I get the darndest email (This one on morgellons disease)
December 3rd, 2009
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Running a site like this, I tend to get quite a lot of email from people who disagree. Some messages are just full of expletives, others are accusations of being a baby killer, warmonger, earth-hater or something else nasty. A few inform me that they are aware that I am part of the conspiracy or work for the conspiracy and once in a great while, I am informed that I am going to burn in hell, sometimes accompanied with graphic descriptions of what burning in hell entails.
Here is another email I received, which had at least some more thought put into it than the above mentioned examples. It relates directly to a post I had made some time ago on a reputed medical condition called “morgellons” by it’s backers. It also touches on a few other concepts explored here.
ok I will state i will be alittle more dirrect with u, you my friend cant prove what you are suggesting, I can at 25-30ppm of collidial or ionic silver they come out of your skin at a 200 mag. we find this is is nothing but a fiberous material, the best speculation is that its from chemicals that actually change the dna, its given to the plant also given to animals, what they discovered is a fiberous network under the plant skin as well as under the animal, this in my opinion, is at best a very bad descion by the FDA to pass these products to get the food GMO cheaper more of it, but it wrecks havoc ive been studying this for 9-10 as my mentor over 10 years the CDC is a joke, if you believe them you probably are a schill disinfo…for u to say im invisioning these thorn like things that pierce through the skin, which i have saw with my own eyes you my friend are a band wagon jumper and an idiot might you research a true investigation clifford carnicom a very respected researcher in his field, this could even be nanotechnology,, ooops wait aminute your doctor friends better get their little book for that oops not in there, oh well lets debunk another one of your claims that people can research, not taking your word of rhetoric.. DOP is given to patients 3-5% of the time it is one of the LEAST given diagnosis,proven and stated by doctors…You need to reserch this your self I believe by going to www.carnicom.com it will clear alot of unanswered question, theres already a culture confirmed.. we believe every one is sussepted to this pathogen which what it is,, so rather than rambling nonsense and lying to people, silver will get rid of these ,although their is no cure.. read up it would behoove you, well you probably believe 9-11 wasnt an inside job, which is was were spreading the
word..were not conspiricy therorists we dont accept thoughts for us , we find the truth ourselves and it is the truth..something my friend you need adhere to, and not mislead people in your words of iniquties
Not conspiracy theorists? If that’s what does it for you.
In any case, the only statement that I agree has any shred of truth to it is the statement “you my friend cant prove what you are suggesting.” This isn’t entirely true, because there are many things that I can prove: That nobody has presented solid evidence for Morgellons existing as a condition; that the condition has all the symptoms that would be expected from the well known conditions such as delusional parasitosis and neurotic excoriations, and that extensive examination of those who claim to have the condition does not show any shred of evidence to support it.
However, proving beyond any doubt that the condition doesn’t exist runs into the problem of the null hypothesis, and the paradox that if the presumption is made that a condition exists, then it can’t be disprove simply due to lack of evidence. It has been said that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” I would dispute that statement, however. I would say that “Absence of evidence” can be evidence of absence, although not conclusive proof. Conclusive proof is impossible to obtain if you allow for the possibility that the factors involved are so difficult to detect and that despite a great deal of effort to find the evidence, it continues to elude us. Also, since every single person who claims to have the condition has not been investigated exhaustively, I can’t provide absolute proof that not a single one has an anomalous condition.
In the end, I don’t know that this is a problem. There comes a time when the evidence for something is so compelling and so one sided, that even if no one single fact can be held up as absolute, 100% proof positive, the weight of the evidence leads to only one reasonable conclusion. No, I can’t give you a fact or statistic that will absolutely, 100%, indisputably prove that morgellons is not a real condition. What I can do is show that there is no reason to presume that it does exist and plenty of reason to believe that it probably does not.
Still, I’m willing to make the statement, based on my own judgment that morgellons does not exist. Why? Because I find the evidence compelling enough that I can say that without any real fear that anyone will ever prove me wrong.
If the known and provable facts do not meet your own standard for certainty then I suppose that’s your thing. However, if you actually believe that it is real (as opposed to just being open to the possibility that it is) then you’re going to need to provide some kind of evidence to support that.
This entry was posted on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 2:19 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Conspiracy Theories, Good Science, Misc, Obfuscation, Quackery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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December 3rd, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Steve, since you seem to understand what this guy has written, can you kindly provide a brief translation? Some of us are not very fluent in Idiot and have difficulty reading the text in the original.
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December 3rd, 2009 at 3:38 pm
I should add something. In regards to the statement “for u to say im invisioning these thorn like things that pierce through the skin,”
I have things that pierce through my skin and are extruded out into the enviornment. These fibers come from tiny holes all over my body, though denser in some places than others. They’re called hairs.
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December 3rd, 2009 at 3:40 pm
BMS said:
It is everything that it seems and less. If it sounds mixed up, confusing and difficult to string together, that is because it is. There is far less here than meets the eye. If you are looking for a deeper meaning, you’re looking too deep
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December 3rd, 2009 at 6:23 pm
I too find this screed almost impossible to parse, and obviously it is not worth the effort to do so.
However I find your argument on the impossibility of proving nonexistence a bit weak. One can in fact prove non-existence in some situations, (special conditions) such as showing that there is nothing behind the curtain. But what one cannot prove is universal or absolute nonexistence, nor what is called nonexistence out of ignorance.
