Morgellons Disease

Morgellons (/mɔːrˈɡɛlənz/) is the informal name of a self-diagnosed, unconfirmed skin condition in which individuals have sores that they believe contain some kind of fibers. Morgellons is poorly characterized but the general medical consensus is that it is a form of delusional parasitosis; the sores are the result of compulsive scratching, and the fibers, when analysed, turn out to originate from textiles. Mary Leitao, a mother who rejected the medical diagnosis of her son's delusional parasitosis, named the supposed disease in 2002. She revived it from a letter written by a physician in the mid-17th century. Leitao and others involved in her Morgellons Research Foundation successfully lobbied members of the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to investigate the condition in 2006. CDC researchers issued the results of their multi-year study in January 2012, indicating that no disease organisms were present in people with so-called 'Morgellons', that the fibers were likely cotton, and concluded that the condition was 'similar to more commonly recognized conditions such as delusional infestation'. Morgellons is poorly understood but the general medical consensus is that it is a form of delusional parasitosis in which individuals have some form of actual skin condition that they believe contains some kind of fibers. In 2001, according to Leitao, her then two-year-old son developed sores under his lip and began to complain of 'bugs'. Leitao says she examined the sores with her son's toy microscope and discovered red, blue, black, and white fibers. She states that she took her son to see at least eight different doctors who were unable to find any disease, allergy, or anything unusual about her son's described symptoms. Fred Heldrich, a Johns Hopkins pediatrician with a reputation 'for solving mystery cases', examined Leitao's son. Heldrich found nothing abnormal about the boy's skin, wrote to the referring physician that 'Leitao would benefit from a psychiatric evaluation and support', and registered his worry about Leitao's 'use' of her son. Leitao last consulted an unnamed Johns Hopkins infectious disease specialist who, after reviewing her son's records refused to see him, suggesting Leitao herself might have 'Munchausen's by proxy, a psychiatric syndrome in which a parent pretends a child is sick or makes him sick to get attention from the medical system'. According to Leitao, several medical professionals she sought out shared this opinion of a potential psychological disorder: Leitao says that her son developed more sores, and more fibers continued to poke out of them. She and her husband, Edward Leitao, an internist with South Allegheny Internal Medicine in Pennsylvania, felt their son had 'something unknown'. She chose the name Morgellons disease (with a hard g) from a description of an illness in the medical case-history essay, A Letter to a Friend (c. 1656, pub. 1690) by Sir Thomas Browne, where the physician describes several medical conditions in his experience, including 'that endemial distemper of children in Languedoc, called the morgellons, wherein they critically break out with harsh hairs on their backs'. There is no suggestion that the symptoms described by Browne are linked to the alleged modern cases. Leitao started the Morgellons Research Foundation (MRF) informally in 2002 and as an official non-profit in 2004. The MRF states on its website that its purpose is to raise awareness and funding for research into the proposed condition, described by the organization as a 'poorly understood illness, which can be disfiguring and disabling'. Leitao stated that she initially hoped to receive information from scientists or physicians who might understand the problem, but instead, thousands of others contacted her describing their sores and fibers, as well as neurological symptoms, fatigue, muscle and joint pain, and other symptoms. The MRF claimed to have received self-identified reports of Morgellons from all 50 US states and 15 other countries, including Canada, the UK, Australia, and the Netherlands, and states that it has been contacted by over 12,000 families. In 2012 the Morgellons Research Foundation closed down and directed future inquiries to Oklahoma State University. In May 2006, a CBS news segment on Morgellons aired in Southern California. The same day, the Los Angeles County Department of Health services issued a statement saying, 'No credible medical or public health association has verified the existence or diagnosis of 'Morgellons Disease'', and 'at this time there is no reason for individuals to panic over unsubstantiated reports of this disease'. In June and July 2006 there were segments on CNN, ABC's Good Morning America, and NBC's The Today Show. In August 2006, a segment of the ABC show Medical Mysteries was devoted to the subject. Morgellons was featured on ABC's Nightline on January 16, 2008, and as the cover story of the January 20, 2008, issue of the Washington Post.