Morgellon's Disease appeared on the Science Channel

[Muscle Car55]

The show "Unexplained Files" on the Science Channel did a special on Morgellon's Disease.

Unexplained Files is on "on-demand" through Comcast cable, don't know about other cable providers.

http://science.discovery.com/tv-shows/t ... isease.htm

From what I've heard from a doctor on Coast-to-Coast AM, 80 percent that have Morgellon's Disease at one time or another had Lyme disease in their life.

Anyone who wants to know more about Morgellons should watch the show...

A pharmacology professor Randy Wymore tested the colored fibers and says it relates to no fibers in the police database, the database holds 1,200 different fibers. Wymore said he "still doesn't know what the fibers are made out of." Microbiologist Marianne Middelveen said after looking through a microscope, "you can see the fibers growing from the tissue, the fibers are being produced by the body itself."

When professor Randy Wymore heated the fibers up at 1400 degrees Fahrenheit, they wouldn't burn. Randy Wymore did a more extensive test, yet he still couldn't match the fibers to any 100,000 organic compounds in the database.

One theory on the show proposed that the fibers could be caused by an unidentified form of bacteria. Also another theory on the show suggested this disease is from outer space, possibly carried from a meteorite crashing to earth.

For whatever reason, no connection was made on the show about Lyme disease.

http://science.discovery.com/tv-shows/t ... d-rain.htm

And another show on "red colored rain" showed that there were microorganisms in the rain, but they had no DNA strain in them. Every organism on the planet Earth has DNA in them. They theorized that these organisms could be coming from meteorites as well. Meteorites passing through the clouds, leaving organisms in the clouds then being passed down through rain.

Funny how this isn't being publicized in the news...

Keep your did the grindstone, lot of weird sh!t happening out there...

[Camp Other]

The show "Unexplained Files" on the Science Channel did a special on Morgellon's Disease.

Unexplained Files is on "on-demand" through Comcast cable, don't know about other cable providers.

http://science.discovery.com/tv-shows/t ... isease.htm

From what I've heard from a doctor on Coast-to-Coast AM, 80 percent that have Morgellon's Disease at one time or another had Lyme disease in their life.

Who determined this, and how many patients were surveyed? Were serological tests completed?

A pharmacology professor Randy Wymore tested the colored fibers and says it relates to no fibers in the police database, the database holds 1,200 different fibers. Wymore said he "still doesn't know what the fibers are made out of." Microbiologist Marianne Middelveen said after looking through a microscope, "you can see the fibers growing from the tissue, the fibers are being produced by the body itself."

When professor Randy Wymore heated the fibers up at 1400 degrees Fahrenheit, they wouldn't burn. Randy Wymore did a more extensive test, yet he still couldn't match the fibers to any 100,000 organic compounds in the database.

One theory on the show proposed that the fibers could be caused by an unidentified form of bacteria. Also another theory on the show suggested this disease is from outer space, possibly carried from a meteorite crashing to earth.

Has anyone else outside of Wymore's group analyzed the fibers and made an independent assessment, confirming their findings?

Is this the only study of its kind?

For whatever reason, no connection was made on the show about Lyme disease.

Search the literature for publications on the relationship between Lyme disease and Morgellon's disease.

My guess the reason the connection wasn't made was because not enough research has been done to confirm one has relationship to the other, and with 300,000 Americans contracting Lyme disease every year, odds are good some people in that 300,000 will develop Morgellon's disease.

Correlation is not causation. Even if one condition triggers another (and Lyme disease IS a trigger for certain conditions; there is evidence for this in cutaneous marginal b-cell lymphoma, for example) one has to provide more than a little evidence to support that claim.

http://science.discovery.com/tv-shows/t ... d-rain.htm

And another show on "red colored rain" showed that there were microorganisms in the rain, but they had no DNA strain in them. Every organism on the planet Earth has DNA in them. They theorized that these organisms could be coming from meteorites as well. Meteorites passing through the clouds, leaving organisms in the clouds then being passed down through rain.

Prions have no DNA. Some viruses are RNA only, have no DNA.

Keep your did the grindstone, lot of weird sh!t happening out there...

This much is true. There is ALWAYS a lot of weird shit happening out there. With and without interrobangs.

[Camp Other]

The show "Unexplained Files" on the Science Channel did a special on Morgellon's Disease.

Unexplained Files is on "on-demand" through Comcast cable, don't know about other cable providers.

http://science.discovery.com/tv-shows/t ... isease.htm

From what I've heard from a doctor on Coast-to-Coast AM, 80 percent that have Morgellon's Disease at one time or another had Lyme disease in their life.

Who determined this, and how many patients were surveyed? Were serological tests completed?

A pharmacology professor Randy Wymore tested the colored fibers and says it relates to no fibers in the police database, the database holds 1,200 different fibers. Wymore said he "still doesn't know what the fibers are made out of." Microbiologist Marianne Middelveen said after looking through a microscope, "you can see the fibers growing from the tissue, the fibers are being produced by the body itself."