In in the case of this imaginary condition referred to as Morgellons, it has been shown repeatedly that there is nothing that cannot be explained away in every claim made of the presence of it, and this CAN be proven. This then can serve as a conditional proof of nonexistence, (nothing behind the curtain) and this is quite logically valid.
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December 3rd, 2009 at 6:59 pm
DV82XL said:
Yeah, I suppose. However, it’s still a losing battle if you’re dealing with someone with flexible enough definitions. You can move the curtains and it only proves that the item behind the curtains is invisible. You can put your hand there and it only proves that the item is capable of shape-shifting or that it is made of something other than conventional matter, something that can take up the same space as other things at the same time.
Or you can run into this with conspiracy theorists. You can show that the pieces of the planes recovered from 9/11 had the correct serial numbers, and this will only prove that the parts are forgeries. Prove that many many workers saw them recovered and this only proves they were all involved. Prove that there are very complete records of the parts numbers and the modifications and characteristics of the aircraft, and this only proves that the airlines, the maintenance crews, the FAA and so on were all part of the conspiracy.
You can sample and analyze the vapor trails of aircraft to show they’re not “chemtrails” but to some, this merely proves that the analytical laboratory you sent it off to was in on the scheme.
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December 3rd, 2009 at 8:40 pm
drbuzz0 said:
“Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens”
– Friedrich Schiller (Die Jungfrau von Orleans)
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December 3rd, 2009 at 10:28 pm
drbuzz0 said:
The key issue here in terms of proof is who you’re proving it to. There are some who NOTHING will prove something to, and in that case, all bets are off, because by definition that’s impossible. You can prove something to a degree most people, most of the scientific community is more than comfortable with. The problem is some will make it a “moving target” because they can always throw in an exception.
This is more than an academic issue. There ARE people who have such standards. Someone like that would say any evidence against morgellons only proves the evidence has been rigged.
I have seen this in the context of evolution, the age of the earth and that the whole creationism bs. Here is an assertions that some have made (really): The earth is 5000 years old, the evidence shows this and furthermore, scientists are incompetent.
Here is their logic:
The bible says the earth is roughly 5000 years old, therefore, it must be that age.
If the earth is 5000 years old then observations and measurements must indicate that it is 5000 years old.
All the evidence therefore does show that it is 5000 years old.
Yet, scientists claim that the evidence indicates otherwise. How can this be, if we already know that the evidence indicates the earth is 5000 years old?
There is only one explanation: The scientists must be wrong. They must have made a huge error in their interpretation or understanding of the evidence, because their conclusion is so very wrong.
Therefore, they are not competent, because no competent person could make such an extreme error.
Yes, I am serious. People have used this logic in “Creation science”
How can you dispute that? you can’t, because they are so convinced of the conclusion they’ll assume anything that does not support it must be wrong.
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December 3rd, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Grandpa Monkey said:
Right. You can’t and therefore you don’t. Furthermore, you don’t need to.
The people who dance with snakes are going to dance with snakes no matter what you think of them. Nevertheless, the rest of the world will view them as nutjobs because of their beliefs, unless the entire world goes crazy and starts to believe in the snake-dancing cult.
Science requires vigilance.
These battles have to be fought on the basis of logic and evidence. I know that the Earth is older than several millennia because the available evidence indicates that. I didn’t start with a preconceived notion that the Earth must be billions of years old and then went hunting for evidence. There’s a huge difference between the two approaches to what is too-often claimed to be “science.”
The worst pseudo-scientific theories begin with a tiny bit of evidence (usually anecdotal) that evolves into a grand theory, which is eventually supported by “evidence” that has been dug up, or in many cases contrived, to support that theory.
Real, creditable scientific theories always leave room for the possibility that they’re wrong. All that is required is sufficient evidence that contradicts the theory.
Note that no theory has to be absolutely perfect to be valid. Case in point: Newtonian mechanics is a perfectly valid theory that explains a wide range of physical phenomena. Nevertheless, it is not perfect and it breaks down at very small scales and at very high speeds. If we were not able to acknowledge that a valid theory need not be perfect, we would never have developed quantum mechanics or special relativity.
The pseudo-scientists, such as the Creationists, are unable or unwilling to understand this.
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December 3rd, 2009 at 11:33 pm
BMS said:
That reminds me of something I remember seeing, that made me wonder if I should laugh or cry in despair over ignorance.
A guy was talking about how he had been dancing with rattlesnakes and been bitten on a few occasions but had not died. He considered this proof of the lord’s power. Mind you, there are thousands of people bitten by rattlesnakes per year in the US and less than a dozen die. Even without antivenin, you stand a good chance of surviving. (It’s terribly unpleasent, and you can suffer from horrible swelling at the site internal bleeding near it, fever lasting days, tissue may die and need to be cut off( But for a healthy adult male, a rattle snake bite is not always fatal, even without treatment.
Anyway, he explained that the first time he was bitten by a rattle snake, it nearly killed him. He was sick, he had a big scar down his arm from where it damaged the tissue, it took him nearly a month to really recover etc. He explained that his faith was not as strong when he was younger. However, he had survived, and that helped him build his faith.
The was bit again a few years later. This time, his faith was stronger, and he prayed and god saved him. Because his faith was stronger, he was not nearly killed. He was in pretty bad pain for a while, but not nearly like the first time.
