. At night after applying Special No 1 ointment, prescribed by dermotologist, I then apply petroleum jelly to create a seal. This has been quite effective in healing some of the lesions so I’ve tried this during the day too but the tingling persists.

QH
First of all – anything that comes into my house – if it’s fabric it gets sprayed with ammonia. New clothes get washed with a half-cup of ammonia added to the detergent. I don’t have carpets or curtains anymore. No fabric furniture. But do use blankets, and have had to get new mattresses (sprayed with ammonia)Every load of laundry I do gets ammonia in the wash cycle, not just new stuff. And, because I do chores around horses, and they are constantly wiping their noses on me, blowing their noses on me, etc., I buy shirts at the thrift shop. I wash those with ammonia and am just fine with that. No problemo – no itching caused by the thrift shop shirts – ammonia fixes stuff for me.

BLW
The socks i have been buying really have a lot of loose cotton fibers and balls on the inside. Today, I picke the stuff off before I put on a pair. Three hours later, I peeled them off and looked inside. All the loose stuff had re-appeared. Much was sticking to my feet and liked the area between my toes. I am coming to the conclusion that these socks are alive.

CM
I was initially infected by new cotton socks right out of the sack that I did not wash first. There is little if any doubt that cotton is one of several of the more ubiquitous vectors for this thing.


I think what we are seeing here is the result of the culture of belief within Lymebusters. Nobody steps forward to suggest to B that it’s quite normal for cotton from new socks to collect between the toes. Nobody tells BLW that his socks are probably not alive, and everyone has experienced cotton balls and fluff on their feet from new socks. Nobody tells H that, yes, the fiber was probably just caught in your foot cream. Nobody tells CM that there actually is rather a lot of doubt that cotton socks are a vector for a novel pathogen.

I think willingness to believe others that some of the above people have, is paired with a willingness to believe themselves. Hence whatever idea pops into their head, they believe without question. Questioning themselves (are my socks really alive?) is tantamount to admitting they might have made some mistakes in other area, and perhaps an indication that they were deluded in some beliefs.

Socks are interesting since most people have two feet. It would be a very simple matter to perform experiments such as wearing a cotton sock on one foot, and a linen sock on the other for a week, and see if there is any difference. You could use this technique to test the various (“different and inspired”) sock treatments, such as ammonia, alcohol, bleaching, borax, boiling etc.

But is seems some people don’t want to investigate, to find the truth. They just want to believe.

This uncritical desire for belief is ultimately damaging their health.

June 29, 2006 by Lymebusters

The Trouble with Thrips

Thrips are tiny winged insects, around 1mm (1/32th of an inch) long.

This is what they look like, life sized (on a leaf, look closely):
xxvegadv112702fig1.jpg

And here is what they look like under a microscope

xxwesternflowerthrips.jpg

Here’s a photo of some thrips that a Morgellons believer found on her skin:

xxxthrips445f.jpg
(Compare the one at the bottom left with the one in the previous picture)

Thrips infest plants. A serious infestation can have hundreds, even thousands, of thrips in a plant. Sometimes thrips swarm, they fly, and can land on your skin and bite, which can be painful. They can apparently even create lesions that they can get inside, a condition described as Thysanoptera dermatitis.

So suppose you had a thrips infestation, perhaps just on a houseplant, or perhaps you live in an agricultural area, or you have an orchard. Thrips are tiny (they can easily get through a normal window screen) and very hard to see when they are in the air. If you are closely inspecting your skin, then when the thrips land on your skin, it will be difficult to see where they came from. If you have a fertile imagination, it might look like they have emerged from your unbroken skin.

Now within the Morgellons community, there are mixed opinions as to the involvements of insects in the disease. The opinions fall thusly:

1) There are no insects involved with Morgellons, and people should stop talking about them.
2) Insects are not part of Morgellons, but it suppresses your immune system enough to allow insects to nest in your skin.
3) Morgellons is an insect infestation, the insects either create the fibers, or use clothing fibers to create cocoons, and that’s what we should talk about
4) Insects are part of the Morgellons syndrome, but we should not talk about it, as it will get us labeled as suffering from Delusions of Parasitosis.