When professor Randy Wymore heated the fibers up at 1400 degrees Fahrenheit, they wouldn't burn. Randy Wymore did a more extensive test, yet he still couldn't match the fibers to any 100,000 organic compounds in the database.

One theory on the show proposed that the fibers could be caused by an unidentified form of bacteria. Also another theory on the show suggested this disease is from outer space, possibly carried from a meteorite crashing to earth.

Has anyone else outside of Wymore's group analyzed the fibers and made an independent assessment, confirming their findings?

Is this the only study of its kind?

For whatever reason, no connection was made on the show about Lyme disease.

Search the literature for publications on the relationship between Lyme disease and Morgellon's disease.

My guess the reason the connection wasn't made was because not enough research has been done to confirm one has relationship to the other, and with 300,000 Americans contracting Lyme disease every year, odds are good some people in that 300,000 will develop Morgellon's disease.

Correlation is not causation. Even if one condition triggers another (and Lyme disease IS a trigger for certain conditions; there is evidence for this in cutaneous marginal b-cell lymphoma, for example) one has to provide more than a little evidence to support that claim.

http://science.discovery.com/tv-shows/t ... d-rain.htm

And another show on "red colored rain" showed that there were microorganisms in the rain, but they had no DNA strain in them. Every organism on the planet Earth has DNA in them. They theorized that these organisms could be coming from meteorites as well. Meteorites passing through the clouds, leaving organisms in the clouds then being passed down through rain.

Prions have no DNA. Some viruses are RNA only, have no DNA.

Keep your did the grindstone, lot of weird sh!t happening out there...

This much is true. There is ALWAYS a lot of weird shit happening out there. With and without interrobangs.

[dlf]

Camp Other wrote,

Has anyone else outside of Wymore's group analyzed the fibers and made an independent assessment, confirming their findings?

Is this the only study of its kind?

Here is the study done by Marianne Middelveen et al, so the Wymore study is not the only one. Their explanation makes a lot more sense to me. The link to the full article is here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3544355/

Characterization and evolution of dermal filaments from patients with Morgellons disease
Marianne J Middelveen,1 Peter J Mayne,1
Douglas G Kahn,2 and Raphael B Stricker1

Abstract

Morgellons disease is an emerging skin disease characterized by formation of dermal filaments associated with multisystemic symptoms and tick-borne illness. Some clinicians hypothesize that these often colorful dermal filaments are textile fibers, either self-implanted by patients or accidentally adhering to lesions, and conclude that patients with this disease have delusions of infestation. We present histological observations and electron microscopic imaging from representative Morgellons disease samples revealing that dermal filaments in these cases are keratin and collagen in composition and result from proliferation and activation of keratinocytes and fibroblasts in the epidermis. Spirochetes were detected in the dermatological specimens from our study patients, providing evidence that Morgellons disease is associated with an infectious process.

The electron microscopic images are really interesting!

[Margherita]

Thanks dlf for your interesting post.
Somewhere I heard that there might be a connection between Morgellons and the ecdysone hormone, which is used for moulting by certain insects, ticks included. It seems that this hormone plays an important role in the gene expression (transcription of DNA to mRNA and translation from mRNA to proteins). Does anybody know more? Does it make sense?

Underneath two studies about the ecdysone hormone (without referring to Morgellons but anyhow....)

25 March 1976
Ecdysone and the super tick

CHRISTINE MANGO, THOMAS R. ODHIAMBO & RACHEL GALUN

International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology, Nairobi, Kenya

TICKS and insects develop and grow through intermittent replacement of their integument. This moulting does not occur beyond the adult stage, with the exception of primitive apterygote insects such as silverfish, which continue to moult and grow after they become sexually mature. Moulting ceases to occur in the pterygote adult insect because the glands secreting ecdysone, the hormone required to induce moulting, break down and disappear soon after the insect (and presumably also the tick) becomes adult1. The adult tissues of both hemimetabolous insects and those with complete metamorphosis continue to respond to ecdysone if exposed to it. There are, however, differences in the responsiveness of different segments of the insects and the resulting ‘super-moulted’ adult insects are usually defective2–5. We have found that ticks also retain the full potential to moult, grow and reproduce normally as adults if they receive ecdysone. Through successive adult moults ‘super ticks’ are obtained (Fig. 1) which consume very large volumes of blood and produce many more viable eggs than normal ticks.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v2 ... 318a0.html

Here's another study

http://www.pnas.org/content/88/9/3744.full.pdf

with an interesting detail:

Ticks are of considerable medical and economic importance.

With regard to the 'economic importance' it seems that this hormone has been patented (Polynucleotide Encoding insect ecdysone Receptor US 6245531 B1) and that its application is quite wide ranged.

Furthermore, could there be a possible connection between the mutation of Borrelia proteins caused by a (natural) DNA-mRNA translation/transcription due to the presence of the ecdysone hormone in larvae and nymphs and/or in hosts? )