He was bit yet again, and he had grown stronger in his faith still. His third bite was only moderately severe and he never got severely ill, only slightly ill and the pain was not as bad.
The fourth and fifth time he was bitten, the symptoms were mild. This was, to him, the ultimate proof of his devotion and the maturity of his faith.
It was so pathetic, because anyone who knows the first thing about snake bites should know that it is possible to build an immunity to the venom, and in fact, that’s how antivenin is produced (only from horses, not humans). There are even people who work with snakes who have intentionally been injected with diluted venom over the course of many months to trigger an immune response to it. I just wondered if this guy had ever even heard of that.
But oh well… he seems to think it’s his faith.
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December 4th, 2009 at 2:07 am
BMS said:
Yes, but it is tempting sometimes because it is so blatantly bad.
drbuzz0 said:
That does not surprise me. The snake dancers are uber-yokels. They are the hill folk who live in third world conditions by choice and likely can’t even read.
It might be nice to get them a deadlier kind of snake to dance with. At least that way they would accomplish something (removing themselves from the gene pool) by getting bitten.
From what I have read, these churches also have a habit of drinking strychnine, but it’s so dilute it’s not deadly (usually)
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December 4th, 2009 at 2:14 am
DV82XL said:
Indeed, you can do so to any reasonable standards. To any reasonable person, to any objective party, yes, you can show that it is not what it is claimed to be, and therefore, it is proven not to be in the given case.
But could you prove this, even in a conditional sense to the above person? I think not. Or at leas, not in their mind, even if in reality. If you take them to a doctor and the doctor examines then and states without doubt that they do not have the condition, they will simply respond “Well then, your doctor has made an error.”
It is a simple logical fallacy, but one that cannot be overcome in those who insist on it.
Lets assume we have a variable X
We state with certainty that X = Y and that any measurement of X will indicate that it is equal to Y.
We then measure X.
There are only two possible outcomes:
Our measurement indicates X = Y, and we are satisfied.
Or
Our measurement indicates that X is not equal to Y. We then state that the measurement must have been faulty.
Next we seek to measure it again, by some other means or some instrument. We keep doing this forever or until the measurement indicates Y. Once it indicates Y, we hold that as proof of our accuracy to begin with.
It undermines science and basic reason, but it’s done anyway. It’s done by loonies who will go from doctor to doctor until they get one who tells them their condition is real. it’s also done by unscrupulous scientists who conduct study after study on something like RF health effects until they find one that indicates, even if by a fluke, what they presupposed to begin with. Then that becomes their proof.
Sound familiar?
There is no convincing the unconvinced!
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December 4th, 2009 at 2:49 am
Q said:
No of course can’t convince them – you can’t convince these types of people if you were proving something less complicated than nonexistence, like the universe being more than ~4000 yrs old. You can’t convince anyone of anything if they reject the premises. For logic to work in an argument, both parties must accept that logic works as a first principle.
My comment was really about whether any argument that attempts to prove nonexistence is structurally fallacious, as many believe. It is not the case, but one has to know when this is possible and work carefully to avoid hanging yourself by the rope of logic you are weaving.
The cretin that wrote the drivel above certainly could not follow such an argument even if one went to the trouble of making it to him. Frankly I doubt that the little James Joyce is able to hold a single thought in his head long enough to – given his stream of consciousness style of writing.
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December 4th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Q said:
Yes, it does, but this is done not only by “loonies” and “unscrupulous scientists.” Even very careful and conscientious scientists have managed to fool themselves. A classic example from physics is Millikan’s measurement of the charge on an electron (the famous “oil drop” experiment that physics majors repeat in the lab as undergraduates).
Although the experiment was ingenious, Millikan’s original measurement was not quite right. He had used an incorrect value for the viscosity of air, which was needed to calculate the final result.
Other scientists tried to repeat his experiment and confirm his result. Some must have been a little more careful with the experiment, because they got a number that was too high above Millikan’s. However, instead of trusting their work, they thought that they must have done something wrong, and spent a great deal of effort to find out why something was wrong. If they got a number that was closer to Millikan’s value, they didn’t look so hard.
So the numbers that were too far off were eliminated as erroneous, and the values close to Millikan’s incorrect value were kept, and it took some time before the true value of the charge on an electron, which we accept today and which is higher than Millikan’s, was finally realized.
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December 4th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
DV82XL said:
I think we’re in general agreement, and the only question is symantic. There’s a difference between “proving” something and getting everyone, especially those with an extreme belief, to accept it.
Q said:
I agree that the above logic is entirely bunk in any experimental setting or if you are trying to verify the value of item X, but I can’t help but see a circumstance where that logic would be valid. If you have a higher degree of confidence that item X has a value of Y, because it has been defined as such or because it has been verified by highly reliable measurements, then this could be entirely valid.
I’m not thinking of this as an experimental situation where anything about item X is in question. The situation I’m thinking of is where item X is a calibration standard and the instrument is not used as part of the experiment, but rather it *is* the experiment. IE: An instrument is used to measure an item that has a value that is known and established in order to verify the accuracy of the instrument.
