Mary Leitao - Mother and Activist for Morgellons Awareness

Mary Leitao has sick children. In 2001, her two year old son, Andrew, began complaining of “bugs” crawling on him. He had sores under his lip that would not heal. Leitao, a biologist who was now a stay-at-home mom, took him to a number of doctors. They prescribed medication for a number of skin disorders, including scabies.

None of the remedies helped Andrew, called “Drew.” One evening, while she was putting a prescribed medication on her son’s sores, she found what she described as “fibers” sprouting from his sores. A biologist, Leitao examined the fibers, which she likened to small eyebrow hairs, under a microscope and realized that they were like nothing she had seen before. She named the condition “Morgellons Disease” after a condition described by Sir Thomas Browne in the late 17th century in which people complaining about the sensation of bugs crawling in them had dark hairs sprouting from their lesions.

Leitao began a research foundation devoted to finding treatment for the symptoms affecting her son. She started a web site on the internet and began receiving e-mails from people all over the United States who were suffering from itchy lesions that sprouted fibers, fatigue, joint pain, confusion, and the sensation of their skin crawling. Many of these people had been dismissed as suffering from delusional parasitosis, a psychiatric, rather than physical disorder.

Through relentless persistence, Mary Leitao managed to get some doctors to study the condition. Those who participated in the research, however, could not agree whether the fibers were the result of a bacterial infection or a fungus. Leitao spent the next six years fighting the medical community that still fails to recognize this syndrome as a disease. In 2004, her husband died suddenly of heart disease. Around that time, Leitao’s other children began experiencing the same symptoms as Drew. They had the sensation of “bugs” crawling on them, fatigue, joint pain and skin lesions that produce “fibers” in a multitude of colors. Despite her years of research on the symptoms as well as having the support of several doctors, Leitao was dismissed as “delusional” and an attention seeker by some in the medical community.

In 2006, after receiving reports from 10,000 families, and publicity generated on television, the Center for Disease Control decided to investigate the matter. Their report was inconclusive. Although the fibers do not fit the description of any known substance, the medical community is not yet ready to concede that we may be faced with a new contagious disease.

In the meantime, countless people continue to suffer from this mysterious condition, with no relief in sight. And while the medical community at large acknowledges that their suffering is real, they continue to prescribe medication that does not help, or dismiss the cause as “psychiatric.”

Mary Leitao continues to fight for recognition. Her son sleeps with his eyes half open