Post by Gwen "sunnyand7777" Simmons RN on Apr 1, 2008 12:04:44 GMT -5
(news video avaliable at CBS station site)
Research Brings Hope To Morgellons Patients
CBS 11 - Dallas,TX,USA
CBS 11 News was the only station at a medical conference that uncovered new research in the fight to prove Morgellons Disease is real. ...
Research Brings Hope To Morgellons Patients
Reporting
Ginger Allen AUSTIN (CBS 11 News) ¯
There may be a dramatic new breakthrough for hundreds of Texans who suffer from a mysterious disease. CBS 11 News was the only station at a medical conference that uncovered new research in the fight to prove Morgellons Disease is real.
Most doctors don't believe Morgellons exists. Patients who say they have it are often diagnosed as delusional. But at a conference in Austin, they learned independent researchers are working to prove they aren't crazy.
"Its gut wrenching," says Donna, a patient with Morgellons. Belinda, another woman who says she has Morgellons, told CBS 11, "It's really like a living hell."
For the more than 100 people in attendance at the first ever National Morgellons Conference held in Austin, the symptoms are very real.
"It was so severe, that at one time, my husband and I talked about amputation of the fingers that were infected," says 79-year old Morgellons patient, Harriet Bishop.
Bishop believes she was infected on August 14, 1994 when she gashed her fingers on thorns while gardening at her home in British Columbia. Two months later, she and her family moved to Canyon Lake, Texas, but her wounds from that August day never healed. Even more alarming, strange fibers began coming out of her hands.
"The fibers would come out, they emerge on their own," she says. "They make a hole and they come out and it's very painful."
It wasn't until 2005 that Bishop found out about Morgellons. She joined a growing list of people which now totals more than 14,000 worldwide, according to the Morgellons Research Foundation. That number includes at least 830 Texans who believe they're infected.
San Francisco physician, Raphael Stricker, is one of only a few doctors who believe something real is happening to patients like Bishop. "There's almost always some history of exposure to dirt basically either from gardening or camping or something," says Dr. Stricker.
His research has focused on a type of plant bacteria which is known to cause infections in animals and humans with compromised immune systems.
"Agrobacterium is a plant bacteria that lives in soil," he says. "It can cause skin lesions when injected into Swiss mice, which are a strain of mice that are immune deficient."
In 2007, Dr. Stricker and experts in agrobacterium studied skin samples from seven Morgellons patients and found the DNA from the bacteria in all seven samples. Now the question is, how are people getting the bacteria in their bodies. Dr. Stricker believes it could be from ticks. The small insects are well known for carrying the bacteria that causes Lyme Disease. In fact, in a recent survey of 44 Morgellons patients in San Francisco, 43 of them tested positive for Lyme.
"This suggests that the combination of the Lyme bacteria and the agrobacterium may work together to cause an unusual and emerging disease such as Morgellons," Dr. Stricker told the audience at the conference.
"It could be that they're both tick-borne diseases," says Ginger Savely, a nurse practitioner who treats more than 300 Morgellons patients. "The ticks we know harbor at least 300 different pathogens."
Savely believes the researchers are onto something, and hopes that it can lead to treatment or even a cure. "I just hope that sometime before I die, we find out what this is," she says. "It is the most perplexing and it's just incredible stuff."
For Harriet Bishop, Saturday's conference was about learning, but also about offering support to those who need it...people like Belinda Smith of San Antonio. "I've been isolated from my family," explains Smith, who is also a nurse. "I haven't seen my family, my mother, my dad, my sister in four years because they're scared."
"Be open to the possibility that there could be something emerging here that needs to be treated," Bishop added.
The research presented at the Austin conference was all done through independently funded programs. The Centers for Disease Control announced in January it was launching its own field study. The study is expected to take at least 18-months.
If you'd like to comment on Morgellons to the CBS 11 Investigators, email us.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Research Brings Hope To Morgellons Patients
CBS 11 - Dallas,TX,USA
CBS 11 News was the only station at a medical conference that uncovered new research in the fight to prove Morgellons Disease is real. ...
Research Brings Hope To Morgellons Patients
Reporting
Ginger Allen AUSTIN (CBS 11 News) ¯
There may be a dramatic new breakthrough for hundreds of Texans who suffer from a mysterious disease. CBS 11 News was the only station at a medical conference that uncovered new research in the fight to prove Morgellons Disease is real.
Most doctors don't believe Morgellons exists. Patients who say they have it are often diagnosed as delusional. But at a conference in Austin, they learned independent researchers are working to prove they aren't crazy.
"Its gut wrenching," says Donna, a patient with Morgellons. Belinda, another woman who says she has Morgellons, told CBS 11, "It's really like a living hell."
For the more than 100 people in attendance at the first ever National Morgellons Conference held in Austin, the symptoms are very real.
"It was so severe, that at one time, my husband and I talked about amputation of the fingers that were infected," says 79-year old Morgellons patient, Harriet Bishop.
Bishop believes she was infected on August 14, 1994 when she gashed her fingers on thorns while gardening at her home in British Columbia. Two months later, she and her family moved to Canyon Lake, Texas, but her wounds from that August day never healed. Even more alarming, strange fibers began coming out of her hands.
"The fibers would come out, they emerge on their own," she says. "They make a hole and they come out and it's very painful."
It wasn't until 2005 that Bishop found out about Morgellons. She joined a growing list of people which now totals more than 14,000 worldwide, according to the Morgellons Research Foundation. That number includes at least 830 Texans who believe they're infected.
San Francisco physician, Raphael Stricker, is one of only a few doctors who believe something real is happening to patients like Bishop. "There's almost always some history of exposure to dirt basically either from gardening or camping or something," says Dr. Stricker.
His research has focused on a type of plant bacteria which is known to cause infections in animals and humans with compromised immune systems.
"Agrobacterium is a plant bacteria that lives in soil," he says. "It can cause skin lesions when injected into Swiss mice, which are a strain of mice that are immune deficient."
In 2007, Dr. Stricker and experts in agrobacterium studied skin samples from seven Morgellons patients and found the DNA from the bacteria in all seven samples. Now the question is, how are people getting the bacteria in their bodies. Dr. Stricker believes it could be from ticks. The small insects are well known for carrying the bacteria that causes Lyme Disease. In fact, in a recent survey of 44 Morgellons patients in San Francisco, 43 of them tested positive for Lyme.
"This suggests that the combination of the Lyme bacteria and the agrobacterium may work together to cause an unusual and emerging disease such as Morgellons," Dr. Stricker told the audience at the conference.
"It could be that they're both tick-borne diseases," says Ginger Savely, a nurse practitioner who treats more than 300 Morgellons patients. "The ticks we know harbor at least 300 different pathogens."
Savely believes the researchers are onto something, and hopes that it can lead to treatment or even a cure. "I just hope that sometime before I die, we find out what this is," she says. "It is the most perplexing and it's just incredible stuff."
For Harriet Bishop, Saturday's conference was about learning, but also about offering support to those who need it...people like Belinda Smith of San Antonio. "I've been isolated from my family," explains Smith, who is also a nurse. "I haven't seen my family, my mother, my dad, my sister in four years because they're scared."
"Be open to the possibility that there could be something emerging here that needs to be treated," Bishop added.
The research presented at the Austin conference was all done through independently funded programs. The Centers for Disease Control announced in January it was launching its own field study. The study is expected to take at least 18-months.
If you'd like to comment on Morgellons to the CBS 11 Investigators, email us.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)