There are some circumstances where X has to be Y because Y is by definition the value of X. For example, if you use a frequency counter to measure the frequency of a cesium beam frequency standard, it must give a certain value and if not, there must be a problem with your equipment, because frequency is defined in terms of cesium oscillations (although that might change with the adoption of the hydrogen line maser)
But I digress… that example is really not applicable because in the above situation, the roles are reversed. The item to be measured is actually acting as the instrument and the instrument becomes the test subject. So in that respect, I suppose the logic is still the same.
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December 4th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
drbuzz0 said:
It is pathetic, and very sad.
Of course, I could see this sort of scenario playing out with some substance or activity to which you can’t develop immunity, just by luck alone. It’s like the classic psychic investment advice scam. Guess right three times, and everybody’s convinced you have special powers.
This is compounded by the fact that groups like these are built around personal testimony. Many churches, especially evangelical ones, are, even mainstream ones. And that’s great; it creates this really exciting, vibrant atmosphere. But it also produces a very specific kind of confirmation bias: dead men tell no tales. The people who get bitten and testify to their survival are heard. The people who get bitten and die are buried and never heard from again. Unless somebody’s paying attention to the relative numbers, they’re not going to notice that the survivors’ stories aren’t that significant.
The “dead men tell no tales” motif has been discussed a lot at medical skeptical blogs, because it’s also very significant there. Most alternative remedies (and a distressing number of mainstream ones) are promoted via personal testimony from actual users. Obviously the ones who die won’t testify, because they can’t, keeping that inconvenient contrary testimony out of the public eye.
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December 4th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Mercury Associations in DOP Accounts
http://morgellonspgpr.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/mercury-associations-in-dop-accounts/
Morgellons – Rethinking Delusion of Parasitosis
http://morgellonspgpr.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/morgellons-rethinking-delusion-of-parasitosis/
Morgellons – Psychiatric Times Letter to the Editor and Response
http://morgellonspgpr.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/morgellons-psychiatric-times-letter-to-the-editor-and-response/
What Makes a Disease Real?
http://morgellonspgpr.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/what-makes-a-disease-real/
Morgellons – Fear, Anxiety, and Isolation
http://morgellonspgpr.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/morgellons-fear-anxiety-and-isolation/
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December 4th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Calli Arcale said:
Without treatment a rattle snake bite will usually not be fatal to an adult male. Key word being usually, because it can and does kill, and even for a healthy adult, it’s a high death rate without treatment (like 25-33% Yeah, that’s less than 50, but I still don’t like those odds, ya know?)
What is common, however, is losing a limb. It happens even to people who get treatment, on occasion. Even if you can manage to survive the bite, the venom eats away at tissue and it has an anti-coagulant in it, so what happens is the blood vessels start leaking and breaking down and nothing stops the blood from clotting. It can be really horrible. imagine your arm where the bite is being all swollen up with liquified cells and blood and a puffy black and blue over an entire half of your body. That’s how bad it can be. Even if you survive that, it can be that the arm or whatever limb it is is so badly damaged they have to amputate it.
I think without the antivenom, even if you keep the arm, you’re going to have some major damage. I mean, like muscles are going to be destroyed, it’s going to get all full of scaring.
(I used to live in Arizona and they let everyone know what it was like to try to get them to have the sense not to bother rattle snakes)
So yeah. What do you think in that case? “the lord took my leg to teach me to appreciate what I have” or “The lord took my arm so that I could share in his pain on the cross” or something?
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December 4th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
Mr. Common Sense said:
Well, Mister Common Sense, your name is befitting of you in the same way that fat guy with the nickname “Tiny” or a buisiness called “Honest John’s Used Autos and Bail Bonds” would be. (in other words, it’s only fitting in how ironic it is)
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December 4th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
*Sigh*
Just one word of advice: If anyone wants to respond to “Mr. Common Sense” don’t quote all his links, because any time there are three or more links in a comment, the spam filter flags it for approval and it’s not smart enough to distinguish when they are within a quotation of a previous comment. So if you quote more than two of them, expect the comment to go to moderation. You could just quote the title and not the URL, if you want.
Oh well. Looks like we’ve got a live one, eh?
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December 5th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Wow, he cites 5 URLs all on the same website (a blog no less, not even articles…), which deals with Morgellons… that is not original at all.
I love this part of the wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons#Role_of_the_internet
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December 5th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Yeoz the Hypocrit said:
In general, self-diagnosis and diagnosis of conditions by non-medical people is not a good thing.
I could see some exceptions to it, for medical conditions that any lay person could diagnose without much possibility of error, but they’re generally extreme cases. For example: traumatic amputation of arm. The symptoms of this condition are the absence of an arm, which may be in the general vicinity, but has become detached from the body, and at the shoulder a massive wound gushing blood.
I would say traumatic amputation of the arm is generally a medical condition that would probably be correctly diagnosed nearly 100% of the time even by someone without medical training. Ditto for traumatic amputation of the leg.
But for most other medical conditions, yeah, the internet is not a good place.
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December 6th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
My mother had complained for months about sores and bugs. We live 1300 miles apart. I said “come visit me!” I was shocked at the sores but I thought for sure she just had bad skin. She complained about the bugs. I used a magnifying glass to see, just to appease her. I talked behind her back to others, that she had DOP. We were equally and selfishly condescending. We thought she stepped off the deep end. I didn’t catch it, until I occupied the bed she had been in after she left. She now has these hard fibers coming out sores on each side of her face. Yes, I get to witness this even tho’ I don’t have sores yet. Well, unfortunately I know that unless you get it, that it is pretty hard to believe. I am in the battle of a lifetime. I have always been in a professional position and was getting ready to retire and sail. I am not into this insanity but I have no choice. By your blogs, you are not helping us. We need a cure. If you want to come and give me a big hug, that would prove you do not believe that this exists. Also, I find myself making horrendous mistakes in spelling and putting words together. So, this guy probably is in the full blown battle of this thing. I will tell you, it is a constant state of being in an UNCOMFORTABLE life.
