300 Year-Old Mystery Disease Returns
When one considers the zeal and the resources that the CDC and other health organizations have employed when confronting such “health crises” as SARS, the “Avian Flu”, and, most recently, the H1N1 virus, it is hard to imagine that the next “epidemic” might slip by the watchful eye of health officials. But that’s just what some doctors are worried about.
The disease is known as Morgellons Disease. It carries some of the worst symptoms imaginable. According to the Morgellons Research Foundation, the number of reported cases has exploded over the past ten years since its discovery, from a mere 1,000 to an alarming 15,000, with more being reported every day. Estimates put at least double this going unreported.
How the disease is contracted is a mystery. All that is known is that it starts with a sense of insects crawling on or under the skin. While irritating, this symptom is not in and of itself debilitating, other than insomnia. What’s terrifying about this sensation is that there really is something crawling under their skin. Doctors describe these things as long, black or blue, coarse spaghetti-like strands that seem to stretch under the skin. Occasionally, large wounds and sores will appear and weep the fibers out. These sores will cover the patient from head to toe, with no discriminating area. These fibers cause immense pain and appear to grow on their own, even when extracted and placed into a petri-dish, growing to feet in length.
Other symptoms include fever, cramps, a sweating of a black, tar-like substance, reduced cognitive function, lack of coordination, irritability, depression, and just about every other unpleasant sensation imaginable. While it so far has not proven to be lethal, it is crippling. And what’s even worse?”¨”¨ There’s no cure. And the CDC isn’t devoting any resources to finding one. In a move that many sufferers of Morgellons and doctors are finding unbelievable is that the CDC is stating that this disease does not exist. Why not treat a dangerous disease like this that is spreading through the southern states rapidly? Instead, they continue to pour resources into less dangerous, hyped-up diseases like H1N1, claiming that Morgellons disease is a product of hysteria and imagination. But could 15,000 cases of a disease with the same symptoms be the product of “Delusional Parasitosis”? Not likely.
Another strange thing is that this disease may be related to the Morgellons disease of the 1600’s, where this new strain got its name. Records from 17th century France record children being infected with long, thread-like worms that would ooze from the skin, much like they do in modern-day Morgellons. However, there was no cure recorded, though it would have been something simple compared to modern medicine.
Also, consider the Caduseus, the serpent-wrapped staff symbol of the medical profession. Legend has it that in the times of the ancient Greeks, this staff was used to draw serpents from the sores of people afflicted with a mysterious, parasitic illness by winding them up like spaghetti on a fork.
But whatever the cause or the cure, the CDC is eventually going to have to take a long, hard look at the reality of this illness. Let’s just hope it isn’t too late.