5 ms·

I am wary to bring the topic up but I wonder if this might have some degree of connection with what people call morgellons disease. The bactarium shown in the

I am wary to bring the topic up but I wonder if this might have some degree of connection with what people call morgellons disease. The bactarium shown in the video looks very similar to what people describe. My understanding is that morgellons is largely seen as psychosomatic or "fake". I now wonder if some people might have similar bacteria on them and that it might explain some of the symptoms.

danachow 5y ago
The problem with this theory, despite lobbied funding for the Morgellons foundation with very extensive testing including histological and biochemical, no evidence of an organism has been found associated with it. It’s not like nobody has looked.
likpok 5y ago
It would be easy to determine if Morgellons was caused by a bacteria or some other physical thing: you can take samples and look at them under the microscope. When the CDC did just that (looked at samples of the fibers), they found them to be likely cotton. If this were the cause of morgellons then their result would be "morgellons caused by infestation with unknown large bacteria" not "people with morgellons have no physical evidence of infestation".
unfocussed_mike 5y ago
Nope. There is some fringe theory about a bacterium but Morgellons is almost certainly delusional parasitosis and the fibres are just that - fibres from clothes. It emerged from an odd nexus of Munchausens, Munchausens by proxy, internet diagnosis and schizophrenia. So it's not "fake" but it might be faked. Morgellons is a really fascinating mini model of Qanon, in a way; it now "exists" as a "thing" that has to be discussed, even though it doesn't exist as a thing.
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  Delusional parasitosis is quite the opposite of "Munchhausen's". Sufferers can't even be described as hypochondriac. It's a psychiatric disorder, and they seek help because they suffer. In "Munchhausen's" people seek suffering to get help, to oversimplify by a few magnitudes. But it's really not the same thing. And QAnon-followers are in their majority not suffering from psychotic delusions.
  - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    > Delusional parasitosis is quite the opposite of "Munchhausen's". It's possible for things to exist in a nexus between opposites, is it not? Morgellons is something that people only ever "have" if they go looking for it. Self-diagnosis of extreme, rare, "special" diseases that rational people disbelieve, and Munchausens are not that far apart, surely. > And QAnon-followers are in their majority not suffering from psychotic delusions. I didn't say that -- or mean it. [0] What I said was that the emergence of Morgellons -- an internet phenomenon -- is a small model of what later happened with QAnon. Both are non-true, at leas partly fabricated, online phenomena, that simultaneously do not exist and cannot be ignored. The problem comes when you have a bunch of people who are scientifically ignorant, predisposed towards a simple belief that explains things for them, and several bad faith actors (in QAnon's case, Cernovich and the Watkins family, in the Morgellons case, the Morgellons Research Foundation and several blogs). What you end up with is a self-reinforcing bubble of belief around a fallacy that cannot then be ignored, like scar tissue around a tiny fragment of talc. [0] That said, there are for certain delusional aspects of QAnon. It has a Millerite nature and is also spawning even more fringe cults like the JFK reincarnation faction; it absolutely is unpicking people's control over their psychoses, as can be seen from the January 6 defendants.
- Karawebnetwork 5y ago
  Let me rephrase that. I wonder if some of the people who are labeled under Morgellon's disease have had an actual encounter with such a bacteria. You have written elsewhere that "Morgellons is something that people only ever "have" if they go looking for it." My experience with the concept is similar to that, but different. I first heard about it in the context of a building that had what is now called "sick building syndrome." In short, a combination of poor air circulation, bathrooms that weren't properly ventilated on the outside, and an HVAC system that hadn't been cleaned in over a decade. People were unknowingly sick, but had nothing to show for it except the odd particle found on their skin. So the logical people did what logical people do and looked for an answer. Some went to dermatologists who only gave the answer "there are signs of an unknown infection" and provided creams. For some, this is enough to move on. While others need the exact answer to find peace. So there you have it, a bunch of educated people on search engines writing "redness on the skin with dust particles", "infection only in one room", "small itchy filaments on the skin", etc. Soon enough, "Morgellons" appeared in the results and was the topic of conversation. Now obliviously it wasn't "Morgellons". Air quality tests were performed and revealed the presence of spores, which led to the discovery that the bathroom vent was not properly installed and that the HVAC system was long overdue for cleaning. However, if these tests had not been performed and the building owner had not been cooperative, you would have a large group of engineers believing in Morgellons, as that was the only "logical" explanation at the time. This brings us back to my question, "I wonder if this might have something to do with what people call Morgellon's disease." Not necessarily as an explanation of Morgellons but as an explanation of some of the reported symptoms. If I had on my body the exact same bacteria as the one in the short video of the article and went to a search engine to find the answer, I would very likely fall on Morgellon's disease. It's entirely possible that 100% of the people who claim to have seen filaments moving on their skin were imagining things, that they all have a mental health issue. But coming from a fibromyalgia household where the women in my family were led to believe their illness was imaginary ("female hysteria") for decades, some of them wasting years on powerful antipsychotic and antidepressant medications, I am very wary of dismissing self-reported symptoms as psychosomatic.
  - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    > But coming from a fibromyalgia household where the women in my family were led to believe their illness was imaginary ("female hysteria") for decades, some of them wasting years on powerful antipsychotic and antidepressant medications, I am very wary of dismissing self-reported symptoms as psychosomatic. I'm glad they are getting help. (Also good job with the HVAC and the building; an unprovably unpleasant environment can mess with people's lives) But it's worth noting as others have that Morgellons is based on a specific claim (strange microscopic growths out of the skin) that is testable. The things that sufferers/believers think are their disease turn out to be cellulose in nature. In other words, cotton microfibres.

