April 2006

How good is your eyesight?

People professing “Morgellons” are usually middle aged white women.

Why could this be?

I wonder if some tiny fraction of Morgellons sufferers are simply people who have fading eyesight, and simply do not realize this.

The “fibers” that are claimed are often very small. Such as the vellus hairs on the back of your hand. They are mostly invisible to the naked eye, but can become visible when lotion is applied, or when lighting conditions change, or when viewed at a different angle. This sudden appearance might make it seem like the hairs are “shooting” out of your skin. The hairs were not there, then they were – at least to your eyes.

This phenomenon might in turn be magnified by poor eyesight, which usually takes a turn for the worse after the age of 35.

Women also tend to use a lot more lotion, which both attracts fibers, and contributes to the sudden “appearance” of hairs (both vellus and terminal) when the lotion is applied.

I’m not saying this explains every case. But it might explain some. You need to eliminate such possibilities before moving on to others.

How good are your eyes? Check here:

http://www.preventblindness.org/eye_tests/near_vision_test.html

April 30, 2006 by Mick West Science

Causes of itching

There are many causes of itching, here are a few:
http://www.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/ent/ent58/ent58.pdf

People sometimes jump to conclusions, skipping over potential explanation in favor of the explanations they most desire. If you think you have Morgellon, did you actually check that none of the things listed here could be responsible for your symptoms?

Here’s something that might be responsible for a fraction of the Morgellons cases.

(It’s a scabies mite – it burrows into your skin)

April 29, 2006 by Mick West Photos Science

The Mental Health Pharma-conspiracy

The deeper Morgellonites are pushing this story

(http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2006/04/21/eline/links/20060421elin004.html)

The implication being that many doctors and psychiatrist are in league with the pharmacutical industry – and have a vested interest in diagnosing things as psyciatric disorders so that Big Pharma can sell more psychopharmalogical drugs.

This is about as likely as the clothing manufacturers being in cahoots with the dry-cleaning cartels by labeling their garments “dry-clean only”, when you know perfectly well they’ll do just fine in the laundry.

The question to ask (and I’m borrowing here, Seinfelt I believe) is “how would that even work?”

When your doctor suggests perhaps a component of your disorder is mental, then does he get some kind of kickback from Big P? How much might that be? How does that money get to him?

Doctors get paid a lot already. What portion of their income comes from these psych-referral kickbacks?

How does the accounting work? Follow the money. In all the decades of auditing of various health industries – has there been one shred of evidence of such a kickback scheme?

It must be more subtle – the Doctors get paid by insurance companies that get paid by the consumers, who get high premiums because the price of psych drugs is so high. Doctors keep over-prescribing them, so everyone makes money.

Consider though, how would that even work? The individual doctor will get paid regardless. If he writes needless prescriptions, he does not get paid more. He’s taking a risk of getting caught. So it’s better for the individual doctor to get paid as normal, and let others take the risk.

So there HAS to be a kickback scheme involved.

But nobody has ever produced one shred of evidence of any financial irregularities.

And don’t point at that Reuters story above – read it first, it explains why they have “links”. Their links are most tenuous, and quite innocent looking. Heck, I have links just because I own share in SPY, which includes some pharma companies. Most of you dear readers, if you have a 401K, or other retirement account, will have some shares in a mutual fund that also invest in Pharma. Are you involved?

How would that even work?

April 26, 2006 by Mick West Media

Fibers are Everywhere – Part 2

http://www.rense.com/general39/chhmit.htm

“You may be astonished to find them ALL OVER — your skin. your rug, your mirrors (they seem ‘attracted’ to mirrors!)… They’re in the air, swirling and floating on the slightest air currents. Check your hair — it is exposed outdoors — it can ‘host’ hundreds! Your clothes can glow like galaxies of miniature stars are on them. ‘Dust’ on every flat surface in your home can be filled with them.
Some wave and squirm, almost as if they’re alive.”