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December 6th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Was a non Believer too! said:
Having a mental illness or condition does not mean a person is completely insane. There are many people who have psychosomatic illnesses or have delusions, ranging from a persistent feeling that they forgot to turn off the stove to a nagging feeling that their friends don’t really like them. These people are not necessarily fruitcakes.
Was a non Believer too! said:
And what makes you think you caught it? Why on earth do you think you will have the sores, as implied by the word “yet”?
Aside from these “fibers” – and by the way, we’re surrounded by fibers from clothing carpet and even our own hairs, so it’s not surprising you’d find them if you look – the big symptom people claim is the feeling of “bugs” or something crawling under their skin. These clearly and indisputably are not there. If there were little creepy crawlies, they would not be terribly difficult to find them. They could be picked out with tweazers and a magnifying glass or microscope, placed on a slide, identified and that would be that.
There are real parasites that can effect humans – lice, fleas, ticks, various kinds of mites. A few parasites do indeed burrow beneath the skin. These can all be pretty easily diagnosed and treated. Yet these morgellons patients insist there is something there that isn’t.
This should be a big red flag.
Was a non Believer too! said:
What the hell battle is this? If you’re saying that you actually have some kind of skin parasite then you should see a dermatologist and have it treated, because in general, they’re completely curable. However, I very much doubt that is the case.
If there truly is a physical thing here, it could very well be bed bugs. Have you considered that? Bed bugs don’t burrow under your skin and they don’t cause fibers to come out of sores, but they do give itchy tingly little bites all over you and that could easily be the start of something that the mind fills in the rest. They can be transferred from a person to a bed.
Look in the seems of the mattress for tiny little bugs and consider seeing a dermatologist. Of course that’s assuming there is any physical cause of this, and that it’s not entirely psychosomatic.
Was a non Believer too! said:
The placebo effect and suggestion effects all of us, regardless of how skeptical or science-minded or professional we believe we are. As mentioned, there may be cases where there is an underlying physical cause that the mind embellishes, but does not completely invent. It could be eczema, psoriasis, bed bugs, or any number of things.
I’m not a doctor and will surely not diagnose anyone over the internet, however, given that the possibility exists that it could be something real, like bed bugs, get it looked at by someone who would know one way or the other!
Was a non Believer too! said:
If it’s an infection or a parasite or an allergic reaction, then it probably can be cured. Mental illness cannot be “cured” or at least, it’s not usually described in that kind of way, because it is not a binary condition. It’s subjective and fuzzy and there’s no single pill that makes it go away. However, it can be treated and managed, quite effectively. It can be controlled and the person can learn how to overcome it using a combination of self-applied cognitive behavioral skills, talk therapy, medications and so on.
Was a non Believer too! said:
Uh…I don’t usually hug men I don’t know, but in the name of science and skepticism, I suppose I could. I think my preference would be something a little more clinical, like rubbing gauze on your skin and then mine. However, my only real fear would be the possibility that you actually do have a communicable skin infection. That seems rather low to me, and studies have shown that skin to skin contact actually does not transfer skin flora very effectively.
Anyway, I’d consider it, but only after checking this out with a doc to make sure there is no risk of a communicable skin infection of some type. Also, I’d want it all on video, because I’d do it to get a descent blog post out of. “Morgellons Patient Challenges me to Acquire the condition – But will I really?” or something…
Was a non Believer too! said:
Join the club. Actually my grammar and word usage is very good but my spelling is horrendous. I don’t know what I’d do without a spell check. Hell, even with a spell check, I tend to have a lot of errors.
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December 6th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
By the way: “Was a non Believer too” and “Mister Common Sense” are indeed different people. A lot of the time, these posts have different people sockpuppetting, but both of these two have different IP addresses, both from different ISP’s in different parts of the country and neither of the IP’s are known proxy servers. Also, different browsers, no return cookies etc.
Unless it is someone who worked very very hard at creating a convincing spoof they’re different.
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December 6th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
drbuzz0 said:
Why in the world would I waste my time trying to be two different people? I noticed not a single comment on the articles I posted, which we researched in the London Medical libraries and site real medical cases, just a bunch of childish comments like its a “blog” and they’re “not even articles”.
Anyway, try this, hit this google search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=crawling+sensations+on+skin&aq=0&oq=crawling+sensations+&aqi=g3
and skip any site that has to do with Morgellons, there are thousands and thousands of sites and posts with people dealing with the same sensations we suffer from that have never heard the word Morgellons. I have spoken with many who have lost everything, a few that have since died, been divorced by spouses in their hour of need and so on …
Now, if you follow those posts and look at all the people struggling from “skin crawling sensations” and then they discover this thing called Morgellons did they catch it over the internet or merely identify with a disease that they realize they and tons of other people have.
I correspsond with several researchers and doctors, one researcher gets 500 or 600 emails a week asking for help that are new sufferers. I can tell you from experience that the onset of this disease is very frightening and often ends in some form of cancer which to me suggests fungal involvement.
