Media Attention In The UK

[lacey]

Thanks, Hilly. Must reach a massive audience on all the buses here in Glasgow. I couldn't find it on their website.
Maybe you can give us the gist - or slant? What was your opinion of the article?
Thanks for the contact.
hannah

[hilly]

could'nt find it on the Metro site either but have written to Lisa Scott to ask for the artlcle... H x Here it is I hope !!




www.metro.co.uk Monday, November 12, 2007 METRO 17 METROHEALTH
Edited by LISA SCOTT health@ukmetro.co.uk
morgellons MystEry FibrEs, crawling insEcts and wEEping sorEs; lisa scott invEstigatEs a disturbing disEasE Misery of itch and scratch
Steven Jones has a problem.
For the past three years
insects have been crawling
under his skin. The insects, of
course, do not actually exist but to
Jones the ‘burning, itchy’ sensation
is completely real.
On top of this, the 44-year-old also
gets lesions all over his body and, if
he scratches them, tiny fibres
appear. ‘I use tweezers to pull them
out,’ he explains. ‘That gives me
temporary relief. A fibre came out
of my eye recently. It looked like
a piece of grit but when I looked at
it through a magnifying glass, I saw
it was a bundle of fibres. Some were
red, blue and white, while others
were clear.’
A disease of the mind?
The West Londoner, who also
complains of ‘brain fog’ and fatigue,
says he has Morgellons, a controversial
disease that first came to light in
2001 after US housewife Mary
Leitao, from Pittsburgh, found sores
and fibres on her two-year-old child.
Leitao went on to become
executive director of the Morgellons
Research Foundation, which has
around 10,000 members. As well as
the crawling skin, lesions and fibres,
sufferers also complain of shortterm
memory loss, depression, joint
pain and changes in vision.
Julia Mellor, from Devon, also has
Morgellons. ‘It started after I got
a throat virus – it felt like something
was in my throat. Bathing makes it
worse. My skin literally crawls and
I want a shower again.’
When the fibres first appeared,
Mellor ripped up her carpets and
spent hundreds of pounds on potions,
herbs and insect repellents. ‘I have
no pets and a specialist found no sign
of infestation in my house,’ she says.
Like Jones, Mellor gets temporary
relief from the pain when the fibres
come out of her skin.
But the reason Morgellons is so
controversial is, that although
thousands of people complain of the
same symptoms, many doctors
don’t believe it exists. They say
sufferers have ‘delusional parasitosis’,
where individuals imagine they have
a parasite and pick at the skin until
it results in sores. The sores attract
fluff which become the ‘fibres’.
Under the microscope
‘I’ve been told I’m self-mutilating
and have eczema or acne,’ says
Jones, who now takes antibiotics to
ease his symptoms. ‘It’s a lonely,
isolating disease that makes you feel
like a leper. There are only a
handful of GPs with any knowledge
of this disease in Britain.’
Not all healthcare specialists think
sufferers are delusional, though.
Randy Wymore, of Oklahoma State
University, says he is ‘absolutely
certain’ that Morgellons is a
physical disease. He has 12,000
people registered on his website,
has seen more than 20 people at his
Tulsa clinic and analysed many fibre
samples (pictured, left).
‘I compared the Morgellons fibres
to textile fibres and took samples from
the office carpet, my clothes and
from my students’ homes,’ Wymore
explains. ‘The Morgellons fibres were
nothing like the man-made ones.’
Wymore’s colleague Rhonda
Casey used a microscope to
examine different patients. She saw
fibres embedded in the surface of
the skin, not just in the open wounds.
Wymore even went to the Tulsa
police department where two
forensic officers looked at the fibres.
‘It took them 30 seconds to say they
had never seen anything like them
in their 20-year careers,’ he says.
Wymore also disagrees that selfmutilation
is involved. ‘When
people hurt themselves, the wounds
are rarely round and show irritation
near the entry and exit points. None
of the lesions caused by Morgellons
[that I have seen] had this.’
An unknown cause
Although Wymore is certain
Morgellons exists, he is still baffled
by the cause. Some people think it’s
a genetically modified organism that
may have been artificially created in
a laboratory.
Some sufferers also test positive
for Lyme disease, which is spread
through ticks, supporting the idea
that Morgellons is spread by
parasites. Jones has also tested
positive for Chlamydia pneumoniae,
an airborne virus linked to
Morgellons.
Others say exposure to GM foods
could be the cause of the disease.
Researchers at the State University
of New York found that
Agrobacterium (a bacterium that
causes tumours in plants) has been
found in Morgellons sufferers.
‘Whether it is a virus or a parasite,
it seems to live on or under the skin
and feed off, or interfere with, the
nervous system,’ says Mellor. ‘The
constant stinging and inability to
function has even driven a few poor
souls to suicide.’
Although the Center for Disease
Control and Prevention in the US is
investigating reports of the condition,
the world still needs an explanation.
‘We need governments to step in
because we just don’t know what it
is,’ says Wymore. ‘Morgellons is
completely outlandish.’
www.morgellons.org
www.morgellons-uk.net
Follow Metro’s sixpack
challenge at
www.metro.co.uk/
sixpack
irritating: although thousands of people claim to have morgellons, many doctors don’t believe it exists
picture: danny allison

[hilly]

Sorry it's in that format, it's the only way I could manage to paste it. lol... Hilly

[Jason]

Hi guys,

The metro article was great a good 3/4 million would have read it in London alone (maybe more). Was amazed the story pretty much got a page to itself. Whoever pulled that effort did a great job, the metro is one paper nearly every person around here reads in the morning.

Jason

[hilly]

Yes, Jason. Someone who was staying with us and went up to London for the day, brought it back. It was a full colour page with big illustration that would'nt paste but very eye catching... the story really is getting around. Hilly

[lacey]

Hilly, you are a sweetheart, thank you so much for posting the article. I was really wanting to read it and I will email the reporter and give the response I received from the Chief Medical Officer. Maybe get a bit of pressure on. Jason, you are so right. It's on every bus on Glasgow and people read them on the bus and many put them back for others to see so it's not even as though each paper is only read by one person.

Great stuff. Plus the article is more balanced in our favour than most.

love hannah

[carla]

Thanks Hilly.I think the article is good too. I couldn't believe how many guests were on line at lunchtime yesterday.(UK )
I wonder if that had anything to do with the Metro.
Carla XX

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[hilly]

We wanted media attention and certainly we got it with this... it will be interesting to see what developes.. I reckon we'll have a lot more Brits on the site now.. maybe even some of the 'rotten balshy' doctors will have read it and will start to get worried about 'egg in their faces' lol... Hilly x

[Jason]

you will probably find a lot of people with similar symptoms but have lived in agony because a doctor has prescribed some useless anti psychotic drug and made them believe nothing is wrong, actually start to realise it could be morgellons.

the more its seen in the mainstream media and being supported by scientists/researchers and doctors the more real it will become. it is ashame it has taken so long for it to get to this stage.

[Brenda]

..............hoo-o-o-ora-a-a-ay. the more that knows about this wretched disease the better. somethings gotta give here! some days life is just too miserable to bear and other days its barely tolerable. of all the non fatal, but uncurable diseases i have this one is definitely the worst. thank God more and more people are learnin about it but it makes me afraid because that probably means theres that many more that have it...............

oh, brother

brenda