This is something I noticed myself, when playing around with a black light. I also noticed a white t-shirt (and most white items of clothing) glow bright white. It’s part of the dyeing process that makes them white. Plus, laundry detergent glows white. The fibers from these things are the fibers that you see under black light.

It’s funny – they make the same case I was making before, fibers are everywhere, yet somehow reason escapes them and they attribute it to aliens and the government’s secret mind control chemtrail spraying activities.

Why is it not lint?

“First of all, you can SEE lint on your clothes. You CANNOT see these filaments in regular light EVEN if you are looking right at them. Catch one with tweezers under UV light, keep a firm grip, and turn on the room light. It ‘vanishes’! Turn the room light off, turn the UV on, and it’s still there”

That’s because it’s tiny! You can see it under black light because it emits light against a black background. when you turn the light on, it blend in with everything, as it’s so small.

“Secondly, there were a lot of people in the 1970’s who owned UV lights of this type for illuminating posters and creating a party mood. No one from that era claims to remember this material.”

WHAT!? “Er, do you remember, going to a party sometime in the 70’s, did you happen to notice, when it was really dark and you were next to a black light, that there were these tiny fibers on people’s clothes?” – This is evidence of a vast government conspiracy? – that you can’t find anyone who remembers the fibers from a party in the 70s? Well, that could equally well be evidence that detergent manufacturers started using stilbenes in their detergent sometime between 1980 and 2000? Or, it could mean nothing at all. Or maybe that people who decorated with black light did not do much laundry. What do you remember from the 70s? What color were lava lamps? Did pet rocks have hair? Did mood rings work?

“Thirdly – […] all you need is a microscope […] a known piece of lint […] Note the twisted fibers — they look like rope. These are solid (not translucent), dusty-looking, and have bushy ends. […] Now pick up a suspected ‘CT-UV fallout’ filament […] They seem to made of some sort of prismatic flat filament that twists — extruded looking, about 1/3- 1/5 the diameter of a human hair laid side-by-side — obviously NOT fibrous”

Total nonsense. Lint contains all kinds of fibers. Most of them are emphatically NOT twisted like rope, they are single fibers. Brushed cotton/polyester blend fibers also look like a “sort of prismatic flat filament that twists “. They are also about 1/3 the diameter of a human hair. Obviously fibrous.

And then:

“No one posting at Carnicom seems to have access to a photography microscope. We hope that someone with access to such will post some photomicrographs”

How unfortunate. Try the QX5, only $70
http://www.shopdigitalblue.com/product_info.php?products_id=101

Here’s some “photomicrographs” of lint. 200x and 60x. Note how there are ALL KINDS of fibers. Probably a few from my florescent white t-shirts. Note the white ones, kind of “sort of prismatic flat filament that twists “, don’t you think?

Fibers are indeed everywhere. Perfectly naturally.

UPDATE: Looks like someone got themselves a QX3/5 http://www.rense.com/general39/chem.htm
Strikingly similar to my photos, you think?

April 18, 2006 by Mick West Media Photos

Why do some hairs move?

Somewhere herein, Patti said:
“When certain hairs on your head and body move while ones right next to them are dead-still, there simply is no explanation except whatever the “pathogen” is that has invaded our bodies”

Interesting. So, I resolve to investigate:

I look at my arm, it’s got a bunch of hairs on them, up to nearly an inch long. I blow on them, they move. I blow very gently, ONLY ONE HAIR MOVES!

That one there. It’s a longer hair, kind of lonely out there on its own, it’s also a bit kinked.

So, here I’m theorizing, that hair is an older hair, that’s nearly at the end of its life cycle, it’s kinked because its internal structure is breaking down, making it lose rigidity. As it’s at the end of its life cycle, its root will not be firmly embedded in the follicle, in fact there is probably another hair growing, pushing it out.

I can blow very very gently towards that patch of skin, and I can’t feel the air movement at all. yet the hair still moves and occasionally a few other very isolated hairs move. Since I can do this, it seems quite possible that small air currents might do the same.

