A debilitating condition, Morgellons is a bizarre disease that causes a variety of symptoms, from intense itching to crawling, biting and stinging sensations - and worse. Skin rashes develop that won't heal. Many people report "string-like fibers of varying color popping out through the skin lesions." Eventually, bugs and worms begin to crawl out of the body through the lesions. Hair loss, chronic fatigue, short-term memory loss, changes in vision, joint pain, depression and even neurological damage plague sufferers. In the past few years, the disease has become epidemic in the United States and abroad.

Many sufferers who seek treatment are often told their symptoms are not real. They tend to withdraw from society - living much like lepers of the past. Writes Barbara Minton, Editor of Natural News: "Not being taken seriously when you know you have a terrifying and devastating disease causes permanent psychological damage." Several famous people are known to have Morgellons, including Oakland A's player Billy Koch and his family, and singer Joni Mitchell, for whom the disease has had a negative impact on her career.  In 2006, an Oregon news station reported a story about a family practice doctor experiencing the disease. "If I fully tell people what has gone on with me medically, they think they're in the twilight zone," said Dr. Drottar. She thought she had been exposed to asbestos when black and blue hair-like fibers protruded from her skin. "I thought I was having asbestos fibers come out of my skin. I was pulling long, thin, small hair-like fibers that were extremely sharp that could literally pierce through my finger nail," she said.

Prior to Kaiser receiving the CDC grant, Randy Wymore, a neuroscientist at Oklahoma State University Center for Health Science, was one of the few people who took the disease seriously. He and his research team studied fibers sent to them by Morgellons patients. They reported finding that even though the fibers were taken from different people, they looked quite similar. Infectious disease detection expert Ahmed Kilani extracted DNA from two fiber samples and found that they belonged to a fungus. Vitaly Citovsky, Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Stony Brook University in New York, found that the fibers contained Agrobacterium, a soil bacteria. This genus of gram-negative bacteria is able to genetically transform plants and even human cells. This evidence suggests that not only is the disease real, but it may be related to genetically modified food.

News Release: Morgellons: Terrifying new disease reaching pandemic status www.naturalnews.com March 3, 2009

News Release: Morgellons Disease may be linked to genetically modified food  www.naturalnews.com April 13, 2008