Morgellons Article on World Net Daily

[2manyfibers]

World Net Daily is an online newspaper and has an article on Morgellons as the "top story". From some of the quotes in the article it sounds like Dr. Citovsky of SUNY is now saying that agrobacterium from genetically modified plants could not possibly be involved (sounds like he's now in the tank too to me - maybe his funding was threatened). This might help explain why Mark Darrah's research was cut off so abruptly - maybe he is getting too close to home. Here is an excerpt:


Dr. Stanton Gelvin, a professor at Purdue University College of Science who has studied the bacterium for nearly 30 years, said, "Agrobacterium is the means by which DNA is transferred to the plant. After the DNA is transferred to the plant, [genetic engineers] use antibiotics and kill the Agrobacterium. So there's no Agrobacterium around, and now you have a plant with new genes in it."

Both Gelvin and Citovsky said there are no traces of the bacterium in plant tissue following genetic alteration. Though many patients have tested positive for it, they vehemently protest any suggestion that humans can have genetically altered cells and contract Morgellons disease by eating engineered crops treated with Agrobacterium.

"That idea is total lunacy," Citovsky said. "It has nothing to do with it. Forget this mumbo jumbo people use, environmentalists for some unknown reason, when they are protesting against genetically engineered plants. Those plants feed millions of people who are hungry and dying. It has nothing to do with the disease."


I have read in several articles that although scientists claim that there is no agrobacterium "left over" after the antibiotics in genetically modified plants, that more rigorous testing has shown that agrobacterium is indeed left behind and isn't always completely killed by the antibiotics. It sounds to me like Citovsky has done an abrupt "about face" on this based on what he has said previously.

Here's the link to the entire article:

Scientists debate cause of feared 'worms-under-skin' disease

[Jo]

Hi 2many, all,

Thanks for finding and posting this 2many, its Fresh! I'm trying to think this through some....

Wymore and Citovsky concur about finding agrobacterium in Morg patients - is this a fair statement?

Citovsky mentioned in that article about agro being found sometimes in hospital patients.

They both believe the above, that agrobacterium can infect humans. But from what Wymore said to Jonsi and this article, they are dismissing the theory that agro can persist in GM foods and cause Morgs through consumption of them.

Citovsky has never mentioned that agro in Morgs may come from eating GM crops and he's making his position clear about the GM food angle now in that article for sure. And I wonder why he backed out of the conference, maybe things were getting sticky with SUNY because of the association and speculation.

ANYWAY ......I'm not convinced right now that eating GM foods in themselves cause the development of morgellons. One side of my brain says "if this was the case, millions would have come down with Morgs", and other side says "maybe millions have morgs but symptoms are at bay"

So I assume that agrobacterium is still on the morg menu for Wymore and Citovsky, but just not the GM food angle.

I hope I'm making some sense, if I'm talking rubbish then please let me know!!

cheers

Jo xxx

[tcmgpt13]

So 2mf, do you think that the antibiotics are still present in the GMO foods too? I have to think it is fortunate that I switched to gluten free foods about six years ago and most of them are organic too (though I realize organics have their own problems too). As I think rice is more recently a GMO target at least I have not been eating GMO's found in wheat products for absolutely years. No wonder there are so many antibiotic resistant diseases. Surely the antibiotics linger as well. Not only are there traces of antibiotics in regular milk, cheeses, meats and chickens but now they are probably in grains. Great for someone who is allergic to antibiotics, a low level of constant exposure to antibiotics. So no wonder people feel sick all the time as added to the allergy angle of antibiotics present in most foods there is now also the overuse of antibiotics which hastens the resistance of disease organisms to them. The arrogance is beyond comprehension, much less forgiveness.

Here is a link to a post made by Niecy with her link to an article some may have missed about the GMO/Morgellons/Agrobacteria connection, a really good discussion with much of what has been said/unsaid by some involved in the agrobacterium/morgellons discussion--and btw anything heard about Mark Darrah lately? Or is this mysterious silence broadening? I feel folks who are in these universities perhaps may be silenced by the possible loss of research dollars and the possible loss of employment, who knows? But it is interesting how quiet things are getting lately:

per Stricker, Savely, & V Citovsky: AGROBACTERIUM RADIOBACTER - Morgellons-Disease-Research

[tcmgpt13]

Here is a more in depth discussion of cancer and agrobacterium which interests me, because my lesions have responded to the use of herbal cancer salves. These herbs do not work on normal skin. I think this is a very interesting connection--just the first paragraph here from the article which warns at the end of it that perhaps farm and laboratory worker who were exposed to it be tested. The article also mentions that along with cancer cells neurons (wow) and kidney cells are also transformed by this bacterium:

Common Plant Vector Injects Genes into Human Cells

"Agrobacterium tumefaciens is a bacterium that causes tumours to appear on the stems of infected plants. The bacterium causes the tumours by transferring genes to the cells of the infected plant cells from a tumour inducing plasmid (Ti). The Ti plasmid has virulence genes that determine attachment to cells and transfer of a segment of the plasmid, T-DNA, to the plant cell. The transferred DNA is integrated essentially randomly (no apparent sequence bias at the site of insertion) into the plant chromosomes and normally add bacterial genes that stimulate plant tumour cell growth."

[tcmgpt13]

In light of the discussion that farm workers and some lab workers may be at risk for infection with possible insertion of Agrobacterium tumefaciens into their bodies (causing perhaps cancer) it was quite disheartening for me to come across this PDF file concerning a young student's experiment with Agrobacterium tumefaciens. It is bad enough that adult workers may be exposed to this, but to allow this to be sold OTC and then to allow a younger child to be exposed to it is beyond understanding . How can this be happening? Let's hope that all concerned in this little "safe" experiment were also taking beta-carotene in sufficient doses:

www.usc.edu/CSSF/History/2002/Projects/J1429.pdf

[Jo]

Hello,

Beta carotene tcm - must keep eating those red veggies. That student sounded very young, getting his parents to help him - scary stuff indeed.

By the way thanks Jonsi for finding and posting the DVD summary. This bits on my mind:

"I believe it should be noted that Agrobacterium has the ability to insert its DNA into a variety of plant species, and has recently been noted to be the only known species of microbe capable of infiltration of the DNA of not only plant species, but animal species as well."

My minds abit all over the place right now, but I just wanted to voice a couple of thoughts...

The agrobacterium in GM crops is not meant to be there when it hits our dinner plates, but what about a transmission window in time. A time when agro became resistant to the antibiotics, but nobody realised...so the crops grew with the agro on board.

and the possiblity of insects and rodents feeding on the growing crops and having their DNA infiltrated at that point? dying bees etc.... then the insects became vectors for the agrobacterium to animals and us. Is this why the great variety of creatures in our skins, often have fibre connections?

On Erin's site a farmer talked about getting morgs from touching the growing corn in the field. Was there a time when fields of crops had galls on them all of a sudden?

Jo xxx

[2manyfibers]

Hey Jo – I’m not sure how much Dr. Wymore has weighed in on the agrobacterium angle. My thoughts on the possibility of GMO foods being involved are based on many things and they really seem to keep adding up. For one the timing is right (GM crops were started in the 1970’s and the technology has become very widespread now). Another thing is that there have NEVER been any long term tests done on these GM foods – we are the lab rats and previously unknown diseases like CFS, fibromyalgia, lupus, and several other multi-symptom, systemic diseases just seem to keep increasing in occurrence (and it makes a lot of common sense that food would play a critical role in such diseases because everyone eats food and the “system” that is the body can’t function without foods, which now aren’t the same as they were 40 years ago).

Additionally, these GM crops have been approved based on the “research” of the companies that produce these products and obviously stand to benefit greatly from a financial perspective – this is not what I would consider an unbiased source of information and with no actual testing to back up the research, I have absolutely no trust that these products are as safe as is claimed. Of course I can’t say that GM foods are definitely involved with Morgellons, but it seems more and more like a sure bet the more I read on it. Here’s a link to some information from the UK on the approval process for GM foods – it sounds like the “scientists” and government officials involved ignored the actual results from studies and declared that GM food was safe for consumption in spite of some actual testing done showing that the DNA from GM foods was actually transferred to bacteria in the human gut (not broken down as was claimed). This was interesting reading to me.

GMO: technical information

Dr. Citovsky is apparently a fine authority on agrobacterium as he has done numerous scientific papers on it over the years and is apparently a very well respected authority on the subject. For me, it’s the overall picture that makes me believe that Dr. Citovsky seems to be doing an “about face” here. Apparently there has been no history of agrobacterium in its “natural state” infecting humans in any way although it was known to cause crown gall in some plants in the early 20th century. Here are some quotes that are indirectly from the MRF and can be found at this link (although you will have to read a lot to find the actual quotes):

Agrobacterium -- Citovsky's 1/14/07 MRF Update

Until quite recently, the genetic engineering community has assumed that Agrobacterium does not infect animal cells, and certainly would not transfer genes into them. But this has been proved wrong.