The point is Patti – there is an explanation as to why only individual hairs move. I was able to demonstrate this with just a few minutes of experiments. There are probably several other explanations as well. There is no need to go for the most complex explanation possible, just because you can’t immediately think of a simple explanation.

April 18, 2006 by Mick West Photos Science

Morgellons in California

Why is there so much Morgellons in California?

Morgellons.org states:

Note: Although California represents 12% of the US population, 26% of all who have registered with the Morgellons Research Foundation reside in California

Now it’s tempting to say things like “California is full of dirty hippy druggies!”, but that’s not really true. Besides, most of the Morgellons sufferers are nice middle-aged white women.

So, why this disproportionate number of Morgellons sufferers from California?

Note what the above is measuring – it’s a percentage of all who have registered with the Morgellons Research Foundation. i.e, over the internet.

How do people find out about Morgellons – on the internet.

How do people share their photos of fibers – on the internet.

How do people form communities to share stories of their illness?

The internet – a common factor in Morgellons suffers.

Morgellons is an interesting syndrome because of the visual aspect – fibers, and hence photos of fibers. Lots of sites have many many photos of fibers. These sites really need a broadband internet connection (DSL or Cable Internet).

In June 2004, California had 13 broadband lines per 100 persons, and the rest of the US had 9.

http://www.m9systems.com/broad_dep_2.html

Could it be that there is more Morgellons, because there is more broadband?

These simple figures don’t tell the whole story either – California’s population is clustered into cities. The Morgellonites in CA also cluster around the four major population centers. In those population centers, the access to broadband internet is unparalleled through the United States. People in Urban California have the best availability to broadband internet in the country.

If Morgellons is a phenomenon fueled by the internet, then obviously there would be more cases in California.

California is a unique state in many ways – perhaps there are some other factors?

April 17, 2006 by Mick West MRF Science

The Chain of Chance – Introduction

In the book “The Chain of Chance”, by Stanislaw Lem, a detective is investigating a series of mysterious deaths occuring to foreign businessmen at a seaside spa. If you’d like to read the book, then don’t read this article, as they share many of the same themes.

Consider a magic trick – a performer is in a fairly large theater, it holds 2000 people. He asks them all to take out a coin and flip it. He then asks all the people for who the coin comes up heads to flip it again. This repeats, and more and more people are eliminated. Eventually after ten tosses, only one person remains – the magician calls this person to the stage, the winner.

Now consider this from the point of view of the person who “wins”. They flip the coin, it comes up heads – they flip it again and again, it keeps coming up heads! Something must be going on? From their perspective, the continual heads is very surprising.

But it had to happen to someone.

Consider now, that 5% of the US population have some form of Eczema. That’s about 15 million people (out of a total US population of 300 million)

Consider furthur, that 2.2 million Americans have Obsessive-Compulsive disorder, that’s about 0.73% of the population.

Now, assuming an even spread, then of our 15 million people who have eczema, then 0.73% of them will have both eczema and OCD. That’s 110,000 people.

The numbers get larger if we consider the number of americans who have a Major Depressive Disorder. That’s 9.5% of our 15 million, or 1,425,000 people who have Eczema and a Major depressive disorder.

So out of those, who also has Fibromyalgia? Well, the prevelence of Fibromyalgia is 1.36%, so out of the people who have a major depressive disorder, and Eczema, then 19,380 also have Fibromyalgia.

So that means nearly 20,000 people will have the combined symptoms of:
– Eczema
– A Major Depressive Disorder
– Fibromyalgia.

That means they will have
– Intense itching
– Rash
– Lesions
– Major Depression
– Abnormally irritable mood
– Fatigue
– Brain fog
– And several other symptoms.

Some of these 20,000 people meet one-another and compare symptoms. They find they have the same symptoms. They figure they have the same disease. They call it Barstow Syndrome after the town it was first discovered in. They form a support group, they start a web site, more people find out about it, everyone thinks it’s a real disease. They start to speculate as to the cause of the disease.

But there is no Barstow Syndrome – they are simply the 20,000 people who were unlucky enough to get combined Eczema, Major depression and Fibromialgia all at the same time. From their point of view this is very unlikely. But right now, 20,000 people HAVE all three problems. It’s just simple statistics. It’s unfortunate for them, but it’s nothing special.

