A new report by The Mayo Clinic calls Morgellons disease “a mysterious skin disorder” characterized by disfiguring sores and crawling sensations on the skin.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) refers to the condition as “unexplained dermopathy.”

The agency has opened up a clinical investigation on the disease.

“Persons who suffer from this unexplained skin condition report a range of cutaneous (skin) symptoms including crawling, biting, and stinging sensations; granules, threads, fibers, or black speck-like materials on or beneath the skin; and/or skin lesions, e.g. rashes or sores,” according to the CDC. “In addition to skin manifestations, some sufferers also report fatigue, mental confusion, short term memory loss, joint pain, and changes in vision.”
The condition was reported for the first time in 2001 by Mary Leitao—who was trained in biology—on behalf of her two-year-old son, who had developed skin lesions, and complained of “bugs.”

She examined the lesions and discovered colored fibers in them. She claimed that the fibers were actually emerging from the sores. The boy was examined by many physicians, who did not find any known disease in the child. Moreover, a number of doctors familiar with the case felt that Leitao might suffer from Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy, and suggested that she should seek psychiatric care.

According to Leitao, she got the name “Morgellons” from the essay A Letter to a Friend by Sir Thomas Browne, published posthumously in 1690. Browne describes a certain “endemial distemper of little children in Languedoc [in southern France], called the Morgellons, wherein they critically break out with harsh hairs on their backs, which takes off the unquiet symptomes of the disease, and delivers them from coughs and convulsions.”

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director, and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

Posted: October 30th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Flesh-Eating Bacteria, Morgellons Disease.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last week launched a study to learn more about the unexplained skin condition known as Morgellons disease.Those who suffer from this condition report a strange range of symptoms, including non-healing skin lesions associated with the emergence of fibers or solid material from the skin, abnormal skin sensations — such as stinging and biting or pins and needles — and non-cutaneous symptoms such as difficulty concentrating and short-term memory loss.

Doctors want to learn more about who might be affected, what symptoms they experience, and what factors that may contribute to the disease.

“We earnestly want to learn more about this unexplained illness which impacts the lives of those who suffer from it,” said Dr. Michele Pearson, the principal investigator leading the study for CDC. “Those who suffer have questions, and we want to help them.”

CDC will identify patients in Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California Health Plan to enroll in the research study.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director

Posted: August 8th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Morgellons Disease.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQR5z_omnhg

We’ve seen this disease presenting in a middle-aged female patient at a Chinese medical clinic in Chicago. Very scary. Medical doctors think it may be a psychiatric disorder, but other scientists are unsure of the etiology. The Morgellons Research Foundation is leading the effort to understand the disease.

– The Editors

Posted: March 31st, 2008 under Audio-Video Reports, Morgellons Disease.
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A team of scientists has demonstrated that the rate of growth of new infectious diseases — HIV, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), West Nile Virus and Ebola Virus – is indeed on the rise.

Analyzing a total 335 incidents of previous disease emergence beginning in 1940, the study has demonstrated that zoonoses — diseases that originate in pets and other animals — are the most important threat in causing these new diseases to emerge.

Most of the diseases, including SARS and the Ebola virus, originated in wildlife. Antibiotic drug resistance has been cited as another fiend, leading to diseases such as extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB).

The team was led by University of Georgia professor John Gittleman and scientists from the Consortium for Conservation Medicine, the Institute of Zoology (London) and Columbia University. The doctors published their findings in the learned journal Nature.

The scientists discovered that more new diseases emerged in the 1980s than any other decade, “likely due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which led to a range of other new diseases in people,” says Mark Levy, deputy director of the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESN) at Columbia University.

To predict and prevent future attacks, new computer algorithms were used to design a global map of emerging disease hotspots.

“This is a seminal moment in how we study emerging diseases,” said Gittleman, dean of the Odum School of Ecology, who developed the approach used in analyzing the global database.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director

Posted: February 20th, 2008 under Avian Flu, Developing Diseases, Ebola Virus, Feature Stories, Infection Protection, MRSA, Morgellons Disease, Pet Diseases, SARS, West Nile Virus.
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