A paper published earlier this year reports that T-DNA can be transferred to the chromosomes of human cancer cells [1]. In fact, Agrobacterium attaches to and genetically transforms several types of human cells. The researchers found that in stably transformed HeLa cells, the integration event occurred at the right border of the Ti plasmid's T-DNA, exactly as would happen when it is being transferred into a plant cell genome. This suggests that Agrobacterium transforms human cells by a mechanism similar to that which it uses for transformation of plants cells.

The “paper” referenced above notes that Dr. Citovsky was a contributor:

1. Kunik T, Tzfira T, Kapulnik Y, Gafni Y, Dingwall C, and Citovsky V. Genetic transformation of HeLa cells by Agrobacterium. PNAS USA, 2001, 98, 1871-87.

Here’s a quote from the MRF website (from the same lymebusters archive noted above):

In a CNN interview, Dr. Citovsky stated, "when I look into the skin of these Morgellons patients, I see DNA from something that could only come from a plant." Agrobacterium may very well be the pathogen that distinguishes Morgellons disease. If these results are confirmed, it would be the first example of a plant-infecting bacterium playing a role in human disease.


While Dr. Citovsky doesn’t specifically state that the agrobacterium may be coming from GM plants, it seems to me that it would be a very logical choice for the source of this agrobacterium (it wasn’t even known that agrobacterium had the capability of transferring genetic information to human cells until Dr. Citovsky discovered it a few years ago in his research for genetically modifying plants).

And this information from a recent article makes me have very strong doubts that agrobacterium is actually “killed” by antibiotics in these mutated plants (at least that it is reliably killed and actually verified to be killed by proper testing in most cases). Here’s the link:

Agrobacterium and Morgellons Disease, A GM Connection?

Scientists at the Kinsealy Research and Development Centre in Dublin, Ireland, and the Scottish Crop Research Institute in Dundee, Scotland, were concerned that the inserted genes in plants would spread to wild populations by cross-pollination or by horizontal gene transfer to unrelated species, which was by then well-documented in the scientific literature.
They considered it “imperative” to address the risk posed in using Agrobacterium as a tool in genetic engineering [17], given its ability to transfer genes to plants. The transformation procedure involves inoculating the cells or tissue explants with Agrobacterium and co-cultivation the plant cells and bacterium for a short period, followed by the elimination of the bacterium with antibiotics.

However, if all the bacteria were not eliminated, then “release of these plants may also result in release of the Agrobacterium [with the foreign genes]”, which will serve as a vehicle for further gene escape, at least to other Agrobacterium strains naturally present in the soil.

Although various antibiotics have been used to eliminate Agrobacterium following transformation, the researchers stated that “very few authors actually test to ensure that the antibiotics succeed.”

The difficulty is compounded because the bacterium can remain latent within the plant tissue. So putting transgenic plant material into culture medium without antibiotics and finding no Agrobacterium is no guarantee that the transgenic plant is free of the bacterium, as was often assumed.

In their study, they investigated the ability of antibiotics to eliminate Agrobacterium tumefaciens after transformation in three model systems: Brassica (mustard), Solanum (potato), and Rubus (raspberry). The antibiotics carbenicillin, cefataxime and ticaracillin were used respectively to eliminate the bacterium at four times the minimum bactericidal concentration, as recommended. They found that none of the antibiotic succeeded in eliminating Agrobacterium.

The contamination levels increased from 12 to 16 weeks to such an extent that transgenic Solanum cultures senesced and died. Contamination in shoot material decreased over 16 to 24 weeks possibly because only the apical node was used in further culture, but even that did not eliminate Agrobacterium from all the samples; 24 percent remained contaminated at 24 weeks.

[KarenAnne]

Kilani said he receives as many as 10 calls every day from people who identify themselves as having the symptoms. He refuses to accept the notion that it is a fabricated illness.

"No, this can't be," he said. "Not almost a half-million patients, no. I have met people from all walks of life: High-powered attorneys, physicians, nurses, actors, actresses, athletes. They go nuts after awhile. They become socially rejected because of the way they look. The whole thing is just a disaster."

Did he just say what I think he said ? A half million ?

[2manyfibers]

Hey TCM – regarding your question about the possibility of antibiotics still being present in GM plants, I think they probably are (along with the agrobacterium that they were supposedly used to kill). Although I have found nothing to indicate either way definitively, I would guess that these “scientists” would claim that there were no antibiotics left behind. But these same people claim that there is no agrobacterium left behind either (just as Dr. Citovsky claimed in the article I referenced at the start of this thread despite testing proving that agrobacterium actually is present in many if not most cases). Apparently he has much more confidence than I do that currently accepted processes for “killing” agrobacterium are actually followed properly, and that these processes actually work for killing ALL the agrobacterium (which the processes do NOT work according to the link I referenced in a previous post).