The Barstow Syndrome Research Institute dislikes this analysis. How likely is it, they ask, that all these people, thousands and thousands, all have the exact same symptoms? Well, as we just saw, it’s not only likely, it’s inevitable. Like the guy who tosses heads ten times in a row – it just had to happen to someone. It HAD to happen to 20,000 people.

April 16, 2006 by Mick West Science

The far side of Morgellons meets the near side.

In the Morgellons community, there are several folk who think that their problems are due to some kind of genetically modified organism, typified by this post from TamTam

Fibers are stray target of experimental biology.
In particular experimental micro biology class 3 (C3)

That cellulose type fibers move on its own is because it are micro organisms that go dormant (pseudo apoptotic) In particular micro organisms that breath and become static because of low metabolism.
During formation they show nerve cell type behavior.

Nerve cell type behavior they will show in particular when they unite as a fiber most resembling a shaft that is related to the mold of the cyanobacterium.

This dominant type gene expression in the form of a semi autonomous and sensing fiber is in fact a break away group cell.
A variant form.

Its character is inbetween plant(cellulose) and insect (chitin)cell.

Single cell micro organisms with an aquired property called quorum sensing will make the organisms act multi cellular.

Quorum sensing is a stem cell like property.
Quorum sensing micro organisms unite hence differentiate during formation of a multi cellular organism.

Hence multi lineage differentiation synonymous with stem cell.
————————————————————————————–
Fast dividing tissue forms a base(culture medium) for this organism.
This type target can only be kept alive and cultered in test animal.
————————————————————————————–

Fibers show inbetween behavior like “plant cell that think they are insect cell”

The agent its intermediate stage resembles a protoplasm.
A transparent cloud with basic properties preserved.

All elements are quorum sensing
All elements differentiate

check: chitin / cellulose wound dressing

TamTam writes in an unusual way. Declarative sentences with little explanation. This reminds me of the way AIs are portrayed in Science Fiction. Or perhaps someone with a brain wired a particular way – maybe Asbergers (not that there’s anything wrong with that, Bill Gates has often been diagnosed with Asbergers).

TamTam is probably responsible for this video:

http://www.silentsuperbug.com/

Which shows text similar to the above, overlaid on footage of some microscopic video.

Interstingly, mainstream Morgellons hits fringe Morgellons when Randy Wymore analyses this video on mogellon.org
http://morgellons.org/rwupdate.html
He basically says “there is no science here”, but uses several more word, trying to be kind.

April 14, 2006 by Mick West MRF Science

Tea-tree objects identified

Over on the incredibly long biology-online thread, someone was going into great detail on his experiences with tea-tree oil. He posted a link to a photo album:

http://morgellons.shutterfly.com/action/

I’d expect a lot of fiber photos, but was surprised to find most of the photos were of things that looked like blobs of some kind of gelatinous stuff, like this:

(lots more on the site, check it out).

Intrigued, I read that all he did was rub tea tree oil on his arm, and the fibers appeared. Fibers? He must include these blobs as some kind of compressed fiber.

Anyway, I got some tea tree oil and rubbed it onto my arm – smelly stuff!

Nothing seemed to be happening for a while, I notice the small hairs stuck to the skin, maybe that’s what people were seeing. Hmm, or maybe as the oil drys, the hairs pop up?

Nothing really going on, I stared at my arm, shining a flashlight, wishing I had a magnifying glass. Then suddenly I noticed a tiny little speck at the base of one hair. Whoa! I’m infected! I pinch the skin, and gently scrape it off with a sharp knife, and transfer it under the microscope, x200.

Hey, that looks familiar – it’s a “fiber” thing. I have Morgellons!

Zoom out a little:

It’s about 1mm long, 0.25 mm wide. Not sure where that fiber came from.

Okay, so I’m not itching. I probably don’t have Morgellons. So what is this thing?

It’s a sebum plug.