In its doctor approved “Case Definition“, the Morgellons Research Foundation says:
“The sensations are at times related to the presence of easily seen insects”

On Lymebusters (the online forum that the MRF recommends), the thread entitled “Morgellons, (collembola?)” sums up the every shifting attitudes of some Morgellons believers.

O
It distresses me every time that morgellons is referanced to insects –such as insects crawling out of the body—this tangent can really confuse those who are trying to understand the morgellon syndrom..I have NEVER, in any remote way, made any observance of bugs-flies-etc exiting my body or crawling underneath my skin…

P
The insect theory can be harmful to us if not presented in the correct manner. I believe there is an indirect connection, phermonally speaking […]

Q
Those that have the insects hatching are suffering a very bad aspect of this – they need so much support and especially to be believed and not rejected.

P
We never told anyone they couldn’t talk about it and I apologize again if it sounded that way. We just didn’t want people to place the main emphasis of this disease’s symptoms on that aspect of it, since that is where our skeptics are getting their ammunition to dismiss us.

Q
But to disarm skeptics, any mention of insects should include the fungal / various causes aspect. Any skeptic that can’t figure out that insects and fungus can be connected is A) not too bright B) has an agenda/sponsor or C) works at UoG

O
I wish to clarify my stance–no doubt that insects can lay eggs and hatch out of the hide-skin-of many animals—

H
My theroey is that the Morg attracts other parrasites. I have personally whatched a fly hatch and fly out of my leg and watched a white furry bug eat its way into my heal,

O
We all have fibers–etc=====or defined as morgellons,some have this manifestation others some other presentation..we can not define it down to say morgellons is caused by this or that—this is what I see–That is what you see–but we all see fibers, right?SOO, I ask, why are the fibers created by so many different things?

Here’s how one of the administrators of Lymebusters (who has posted his own photos of Thrips) explains his own pro-insect belief, and the diversity of what people are seeing.

AH
[…]every time I would get bit by something in the spot where I got bit there would be a fuzzball most of the time they were the color of the article of clothing in the area that that I found the fuzzball in If I was wearing white socks they would be white or if I had something red or blue the fuzzball would be likewise I cant speak for my comrade cult members but I think that the critters that are responsible gather the fibers around them like a cocoon
[…]
And I am not saying that we all have the same thing but there is a common denominator that we all have –and that is Doctors are giving us all a bogus diagnosis that we are stuck with so we unite under the same banner to fight it

(Note that AH is just joking here, when referring to the “cult”, he’s referring to another recent post)

So what is the problem with Thrips?

The problem is the assumption, almost the dogma, amongst Morgellons believers, that they all have the same “thing”. That there is some new pathogen that they all are infected with that causes all of their symptoms. Any new symptom that someone professes to have gets included in the long list of symptoms that are allowed under Morgellons. Anything too outrageous or unique gets explained as a product of a suppressed immune system. Any mental issues get explained as neurological effects of “this disease”.

The problem with that is that they obviously don’t all have the same thing. They have a wide range of symptoms. The one thing they supposedly have in common, the fibers, vary as much as the symptoms. On the question of insects – some have them, and some don’t. Again, some believers explain this as the insects taking advantage of a compromised immune system. But you can explain anything as the result of a compromised immune system.

The trouble with Thrips is that believers unquestioningly accepted that tiny bugs can be hatched in their adult form directly through your skin, if you have Morgellons. If you have Morgellons almost anything can be accepted, no matter how outrageous. The key thing many Morgellons believers want is “to be believed”. By being part of a community that wants to be believed, they support each other, and hence they believe each other, easily glossing over all inconsistencies.

Unfortunately, by believing everyone and everything, some of them abdicate reason, and this gets in the way of them receiving appropriate treatment for their very real health issues.

June 27, 2006 by Lymebusters Photos

Fibers on CNN

The recent CNN story on Morgellons (text version) was interesting as it focused on Randy Wymore’s examination of fibers, and actually showed his colleges removing fibers from a patient, and looking at them under a microscope.