I’m certainly no conspiracy theorist, but I have found a few things to be quite odd as I’ve thought about the article from World Net Daily (WND) and the statements made by Dr. Citovsky. One thing is the timing of this article. Is it really coincidental that Mark Darrah lost access to the lab at SUNY only a few days before this article was published? This was an “exclusive” for WND and there was really no new information regarding Morgellons other than disagreement about the cause between scientists (which really isn’t news). I personally wonder if Dr. Citovsky didn’t initiate the interview (and thereby the publication) of this article as a means to deny the potential involvement of GMOs. This would seem strange to me if he did initiate this since there was no new information presented except for a very strong denial from him that GM crops could possibly be involved – and the only thing I’ve seen recently that even indicated that possibility was an article out of the UK and Mark Darrah’s work with the Raman graphs. Dr. Citovsky’s statements seem a bit “overstated” based on this if there wasn’t some truth to the possibility of GMOs being in play here. It seems like his denial was much stronger than any accusations made regarding GMOs. I think a quote from Shakespeare might apply here: “Me thinks thou dost protest too much”.

Another thing is that Dr. Citovsky seemed downright antagonistic towards Morgellons sufferers in this interview. I hadn’t noticed that antagonistic tone or attitude in his previous interviews on the subject. It seems strange to me that he suddenly sees Morgellons sufferers as “complainers” and claims that it is “sheer lunacy” to think that it would even be possible for the agrobacterium used in genetically modifying organisms to have any potential for being a cause of Morgellons – especially when he was the one that said agrobacterium could well be a cause of Morgellons. He has tried to make a link to people being exposed to dirt, but I would suspect that not every Morgellons sufferer has had any significant contact with actual soil or dirt where agrobacterium was present.

This also made me wonder about how agrobacterium has recently been found in and on intravenous catheters in Intensive Care patients. Generally ICUs are a relatively sterile environment and the nurses and doctors that would be handling these catheters would be wearing latex gloves and would be fairly sterile themselves. Exactly how does agrobacterium get in or on an intravenous catheter at the implantation site? The only logical explanation I see is that the agrobacterium came from the patient’s own body! Have all the people that have had this occur also been “digging in the dirt” (as Dr. Citovsky and others have implied recently)? I think the chances are much higher that they have all eaten GM food since it has permeated the food supply like it has, and the GM food may be the source of the agrobacterium.

I also wondered about the estimate of half a million people too KarenAnne. It seems like he knows (or at least suspects) more than is being let on my most people to me (it could be speculation, but it might not be either). There are reports of Morgellons everywhere in the US (not just the 3 “hot spots” so often mentioned) and more and more people in the UK and other parts of Europe and Canada are reporting it as well. One thing all these countries have in common is that GM foods have been allowed into the food supply in the last 15 years or so. The more I look at all these things, and the more I read about the international approval NON-process for allowing GM foods into the food supplies with NO testing (google "GM food substantially equivalent" if you really want to see how little is known (and ever will be known) about the impact of GMOs on health), the more I think there really may be something to the possibility that GM foods are causing numerous medical conditions including Morgellons in people.

[tcmgpt13]

Thanks for all your great posts about GMO foods. I think there is a real connection to illness and GMO foods too, especially after the trouble I encountered trying to post the Washington post story about GMOs and Global warming last night. I had a lot of trouble posting the correct URL as it would mysteriously change to another Washington Post page between the preview of the post and after I sent the post. It did it twice, so I know it was not a fluke. So I figure they have been having trouble from someone about this story and are not anxious for people to comment on it elsewhere.

I agree I think there is more UNKNOWN than known about what is happening with GMO foods. The low level of antibiotics is very worrisome to me, as I know this will probably render most known antibiotics useless which is already happening, but of course the poor consumer is blamed for that too--after all we demand antibiotics for colds and flu. Yeah, it's our fault when there are constant low level antibiotic residuals left in meat, poultry, fish and dairy and now possibly food crops. All our fault because we keep demanding to eat.

And then there are the roundup resistant super weeds--now there are plans by Monstanto to stack genes to counter that effect as roundup is less and less reliable:

Scientists create new crop of genetically modified crops | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist

We have to love the wild West of GMO. Not.