Hair on your arms is rooted in little pits called follicles. Sebaceous glands in the follicle secrete an oil substance called sebum. The follicles can become blocked (both with or without a hair growing from them). A plug of sebum forms in the follicle and can harden.

Tea tree oil dissolves the material (skin and hardened sebum) blocking the top of the follicle, and allows the sebum plug to emerge. Tea tree oil is a well-known treatment for blocked pores.

Tiny fibers could quite easily become trapped in the follicle and become part of the sebum plug. Not many of the photos actually have fibers though.

Shutterfly guy – you are collecting sebum plugs.

He also has a video of a sebum plug dissoving in some alcohol. It’s quite an energetic dissolution – titled “supernova”. Sebum is fat, alcohol dissoves fat. Fat is semi-soil and dissolving it is a naturally violent reaction due to localized changes in surface tension and density.
Here’s another sebum plug (60x)

You can see how people might think it was some kind of fibrous organism.

April 11, 2006 by Mick West Photos Science

Fibers are Everywhere

Right now you are surrounded by billions of fibers.

This is perfectly natural, since fibers are everywhere. But if you think you might have a fiber disease such as Morgellons, then you need to able to distinguish normal fibers from fibers that are part of the disease.

Here’s a quick experiment. Turn your monitor off for a second and look at the screen. Covered with dust right? Look closer (get a magnifying glass if you have one), you will see the dust is mainly comprised of tiny fibers, about 1/16th of an inch long (1mm or so).

Where do they come from?

The biggest sources of fibers in the home are paper products and clothing.

Paper products are things like facial tissues, toilet tissue and paper. Paper is actually MADE from fibers. When you tear paper, the edges look like this (60x magnification):

That’s just regular letter sized paper, the kind you use in your printer. Paper is actually made of millions of fibers!

Here’s the same piece of paper at 200x

Those are some pretty serious fibers. Tiny though, only about 20 microns in diameter. They are visible to the naked eye if you have good eyesight.

Another common paper product is facial tissues such as Kleenex. Here’s some Kleenex at 60x:

See it’s just like paper, made from millions of fibers – the fibers are just more spaced out to make it softer.

All paper products are basically the same, made entirely from cellulose fibers (extracted from wood).

What about clothes?

When you wash your clothes and dry them in the dryer, some of the fibers in the clothes come off, and that’s what makes the lint. If you look at lint under a microscope, it looks like this:

You can see it’s made from all different kinds of fibers, all different colors. Both from the clothes that were in the dryer, and other fibers the clothes might have picked up as you wore them, perhaps in contact with other clothes, or the clothes of other people you touched, or off furniture.

When paper, clothing or furniture shed fibers, the tiny fibers float around in the air and land on surfaces. Often they will land on you. If you take a fresh post-it pad and dab the sticky part over your face a few times, you will find it get quite a few fibers on it. Like this (10x):

Here’s a close-up (60x):

Not many, but I bet you did not think there were any fiber on your face, eh?

So, all these fibers flying everywhere from natural sources. If they touch something soft, they stick to it. So you tend to always find a few embedded in (and under) scabs or any mucus-like stuff you have one your body. Like this:

Notice how the fibers here are just the same as the lint in the dryer. This indicates they are probably fibers from clothing. Paper fibers are probably there as well, just a bit harder to see.

What can we conclude?

There are lots of fibers on every surface and floating around in the air. This is not a bad thing, as the fibers are just paper or clothing fibers. The fibers will get on your skin, and get inside any damp lesion.

It’s almost impossible NOT to find fibers on your skin. Everyone has them, just most people don’t notice them, since they don’t look closely enough.

April 11, 2006 by Mick West Photos Science

April 2006

How good is your eyesight?

Causes of itching

The Mental Health Pharma-conspiracy

Fibers are Everywhere – Part 2

Why do some hairs move?

Morgellons in California

The Chain of Chance – Introduction

The far side of Morgellons meets the near side.

Tea-tree objects identified

Fibers are Everywhere

The Evidence Indicates:

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