I have a lot of very reasonable and intelligent articles on my blog and go out of my way to avoid conspiracy theories and agree much of the Morg communtiy is way out there, but then if you suffered from this you would be more understanding, it’s easy to come unglued when you have this, my goal is to help people overcome the fear, begin to control it, not freak out so much that they tear their families apart, and reveal how using natural and safe suppliments that I have become mostly symptom free.
I’m not here to argue with you guys, I don’t have the time nor do I honestly care if you beleive me. I posted the DOP articles and have not heard a word or comment in refute of what they have to offer. True DOP cases are actually extremely, extremely rare and almost always start in early childhood.
Follow the links. Morgellons is contagious and it is real, and the number of new sufferers sadly is staggering, my blog had over 10,000 hits last month and it’s climbing way up. I agree with you that there are many very whacky morgellons sites that have damaged our cause and hope for resolution immensely, however, as a sufferer I understand what has driven many to speculate wildely.
I wish you guys well and hope you never have to experience what we go through.
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December 6th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Mr. Common Sense said:
Alright: Mercury poisoning is ridiculous. Mercury levels are easily detected. Not to mention that today people are exposed to less mercury than 30 years ago, at least in most of the industrial world. Mercury is well known in effects, occurrence and so on.
I have seen the “fiber analysis” stuff before. Most credible labs have identified the fibers easily as hair, cotton or something. I’ve seen reports complete with electron microscope pictures for “morgellons fibers” that they claimed were unidentified and made of some kind of silica that could not be produced by any known organisms. I was floored to see the picture. The “Unknown fiber” was a classic, text-book example of an asbestos fiber. Come on! “silica” Jesus.
The fact that a lot of people believe in it means nothing. Learn some history. There are plenty of examples of panic-based conditions that didn’t really exist. During world war II, there was a German bombing mission on London in which they dropped conventional bombs. Somehow a rumor got out that it was a gas attack and people were throwing up and fainting in the street. People walked around with rags to their face saying they were trying to get away from the gas, as they felt nauseous and weak. You know what? There never was any gas. Since then we’ve had many invented conditions: chronic lyme disease, electrosensitivity, multiple chemical sensitivity.
If doctors are contacting anyone over this, it only proves that even doctors can be gullible.
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December 6th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Pulling an asbestos fiber out of a sore on the skin would make perfect sense. There is something called an “asbestos wart” which is when a fiber gets stuck in the skin and it causes a sore around it, that is irritated and looks something like a wart, but really is not one at all.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this mysterious “morgellons” illness developed in someone after they cleared all the old insulation out of their basement sans protection of any kind.
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December 6th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
The fibers mean nothing to me, I rarely talk about them, studying them is a waste of time.
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December 6th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
drbuzz0 said:
The highest level of contamination found in the study (http://www.ehjournal.net/content/8/1/2) was 0.57 micrograms of mercury per gram of HFCS. The EPA says that an average-sized woman should consume no more than 5.5 micrograms per day of mercury, meaning that the average American consumer may be eating five times the upper safety limit of mercury every day due to high-fructose corn syrup consumption if they consume the foods tested in the study.
That’s because the average American consumes 12 teaspoons of High Fructose Corn Syrup every day! So just by eating the standard American diet of processed foods, consumers are right now potentially exposing themselves to exceedingly high levels of mercury that far surpass the safety limits set by the EPA.
http://www.naturalnews.com/025442_mercury_HFCS_corn.html
I wish what you said were true, now go look up mercury and fresh water in America, a new report is out that the fresh water is more contaminated than it ever was, in fact, it’s too the point where we should eat know fresh water fish at all (which is what all this farm raised fish is living in)
So blood tests can reveal it huh? Go get tested for Magnesium in your blood, if it’s within the Normal range are you okay, no, you could die of a massive heart attack 15 minutes later from nothing other than a lack of magnesium and with a 100% completely healthy heart, it happens every single day. Tell me, what is heart disease exactly, is it a disease? Hardly.
I’m done replying here, good luck with your ventures
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December 7th, 2009 at 12:27 am
Mr. Common Sense said:
And yet, many seem to think the fibers are the defining characteristic of the condition. It’s telling when there is zero consistency between the various stories of a condition. So what is it? The bugs crawling under the skin?
And are you in the camp that believes that there actually are bugs crawling under the skin or the one that thinks they’re ‘nano-machines’ or the one that thinks they’re just an illusion?
Mr. Common Sense said:
“Natural news” ****sigh**** HFCS is not made of mercury, for Christ sake, it’s made of corn. I’m highly suspicious of that “study” and this “processed food” bull**** is just that. HFCS is just another simple carbohydrate to the body.
This crap over ‘artificial’ and ‘processed’ foods misses the entire point of what nutrition is. You could bake a fully organic twinky made out of farm fresh egg whites, organicly grown corn meal, pure cane sugar and all other “natural” ingredients and it would be no better or worse than a conventional twinky.
Mr. Common Sense said:
More contaminated than it ever was? I was unaware that any rivers had caught fire recently. (not that mercury would do that) In any case, the levels of heavy metal in humans these days are nothing compared to what was in the bodies of city dwellers during the Industrial Revolution.
Mr. Common Sense said:
What the hell is that supposed to mean? Of course blood and urine and hair tests can assess the body’s burden of mercury and any other toxic metal.
