CDC report Early 2011 Washington Post Article

[kmar]

Whatever Happened To ... the mysterious disease known as Morgellons


So, is Morgellons real? Or is it a delusion?

The CDC won't say right now, for fear that releasing information might jeopardize the study's publication. Mark Eberhard, director of the CDC's division of parasitic diseases, said, "We were very clear from the outset that no one study, not even this one, would likely provide the whole answer."


A few years ago, a handful of scientists thought the so-called fiber disease could be the result of infection by some strange new bacterium, parasite or fungus. Almost all of them have dropped their research. "I believe the disease is real. But there are lots of crazy people involved. So, I distanced myself," said Ahmed Kilani, an infectious-disease microbiologist at Clongen Labs in Germantown. Plus, there was no funding.





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[carla]

Thanks for this Kmar .Very Interesting !

I believe the disease is real. But there are lots of crazy people involved. So, I distanced myself," said Ahmed Kilani, an infectious-disease microbiologist at Clongen Labs in Germantown.

LOL He got that right !

[carla]

I can't load the page .Could someone please copy and paste the whole article for me .Thanks

[kmar]

Whatever Happened To ... the mysterious disease known as Morgellons
Washington Post - Brigid Schulte - 16 hours ago


In 2004, Sue Laws began to itch. She found tiny red fibers all over her back. Within weeks, her skin broke out in lesions. She felt bugs crawling under her skin, and one day, she said, she pulled a worm out of her eyeball and coughed up a springtail fly. "That's when I thought, 'I'm really going to kill myself,'" the Gaithersburg resident told The Washington Post Magazine in 2008 in a story about a strange medical condition she thought was Morgellons.

Laws's doctors thought she was delusional. But she found a host of other sufferers on the Internet and joined the Morgellons Research Foundation and the lobbying effort that prompted a number of lawmakers, including then-Sen. Barack Obama, to write the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention demanding an investigation.

Now, nearly three years later, the CDC has completed its investigation of Morgellons, or what it calls unexplained dermopathy, evaluating patients in Northern California and sending tissue samples to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology for analysis. CDC experts are preparing the final draft of their report, which they hope to submit for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal sometime in early 2011.

So, is Morgellons real? Or is it a delusion?

The CDC won't say right now, for fear that releasing information might jeopardize the study's publication. Mark Eberhard, director of the CDC's division of parasitic diseases, said, "We were very clear from the outset that no one study, not even this one, would likely provide the whole answer."

A few years ago, a handful of scientists thought the so-called fiber disease could be the result of infection by some strange new bacterium, parasite or fungus. Almost all of them have dropped their research. "I believe the disease is real. But there are lots of crazy people involved. So, I distanced myself," said Ahmed Kilani, an infectious-disease microbiologist at Clongen Labs in Germantown. Plus, there was no funding.

The sole remaining researcher is Randy Wymore. A pharmacology professor at Oklahoma State University, he has spent the past three years doing "slow and tedious" and ultimately inconclusive DNA testing of the fibers that patients claimed were seeping from their bodies. He has ruled out unusual bacteria, fungi or insects. "We have a better idea of what the fibers aren't," Wymore said. "But we're no closer to figuring out what they are."

Sue Laws received a diagnosis of small-cell lung cancer in 2008. As she underwent chemotherapy, she wrote on an Internet discussion board that when her hair fell out, out, too, came "millions of red, blue, black and clear-white fibers and springtails, spiders, ants, dog scabies, human or dog lice."

By October 2009, the cancer had spread to her brain. She refused further treatment. She died Dec. 13.

Her last wish was that her body be donated to science to help find a cure for Morgellons. But her family couldn't find a researcher who wanted it. Her husband plans to spread her ashes in St. Croix in the spring.





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[carla]

Thanks Kmar .This is very depressing .It has gone beyond a joke now .
How dare the CDC treat us like this.

[tcmgpt13]

Wow, it looks as if the CDC is more interested in having a peer review study published, leaving a group of very sick people to continue groping in the dark for two years about what may really going on and what was found in that poorly financed study. I don't think anyone expected an absolutely definitive study saying exactly what Morgellons is, but surely we could have expected some results pointing in the right direction for future studies and expected that discussion BEFORE a peer reviewed paper was published. That said one thing is good as far as I can see. That is that one person who was quoted in this article is from the parasitology division of the CDC. I am hopeful that gives us a clue that parasites may be part of the picture and not delusions. If as yet unknown parasite(s) are involved then it would put to rest some of the wilder and crazier speculations from those with Morgellons which have turned at least one researcher (Ahmed Kilani, an infectious-disease microbiologist) away from doing any further studies:

The CDC won't say right now, for fear that releasing information might jeopardize the study's publication. Mark Eberhard, director of the CDC's division of parasitic diseases, said, "We were very clear from the outset that no one study, not even this one, would likely provide the whole answer."

Indeed Mr. Eberhard, but why has the CDC kept us dangling here?

[kmar]

Your Welcome Carla, ..... don't enjoy being the bearer of what appears to be not so good news.

I wonder....... They are going to submit for publishing in Early 2011, So how long will it take to get published so that we can READ it?



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[kmar]

which they hope to submit for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal sometime in early 2011.

They "hope" to submit ....

Could be the writer's error, but I do wish it had said:

They "WILL" submit .....



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[kmar]

TCM,

I do remember when the study announcement was made, they said they would BEGIN studying in the northern CA area. ----- that always led me to believe that there would be more studies afterward.


Agree ---- the parasite thing can be a clue. Lyme disease when first discovered, they didn't know whether to call it a bacteria OR parasite because it didn't exactly fall into either category. (If I am remembering correctly)


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[lamb]

Suebee has passed . It was so sad.
Where have you all been?
Folks have moved way beyond.
Many people here knew her
but we are not welcomed anymore.
Sorry for all of our losses.
God Bless us all.