X-Files Disease is REAL?

[scaeagles]

Disease straight from the X Files (http://www.mysanantonio.com/global-includes/printstory.jsp?path=/news/metro/stories/MYSA051106.morgellans.KENS.32030524.html)

Morgellons disease is not yet known to kill, but if you were to get it, you might wish you were dead, as the symptoms are horrible.

"These people will have like beads of sweat but it's black, black and tarry," said Ginger Savely, a nurse practioner in Austin who treats a majority of these patients.

Patients get lesions that never heal.

"Sometimes little black specks that come out of the lesions and sometimes little fibers," said Stephanie Bailey, Morgellons patient.

Patients say that's the worst symptom — strange fibers that pop out of your skin in different colors.

"He'd have attacks and fibers would come out of his hands and fingers, white, black and sometimes red. Very, very painful," said Lisa Wilson, whose son Travis had Morgellon's disease.

Icky. And really sad.

[flippyshark]

Dear heavenly cripes, I caught some kind of nervous disease just reading about that! I hope they figure out what's up with this very soon. That sounds like tremendous suffering. I'm at least glad to see that it appears not to be contagious.

[xharryb]

I have but one reaction to reading this........ ACK!:eek:

[SacTown Chronic]

Can we smoke these tarry beads of sweat like hash?

[Gn2Dlnd]

It sounds really faky.

Say, did anyone see the SurvivaBall™ from Halliburton (http://halliburtoncontracts.com/about/history.html)?

[SzczerbiakManiac]

"faky"?

[scaeagles]

If it is a fake, it is one hell of a hoax. Did you go the website?

Morgellons disease (http://www.morgellons.org)

[Gn2Dlnd]

Faky. Like alien abductions or crop circles.

All of the info presented on the Morgellons Research Foundation website seems half made up. Pictures are extreme close-up and don't have useful descriptions attached. A link to a story in "Popular Mechanics" (?!?) describes the fibers as all being common industrial fibers. The mp3 provided doesn't put the speaker's statements in any context. Who was she being interviewed by? The entire thing seems to be the pet project of Ginger Savely, a nurse practitioner, and Mary M. Leitao, mother of Morgellon's sufferer, Drew, and my nomination for Munchausen's Syndrome Mom of 2006.

[scaeagles]

I guess I can't say if it is or isn't real. I googled "Morgellons disease" and it is discussed all over the place. However, if I googled "Crop circles" I'd get more hits, no doubt.

[Gn2Dlnd]

I don't think it's an organized hoax, in the way the SurvivaBall™ from Halliburton is a hoax. But I do think it's BS, and appealing to people who need a medical malady.

[Tramspotter]

Not for the squeemish Link with pictures
(http://www.morgellons.org/)
Doctors puzzled over bizarre infection surfacing in South Texas

Web Posted: 05/12/2006 10:51 AM CDT

Deborah Knapp
KENS 5 Eyewitness News

If diseases like AIDS and bird flu scare you, wait until you hear what's next. Doctors are trying to find out what is causing a bizarre and mysterious infection that's surfaced in South Texas.

Morgellons disease is not yet known to kill, but if you were to get it, you might wish you were dead, as the symptoms are horrible.

"These people will have like beads of sweat but it's black, black and tarry," said Ginger Savely, a nurse practioner in Austin who treats a majority of these patients.

Patients get lesions that never heal.

"Sometimes little black specks that come out of the lesions and sometimes little fibers," said Stephanie Bailey, Morgellons patient.

[CoasterMatt]

Like something straight out of the X Files.

[Not Afraid]

Two Two Two threads about horrendious disease!

[LSPoorEeyorick]

Remind me to stay the F U C K out of south Texas.

Wait. I wouldn't be caught dead (or undead with fibers coming out of my wounds) there anyway.

This thing better not come to our state. It's creepy.

[CoasterMatt]

Um... most of the cases HAVE been reported in California

According to the site linked to in the original post,

Distinct geographic "cluster" areas of this disease have been noted near Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose and San Diego in California - as well as near Houston, Dallas, Austin, and Round Rock in Texas.

Note: Although California represents 12% of the US population, 26% of all who have registered with the Morgellons Research Foundation reside in California.
http://members.dslextreme.com/users/pantsonfire/images/eek2.gif

[Gn2Dlnd]

Two Two Two threads about horrendious disease!

And it STILL smells like BS. Put your thinking caps on and explore the website. If every news outlet in the world picked up this story (from the same, singular source) it still doesn't make it true.

[LSPoorEeyorick]

We're having Tom's mom research it for us. She has all kinds of medical research access. More to come later.

[Ghoulish Delight]

This article (http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/medicine/1662162.html) says it all.

No doctor has actually witnessed the symptoms, they've just had patients report them. No blood sample taken from any patient has ever shown any infectious or toxic agent. And every sample of "mysterious" fibre ever tested has come back as being textile fibres.

Oh, and there's this...

Leitao and other Morgellons activists say that, with the Web as a primary tool, they'll continue working to have the illness investigated as an infectious disease. Doctors interviewed by PM say this unilateral approach hinders objective analysis of symptoms they've seen for decades. Well, all symptoms except for one: Widespread reports of the strange fibers date back only three years, to the time they were first described online, at www.morgellons.org.

[Gn2Dlnd]

Thank you, Gregory.

Now, on to necrotizing fasciitis, my favorite real X-Files disease!

[LSPoorEeyorick]

The medical madre says that it's definitely possible... that it's delusional parasitosis.

[Tom]

To clarify LSPE's post:

My mom (a former medical research scientist, recently retired) did a quick search for Morgelleon's disease. She found that it has not been mentioned in any scientific journals (there's a searchable online database for medical reasearch) and is not mentioned anywhere in the Library of Congress. But she does point out that this isn't necesarily definitive - as she said, at one point, there was no mention of AIDS anywhere in the medical research, which didn't mean that it didn't exist.

She went to the Morgellon's Foundation website and found the description of the disease as something that could happen - basically a hyperallergic reaction to parasites.

So nothing absolutely definitive from this end, but some more info for ya all to chew on. Enjoy.

[innerSpaceman]

Mmmm, chew on.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Thank you, Gregory.

Now, on to necrotizing fasciitis, my favorite real X-Files disease!
A form of that is what nearly killed my father.

---after a little more research---

...hmm, perhaps not. He had a cellulitis, which is one of the early symptoms of necrotizing fasciitis, but n.f. progresses much faster. It was simply my dad's decission to wait 3 days before seeing a doctor about a painful rash that threatened his life.

[Disneyphile]

This disease sounds like a bunch of dilusional and paranoid people with zits. ;)

[Gn2Dlnd]

No, that's us.

[Prudence]

The CDC is going to investigate Morgellons. (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/272624_morgellons03.html)

"Not a day passes when I don't talk to somebody who claims to have this," said CDC spokesman Dan Rutz. "In the absence of any objective review, people have jumped to conclusions and found each other on the Internet and formed their own belief structure. We really need to debunk this if there isn't anything to it or identify if there is indeed a new, unrecognized disease that needs attention."

[BarTopDancer]

I'm channel surfing tonight and this was on PrimeTime live (or whatever news show is on ABC).

They are blaming it for neurological damage too now.

[€uroMeinke]

I just saw DOA - it's Luminous Toxin that I'm more curious about now

[Stan4dSteph]

I'm with the folks crying BS.