Really? People go in for a blood analysis, which tells them they have completely normal blood magnesium levels and then within 15 minutes they drop dead due to severe magnesium deficiency?
Yeah, I bet. Severe hypo-magnesium is pretty uncommon to begin with. Minor magnesium deficiencies are pretty common, but to the point of being deadly? I don’t think so. And especially not 15 minutes after a normal blood chemistry workup.
Mr. Common Sense said:
Of course it’s not a single disease! Saying “heart disease” is like saying “respiratory disease” It’s a whole category of conditions, not a single one!
Heart disease includes congenital heart defects, heart valve conditions, heart arithma, angina, congestive heart failure, chronic atrial fibrillation and other conditions.
“Heart disease” is any disease or condition effecting the heart. There are a number of contributing factors to this, of course. A sedentary lifestyle and a high calorie, high fat, high cholesterol diet is a big factor. Of course, everyone knows this and most eat a sub-optimal diet anyway. There’s also an element of heredity to it.
Another big element of it is just the lifespan we have these days. The anti-science argument seem to think that humans are meant to naturally be immortal. If you die of cancer or heart disease or anything, there must be something that caused it! That’s just not the case. People don’t die from infectious disease like they used to and because of that, people now live long enough to generally die of cancer or heart attack or something like that.
Look, if you live long enough something is going to give out and eventually kill you. If you manage to go 80+ years without getting cancer, there’s a good chance your heart is going to give out and if not your heart, it’ll be a stroke or something else. Something will eventually kill you!
A healthy diet and exercise can defer heart disease. It can reduce the probability and lead to the heart lasting longer, but if you get old enough, your heart will start to degrade and if it doesn’t kill you, it will only be because something else did first.
Mr. Common Sense said:
Yeah, this isn’t a good site to argue about something like morgellons on. I’ve been at this too long to have not heard one of the arguments at least a few times. Most visitors are the same.
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December 7th, 2009 at 10:53 am
A Little more on the Mercury in Food, hardly fake, data by name brands of Mercury in our food …
http://www.healthobservatory.org/library.cfm?refid=105026
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December 8th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
This is my last post because I have other research to do. I just wanted to tell you How I know I have it and what I have tried. I have black specs, white granules, intense itching, CRAWLING, and a little worm appears with one side-leg flagella. I have seen numerous dermotologists who run from me and I have tried all the treatments for common mites, pests. One dermatologist said “I know what you have and there is no cure.” I have tried a number or primary Drs. I have the crawling, visual decline, all the symptoms of brain-fog. We have thrown out all the furniture, sprayed with Bifen, Nylar, covered the floors in diatomacious earth, mustard powder, enzyme spray, cedarcide – and other stuff. No bed bugs here. The fibers that my mother gets are hard and take a while to extract from the lesion. They are not the typical “everywhere fibers.” Anyway, you seem smart. Too bad you are not using your brain-power to do more research on this thing and help us. It’s spreading fast, too, you know. AT work I noticed 2 people with these open lesions and the other day my boyfriend was in Bestbuy and the guy who waited on him had them on his arms. I am not Mr. CommonSense, but we are both struggling I’m sure. There are alot of people out here that got this bug, from where? Who knows? But I know it spreads from Human to Human – althought there even is debate about that in the Morg. community.
It is like being at a picnic and having 30 no-see-ums on your face. People would run from that picnic. Well, I live it but I cannot run from this picnic. Don’t bother to answer me. I’m finished with your argument and I think Mr. Commonsense should be also.
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December 8th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Mr. Common Sense said:
So then… its not fungal, it’s mercury?
That report is, however, complete crap. Lets consider how it qualifies what it considers testing positive for mercury:
Their detection is for any mercury at all, and their criteria is whether it is detectable, it’s surprising they only found it in 30% of the samples. I guarantee they would have found it in more if they had used a more sensitive analytical testing method. Mercury is found in the earth’s crust and therefore there will be at least a tiny trace in almost everything.
Their findings were measured in parts per TRILLION and in most cases, their level was just slightly above the limits of detection for the analysis employed.
It is also worth noting that the products they tested had a very skewed number of levels detected in certain products. For example, beverages only had 15.8 percent of samples test “positive” for mercury, but dairy products had 60%. Why could this be? Beverages use way more HFCS.
Well there’s a perfectly logical answer: cows are grazers, herbivores, they eat a lot of low density material like hay, grain-based feed and so on. These kind of things are out there growing in the enviornment, absorbing things from the air and the soil and then concentrated when a cow eats a huge amount and produces a comparative small amount of milk.
Hence, there is no evidence that it is related to HFCS.
Another thing: This PDF only gives the numbers for the detected levels without any context. In a real scientific write-up, there would be information on the confidence interval, error bars, that kind of thing. That stuff is really important because it tells you the precision of the data.
Any descent analytical laboratory should give more than the total concentration detected. They should also give the standard deviation for test runs, the expected precision of the analytical method employed, variance, error bars, the whole works. I’m very suspicious when I see a supposed scientific report that lacks those.
Their methodology is based on a presumption anyway, which is that any mercury detected must be sourced to HFCS and from that to mercury cell chloride processing. This is a huge presumption. They never should have gone to end products with this before first testing samples of the raw commercial grade HFCS.
