Morgellons - Growing Skepticism in the Medical Community

If it doesn’t exist in a medical book, then it doesn’t exist at all. So claim some doctors who have seen patients with a rare disease that affects not only their skin, but their central nervous system at all.

The disease is called “Morgellons.” Discovered by biologist Mary Leitao in 2002, it remains a mystery and both the medical community as well as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention have remained skeptical, despite a growing number of people suffering from the disorder.

Morgellons begins with itchy sores, accompanied by a disturbing sensation of “bugs” crawling throughout one’s body. Mary Leitao first noticed this when her son, Drew, was two years old. He had sores under his lip and complained of “bugs.”

Leitao took her child to countless doctors who prescribed a variety of medications, but nothing helped. One day, while soothing her child with antibiotic crème prescribed for scabies, she noticed what she referred to as “fibers” coming from the sore. The fibers are white, blue, and in some cases, red.

What sounds like something out of a science fiction novel actually happened to this Pittsburgh mother of three. As a biologist, she took it upon herself to examine the fibers and realized that she was up against something she knew nothing about and which medical science could not explain.

It’s impossible for most doctors to believe that the human body can actually produce colored fibers that appear fluorescent under certain lighting. It was easier for them to dismiss Leitao as a hysterical mom who needed psychiatric treatment.

But Leitao persisted. In 2004, she founded the Morgellons Research Foundation, a not for profit organization devoted not only to public awareness, but to finding treatment and, hopefully, a cure for the disease which not only continues to plague her son, but has also affected her other children as well.

Medical science has remained skeptical and, to date, the only research done on the disease has been performed by members of the foundation. The CDC, after pressure from thousands of people writing their congressmen, reluctantly began investigating the disease in 2006. Results of their investigation remain undetermined. Not only is there no treatment or cure in sight, but the majority of medical practitioners refuse to believe the condition exists at all.

Tell that to the Dill family, of Lake City, Florida. A few years ago, the Dills purchased their dream home for themselves and their four children. Shortly after that, the entire family came down with symptoms of Morgellons. The fiber oozing sores and the constant sensation that bugs were crawling over them. Despite the fact that the entire family came down with the disease at once, local doctors dismissed their condition as “psychological.” Even as it began to impair their central nervous system, causing confusion, joint pain, fatigue and headaches.

Another victim, Becky Bailey of Austin, Texas, moved out of her spacious home and into the family’s RV to escape the sensation of bugs that she felt were everywhere. She burned the carpet, the furniture, everything, trying to rid herself of what she was certain was a parasite infestation. Nothing worked.

Medical science insists that Morgellons is just a new name put on an old condition: Delusional parasitosis. This is a psychological condition in which patients believe that parasites, or bugs, are crawling on their skin. They often pick at the bugs, causing scabs or sores to appear. They dismiss the presence of the fibers crawling out of Morgellons’ patents’ skin as “a matchbook collection,” referring to days of old when patients suffering from such delusions would collect fibers and present them to the doctor in a matchbook as evidence of their condition.

To date, no clinical research has been done to examine the fibers or to treat the disease, despite the investigation by the CDC which remains, in the opinion of many suffering from Morgellons, in arrogant denial. This is despite the fact that clusters of the disease is found in Southern California, Texas and Florida, raising a red flag that the disease may be environmental,.

Until the CDC decides to step up to the plate and conduct a proper investigation of this disease, and the medical community realizes that they are not God and don’t understand everything, people suffering from Morgellons have little hope.

To find out more about this condition, contact the Morgellons web site here.