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In April, 2006, the CDC recommended an epidemiological investigation of what they were then referring to as a public health concern. In January, 2008 they announced a grant to health care giant Kaiser Permanente to test and interview 150 to 500 patients suffering from Morgellons. The study is being done in the Bay Area of northern California, where many Morgellons patients live. Kaiser Permanente doctors have been among the most ready to classify Morgellons as delusional parasitosis.
One of the few people to take the disease seriously was Randy Wymore, a neuroscientist at Oklahoma State University Center for Health Science. He received samples from a range of people who claimed the fibers had come through their skin. Although the samples all resembled one another, to him they looked like no other synthetic or natural fiber with which he compared them. He finally asked the Tulsa police department's forensics team to examine them.
The team identified the chemical structures of the fibers and compared them to their database of 800 fibers. They found no match, so they used gas chromatography to compare the fibers to their data on 90,000 organic compounds. The fibers did not match up with any of them. They concluded that the fibers were unknown, and not contaminants from clothing sticking to scabs on the lesions as had been thought by those so ready to dismiss what their patients were saying. Wymore and the forensic team concluded that the disease producing these fibers was very real and very frightening.
Wymore then asked the chief of the pediatrics department at Oklahoma State University Hospital, Rhonda Casey, to take a look at some of the patients. At first she was tempted to dismiss them too, but she began to realize how ill the people were. They had neurological symptoms that included confusion, loss of control of their feet that resulted in difficulty walking, and their mouths sagged when they spoke. Many had been diagnosed with neurological diseases.
Dr. Casey examined the patients, took biopsies of their lesions as well as from their healthy skin. Using a dermatoscope, she was able to observe fibers under completely unbroken skin. She found them embedded in the healthy tissue of the patients as well as the diseased tissue, and admitted seeing the full range of fiber colors. She reported seeing a lesion on a young girl's thigh with black fibers just barely protruding from it, and concluded that she could not have done this to herself.
Another person taking the disease seriously is Trisha Springstead, a registered nurse in Florida who has become a beacon of light for Morgellon's patients in the area. She has seen the fibers come through their skin, and has spent hours with patients extracting parasites embedded so deeply that a needle is required to extract them. According to her, a dermatoscope does not penetrate deeply enough to reveal the full extent of parasite involvement.
About the time that Dr. Wymore's forensic investigation of fibers was completed, a specialist in infectious disease detection, Ahmed Kilani, claimed to have broken down two fiber samples and extracted their DNA. He found that they belonged to a fungus.
Meanwhile, Vitaly Citovsky, Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Stony Brook University in New York, discovered the fibers contained the substance Agrobacterium Tumafaciens, the bacteria causing crown gall disease in plants (formation of tumors in more than 140 species of dicot plants). It is a genus of gram-negative bacteria capable of genetically transforming not only plants, but also other eukaryotic species, including humans.
Professor Citovsky issued a statement saying his observation does not imply that Agrobacterium Tumafaciens causes Morgellons, or that Morgellons is indeed an infectious disease. However, he has called for further study to determine (1) statistical significance of data, (2) whether the bacterium is not only present extracellularly, but also causes genetic transformation of the infected tissues, and (3) whether infection of laboratory animals with the bacterium can recreate symptoms of Morgellons.
Originally posted by questioningall
Now, I would love to know, what the statstics are of gall bladder removals in the last few years.................. I would bet, there have been MORE gall bladder operations...... that is above the "norm".
Someone should look at that aspect, to see how many gall bladders have had to be removed.....................
by prevenge:
yea..
i read that article..
nowhere in that article does it state that it's "at pandemic status"
DNA transmission capabilities of Agrobacterium have been extensively exploited by biotechnologists as a means for inserting foreign genes into plants. They discovered the gene transfer mechanism between Agrobacterium and plants, and developed methods to alter Agrobacterium into an efficient delivery system for gene engineering in plants. This is done by cloning the desired gene sequence into the transfer DNA (T-DNA) that will be inserted into the host DNA. Under laboratory conditions the T-DNA has also been transferred to human cells, demonstrating the diversity of insertion application. The mechanism through which Agrobacterium inserts materials into the host cell is very similar to mechanisms used by pathogens to insert materials (usually proteins) into human cells.