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December 8th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
I was a non believer too said:
Uh… you sure those are not black heads and white heads. I used to have some black heads, and they look pretty nasty. An acne scrub will take care of that.
I was a non believer too said:
Okay, so then, it is not mercury poisoning or nanotechnology or barium or any thing like that… and it’s not just a “feeling of crawling” but rather, there are actually, physically, literally, little forms of parasitic life, some kind of a small worm, larva or something else that is actually living in your skin?
Lets be clear on this. Some claim that it’s a crawling feeling, but not necessarily with an actual entity there crawling.
I was a non believer too said:
He knows what it is and there is no cure? Did he tell you *what* it is? If there is actually a little life form there, then it has a genius and species. What are the genius and species? If it is as yet unknown to science, then it should be identifiable to an entomologist as new species, previously undiscovered. If not recognizable by it’s structure, DNA could be used. They should be at least able to identify the branch of animal kingdom it is on (as it would clearly be a member of the animal kingdom)
Hey, if you can claim to be the first one to catalog this thing, then you might be able to name it! How cool would that be?
Now as far as treatment: If this is a parasitic near-microbial animal, then it can be cured. There are no known parasites like this that can’t. Humans and little creepy crawlies are different enough, physiologically, that there are plenty of chemicals that are inherently toxic to them and not very toxic to us.
Hell, if worse came to worse, you could dowse your self head to toe in DDT. DDT is very low in acute toxicity to mammals but to insects, worms, arachnids and most other small invertibrets, it is very toxic. Some have developed a partial resistance to it, but that’s not the same as being immune to it entirely. They are only resistant because they have proteins that can clean some of it out of their system. DDT works by opening a sodium channel in the nervous system that is inherent to that form of life.
I was a non believer too said:
But whatever the case with these “lesions” – there are a lot of causes of little sores on the skin. Allergies, bug bites, infections, eczema. Are you a dermatologist?
I was a non believer too said:
This is really not as complex as you make it out to be. If there are little “worms” meaning multi-cellular organisms causing this, then that is the transmitting agent and the root cause and it is what has to be killed to cure it. End of story. It’s a lot easier to identify a worm than a virus, they’re a lot bigger.
There’s just NO CONSISTENCY HERE.
I mean, hell, we were able to identify HIV after just a few years and it’s a tiny little retrovirus that isn’t even present in high concentrations. If there are worms coming out of you, put one of the damn worms on a microscope slide and end it right there.
I was a non believer too said:
Alright, fine, I’m not going to argue then. I’m asking for something simple: I want to see a analysis of one of these “worms” by a competent scientist or scientific institute. I want to see their take on the nature of the organism, whether it is consistent with known species and if not, what its characteristics are. A DNA analysis would be great too, if it’s not known.
And these fibers, which are not like “Everywhere fibers” I simply want to know what they are. What are they made of? Either they’re organic or inorganic. It should be very easy to tell. What’s their elemental composition? Carbon? Oxygen? Sulfur? Technetium? Even if they are made of entirely unknown, uncatalogued compounds (which I very much doubt), they could at least do a complete XRF analysis
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December 10th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
I would be willing to wager that a large majority of Morgellons sufferers are also Meth addicts.
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January 2nd, 2010 at 6:06 pm
DR Buzz,
You say you want to see analysis of the fibers but that has been ogoing for years without sucessful identification. At the least you must admit the substances must be very unusual since they can be matched.
Search randy Wymore’s work:
http://www.healthsciences.okstate.edu/morgellons/research.cfm
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January 2nd, 2010 at 7:38 pm
Mensch said:
There is nothing there! Where is the analysis report? Where is the data?
If they exist they have to be made of something! They’re made of matter, aren’t they? We’ve cataloged the elements all the way to number 114.
Can I please at least get an XRF read on them?
Okay, that’s not actually going to give you the total chemical makeup, but it could at least give you the component elements. What’s the elemental composition? Just for petes sake, can you just at the very least tell me if they contain carbon? Are they organic?
What do you mean “can’t be identified?” Are they composed of some kind of new and asyet unknown subatomic particle? Or some combination of isotopes that have never been cataloged before?
I don’t care if they can’t be matched. Just tell me the elements. Just tell me the class of chemical it is! What is it? A silicate, a carbide, a hydrocarbon, a carbohydrate, a metal oxide, an inorganic chloride salt, a metal? It has to be **something**
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February 11th, 2010 at 5:47 pm
go **** yourself. i hope you get it soon, then we can all laugh at you because it is coming your way.
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February 11th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
robbie linkus said:
Meanwhile we’ll all just laugh at you, for being a little attention whore with your make-believe disease.
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February 11th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
robbie linkus said:
I can guarantee that none of the regulars here will ever get morgellons. You see, skeptics are immune to imaginary diseases, just like how skeptics are never abducted by aliens. It’s one of the many perks of being a skeptic.
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February 11th, 2010 at 8:45 pm
Fellow sufferers, don’t waste your time arguing with these guys, focus on healing, you can get better, forget the cause, the blame, life is to short, start focusing on you, forget these guys. I did a long time ago.
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February 11th, 2010 at 9:38 pm
Mr. Common Sense said:
He’s right. Stop arguing with us, focus on healing, you can get better, forget the cause, the blame, life is to short, start focusing on you, AND GO AND SEE A PSYCHIATRIST. You have a mental illness.
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