In absence of any epidemiological studies, the only thing that makes the claims of Morgellons at all notable are the “fibers” that sufferers claim to have emerging from their skin. Now I’ve written quite a lot about this before, basically showing that fibers are everywhere, and that many of the photos of fibers shown can easily be identified as Kleenex, or clothing fibers.

The whole Morgellons case hinges around these fibers, which was the thing that originally got me interested – I think it’s high time that I get back to examining the fiber evidence, starting with the CNN video.

First of all, we have Dr Wymore in a thrift store, collecting fiber specimens from clothing with some scotch tape. The reporter then asks him if the fibers he found from Morgellons patients resemble clothing fibers. He responds “No, not at all, totally different”.

wymore-thrift-store.jpg
Here’s what Dr Wymore told me, on May 22, 2006:
“You see, we do indeed find environmental contaminants in samples from Morgellons sufferers. Definitely cotton, likely from bandages and cellulose fibers, probably from tissue. But, we are not interested in the contaminants that are everywhere. We take the time to sort through the known fibers to examine in more detail the ones that look unusual.”

So what he’s saying here is that he ignores that fibers he can identify, and keeps looking until he finds fibers he cannot identify. I asked him if he did not think that in any sufficiently large sample of household fibers (laundry lint, for example), there would not be some fibers that he would be unable to identify – but so far he has declined to answer.

Later we have some footage of the Morgellons group examining patients, plucking fibers off them, and looking at them through a microscope. Dr Rhonda Casey, DO, points at a small blue fiber and says “That is definitely not a hair, the blue thing there”.

blue-fiber-on-skin.jpg

The fiber she points at looks exactly like standard tiny lint fiber. Probably blue cotton. She carefully take it off, and makes a slide.

“This is what they saw”, the reporter says, and shows this picture:
microscope-blue-and-red.jpg
There’s a blue fiber in the middle that looks like a cotton fiber. For some reasons there are a bunch of other fibers that were not next to the blue fiber before. The clear ones in the middle look like cotton or paper, the large brown ones look like human hairs (at about 80 microns they are the correct size). The very dark lines look like the edge of a large air bubble.

We then see several other images, one of which is clearly a damaged human hair – you can even see the scales.
broken-hair-3-50.jpg

So what’s going on here? Randy Wymore is finding fibers that look different (to him) from clothing fibers. Well, notwithstanding that it’s almost inevitable that you will find unidentified fibers wherever you look, what might make ordinary fibers turn into the Morgellons fibers?

Let’s take a simplistic explanation. Say someone suffers from something that has symptoms of neurotic excoriations (they pick at their own skin, consciously or unconsciously). They are going to have many open lesions on their skin (forearms and faces being common areas). Now lesions are wet and sticky, so naturally they will have several tiny fibers stuck in them. Lesions also heal, so the tiny fibers become embedding in the new skin.

A few months later, just like a splinter, the fiber works its way to the surface of the skin. It may emerge at the original lesion site, or it may have migrated a few inches over. Is it surprising that a small blue piece of cotton that has spent many months under the skin, now looks nothing like clothing fibers plucked with scotch tape at the local thrift store?

That’s just a theory – but it’s a nice simple theory that explains things without introducing a mysterious pathogen. Occam’s Razor: “entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity”. Before claiming that because he cannot identify some fibers, then a new disease exists, Professor Wymore must explain how he has fully discounted the multitude of far simple explanations.

I’ll simplify this to two questions:

1) In any large sample of household fibers, will there not always be some that are unidentified?
2) If a clothing fiber were embedded in the skin for a long period of time, and then emerged, would you be able to identify it as a clothing fiber?

June 23, 2006 by Media Medical Professional Photos

CNN Tonight

This should be interesting. Paula Zahn is doing a story on Morgellons at 5PM Pacific, 8PM Eastern today (Thursday June 22).

Regardless of the tone of the piece, this will cause a huge blip in the number of “reported” cases, as viewers go to morgellons.org, and fill in the form. They list 4131 right now, which jumped up from around 2000 a few months ago with the local TV coverage.

Hopefully CNN will have done considerably more homework than the local news.

June 22, 2006 by Media

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.

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