danachow 5y ago

The problem with this theory, despite lobbied funding for the Morgellons foundation with very extensive testing including histological and biochemical, no evidence of an organism has been found associated with it. It’s not like nobody has looked.

likpok 5y ago

It would be easy to determine if Morgellons was caused by a bacteria or some other physical thing: you can take samples and look at them under the microscope. When the CDC did just that (looked at samples of the fibers), they found them to be likely cotton. If this were the cause of morgellons then their result would be "morgellons caused by infestation with unknown large bacteria" not "people with morgellons have no physical evidence of infestation".

unfocussed_mike 5y ago

Nope. There is some fringe theory about a bacterium but Morgellons is almost certainly delusional parasitosis and the fibres are just that - fibres from clothes. It emerged from an odd nexus of Munchausens, Munchausens by proxy, internet diagnosis and schizophrenia. So it's not "fake" but it might be faked. Morgellons is a really fascinating mini model of Qanon, in a way; it now "exists" as a "thing" that has to be discussed, even though it doesn't exist as a thing.

bayesian_horse 5y ago
Delusional parasitosis is quite the opposite of "Munchhausen's". Sufferers can't even be described as hypochondriac. It's a psychiatric disorder, and they seek help because they suffer. In "Munchhausen's" people seek suffering to get help, to oversimplify by a few magnitudes. But it's really not the same thing. And QAnon-followers are in their majority not suffering from psychotic delusions.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  > Delusional parasitosis is quite the opposite of "Munchhausen's". It's possible for things to exist in a nexus between opposites, is it not? Morgellons is something that people only ever "have" if they go looking for it. Self-diagnosis of extreme, rare, "special" diseases that rational people disbelieve, and Munchausens are not that far apart, surely. > And QAnon-followers are in their majority not suffering from psychotic delusions. I didn't say that -- or mean it. [0] What I said was that the emergence of Morgellons -- an internet phenomenon -- is a small model of what later happened with QAnon. Both are non-true, at leas partly fabricated, online phenomena, that simultaneously do not exist and cannot be ignored. The problem comes when you have a bunch of people who are scientifically ignorant, predisposed towards a simple belief that explains things for them, and several bad faith actors (in QAnon's case, Cernovich and the Watkins family, in the Morgellons case, the Morgellons Research Foundation and several blogs). What you end up with is a self-reinforcing bubble of belief around a fallacy that cannot then be ignored, like scar tissue around a tiny fragment of talc. [0] That said, there are for certain delusional aspects of QAnon. It has a Millerite nature and is also spawning even more fringe cults like the JFK reincarnation faction; it absolutely is unpicking people's control over their psychoses, as can be seen from the January 6 defendants.
Karawebnetwork 5y ago
Let me rephrase that. I wonder if some of the people who are labeled under Morgellon's disease have had an actual encounter with such a bacteria. You have written elsewhere that "Morgellons is something that people only ever "have" if they go looking for it." My experience with the concept is similar to that, but different. I first heard about it in the context of a building that had what is now called "sick building syndrome." In short, a combination of poor air circulation, bathrooms that weren't properly ventilated on the outside, and an HVAC system that hadn't been cleaned in over a decade. People were unknowingly sick, but had nothing to show for it except the odd particle found on their skin. So the logical people did what logical people do and looked for an answer. Some went to dermatologists who only gave the answer "there are signs of an unknown infection" and provided creams. For some, this is enough to move on. While others need the exact answer to find peace. So there you have it, a bunch of educated people on search engines writing "redness on the skin with dust particles", "infection only in one room", "small itchy filaments on the skin", etc. Soon enough, "Morgellons" appeared in the results and was the topic of conversation. Now obliviously it wasn't "Morgellons". Air quality tests were performed and revealed the presence of spores, which led to the discovery that the bathroom vent was not properly installed and that the HVAC system was long overdue for cleaning. However, if these tests had not been performed and the building owner had not been cooperative, you would have a large group of engineers believing in Morgellons, as that was the only "logical" explanation at the time. This brings us back to my question, "I wonder if this might have something to do with what people call Morgellon's disease." Not necessarily as an explanation of Morgellons but as an explanation of some of the reported symptoms. If I had on my body the exact same bacteria as the one in the short video of the article and went to a search engine to find the answer, I would very likely fall on Morgellon's disease. It's entirely possible that 100% of the people who claim to have seen filaments moving on their skin were imagining things, that they all have a mental health issue. But coming from a fibromyalgia household where the women in my family were led to believe their illness was imaginary ("female hysteria") for decades, some of them wasting years on powerful antipsychotic and antidepressant medications, I am very wary of dismissing self-reported symptoms as psychosomatic.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  > But coming from a fibromyalgia household where the women in my family were led to believe their illness was imaginary ("female hysteria") for decades, some of them wasting years on powerful antipsychotic and antidepressant medications, I am very wary of dismissing self-reported symptoms as psychosomatic. I'm glad they are getting help. (Also good job with the HVAC and the building; an unprovably unpleasant environment can mess with people's lives) But it's worth noting as others have that Morgellons is based on a specific claim (strange microscopic growths out of the skin) that is testable. The things that sufferers/believers think are their disease turn out to be cellulose in nature. In other words, cotton microfibres.