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Big-D..... Any comments? I think they've found you.
Big-D..... Any comments? I think they've found you.
There is quite a bit more.May 19, 2004
Mystery Illness/Parasite Said To Be Afflicting Idahoans Getting Attention
By Jon Hanian
Boise, ID -
"Not only do they say I can't help you but they say and you are crazy too." There are people all over the country telling the same amazing story about parasites. "I was seeing too many strange things, actually seeing little creatures surface on my skin. I don't think we are all having this mass delusion, you know." Those comments came from people in northern California. But there are alarmingly similar stories coming from people in Idaho who claim to be afflicted by parasites that they say create stinging and crawling sensations under their skin. But most medical doctors do not believe those claims. "They say I have a problem but it is a mental problem. It is crazy, it is enough to make you mental."
Around the country, 729 people -- and just under a dozen in Idaho -- believe they are infected with a mystery illness many are calling a parasite while some clinical researchers believe it is linked to bacteria. "Actually there are ten patients in Idaho and I know three of them fairly well. I have spoken with them on the phone and I believe all ten of them. Because what they report to me is very consistent with what we have seen, says Mary Leitao, a Pittsburgh-based medical researcher.
Leitao is a biologist by training and an investigator of this unknown medical condition by necessity. She began clinically studying it when her three-year-old son showed her an unknown organism coming out his lip and on his heels. When she first spoke with dozens of other people who claimed to suffer from the same type of unusual skin lesions, they said, "The physicians will not acknowledge this. They are telling us we are all delusional and we have what is known as delusional parasitosis."
So Leitao began doing her own research, started a website and a foundation called the Morgellons Research Foundation based on comparing what was she saw coming out her child and the name of an obscure 400 year old medical manuscript with drawings of an ancient parasite that looked the same. "The microscopic drawings of Morgellons were done in the 1600's. Since this was the only thing that was even similar to what we were seeing under the microscope, we decided to base our name on that."
Leitao admits the medical community is slow to recognize the problem and believes that most of her evidence is anecdotal. In other words, medical officials are concerned that the "evidence" thus far amounts to clinical experiences based on individual cases, rather than an organized investigation with appropriate scientifically approved controls. Adding to her problem, there are no "peer-reviewed" medical studies to document the problem. Local health officials in Idaho contacted by Idaho 2 News declined to be interviewed for this story citing similar concerns.
But a former NASA physician and epidemiologist based in Houston believes there is an infectious bacteria at the heart of this problem. Dr. William Harvey is the current chairman of the NASA Education Advisory Committee. He has documented more than 565 of these (Borreliosis) cases in Texas and says 94% of (those with Morgellons skin lesions) have tested positive for the bacteria associated with Lyme disease, or Borreliosis. "I think we are a looking at a major problem that has been unrecognized in humanity right now."