posted May 24, 2006 05:43 PM            

Doctors Make Progress With Mysterious Disease

POSTED: 7:26 pm PDT May 23, 2006
UPDATED: 10:51 am PDT May 24, 2006

OAKLAND -- A horrifying and fascinating disease is affecting thousands of people in the Bay Area, along the Gulf Coast and in Florida. Though some doctors have claimed the malady is psychosomatic, other scientists are making headway unraveling the mystery of Morgellons Disease.

Former Oakland A's pitcher Billy Koch has it. And so do his wife and their three children. And though they can afford top medical care, doctors have no answers.

It started in Oakland four years ago. Koch saved 44 games and was the top reliever in the major leagues. His fastball wowed crowds. And then the strangeness began.

"He freaked out. He wanted to ignore it … I wanted to too. But when it comes to your kids, you gotta stop ignoring it," said Koch's wife Brandi.

She describes their symptoms: "It was the scariest thing I had ever realized in my entire life. There was matter and black specks coming out and off of my skin."

Within two years -- at age 29 -- Billy Koch was out of baseball, partly because of the uncontrollable muscle twitching that went on for months at a time and often kept up him up all night.

The disease is characterized by slow healing skin lesions that often extrude small, dark filaments, especially after bathing.

"That's when it would really just ooze -- literally ooze out of my skin," explained Brandi Koch.

The couple was at wit's end after numerous doctors not only provided little in the way of relief, but actually were skeptical about their health problems: "There's no reasonable explanation for it. I'm not seeing things. l'm watching it happen. We're pretty sane people…" lamented Billy.

Infectious disease specialist Dr. Neelam Uppal sympathized with the Kochs' plight: "They've seen several doctors, [and] everybody's told them they're crazy. It's in their head. They're delusional."

Dr. Uppal gave the Kochs and fifteen other patients a powerful anti-parasite medicine and antibiotics that helped temporarily. But the filaments come back.

Testing of the filaments brought no results, according to Dr. Uppal: "I've seen [it]; sent it to the lab. They can't identify it. They'll say 'They're nothing.'"

The reaction of medical professionals has made a difficult situation even harder for Brandi Koch: "It's not enough that you're suffering and hurting. It's 'You're an idiot!' and 'You're crazy!' on top of it. I'm really hurt and sad and scared."

The Kochs may be the most recognizable of more than 3,000 families nationwide reporting these same unexplained symptoms. There are curious clusters, in Florida, along the Gulf Coast and in the San Francisco Bay Area. That's where we begin our investigation into new clues to this medical mystery.

San Francisco physician Rafael Stricker took samples last spring from Bay Area sufferers. Patients report pustules and filaments that most doctors dismiss. Dermatologists claimed the filaments were all delusions, although none had studied them.

Oklahoma State University Professor Randy Wymore was the first scientist to conduct research on this disconcerting disease. He says it's the biggest mystery he's ever been involved in.

The UC Davis trained physiologist is leading a medical team at Oklahoma State University in Tulsa, researching what is now called Morgellons Disease.

With cooperation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Wymore's team is studying Bay Area patients and others from around the country. His first finding disputes the frequent diagnosis of delusions.

"Pathologists and dermatologists and lab reports [said] that these were textile fibers appearing in the skin of the sufferers. Now that's just not true, to be perfectly blunt about it," says Prof. Wymore.

Wymore says his tests rule out not only textile fibers, but also worms, insects, animal material and even human skin and hair. He says the filaments are not an external contamination.

Instead, they are a substance that materializes somehow inside the body, apparent artifacts of something infectious. More results are expected soon. And Wymore says skin problems are not the worst symptoms.

He says a neurotoxin or microorganism may disturb muscle control and memory.

"The neurological effects are the much more severe, life altering and much more dangerous of the conditions," explains Prof. Wymore.

This month, Georgia began a statewide Morgellons registry. Prof. Wymore says he is about to begin a clinical trial and offers this to sufferers: "We know there's something going on here. You're not delusional."

Prof. Wymore has just released an open letter to doctors treating patients with Morgellons symptoms. It asks physicians to take it seriously, saying these patients are likely suffering from a still untreatable emerging disease.

____________________________________

This has got to be one of the weirdest diseases I have heard of. The video is very informative and if you can watch it, it's a treat.

posted May 24, 2006 06:12 PM              

horses..that are exported from other Countries..into Florida..

and spiders..along for the travel. ...

Don't know..very weird!

posted May 25, 2006 01:24 PM            

WNV was found, predominately, in Middle East regions. The US does a ton of Horse trading with these countries, in fact one country offered us a million dollar horse as a condolence for 9/11.

The crack-pot theory was that a mosquito hitched a ride... yeah.. riiiiiiight. It makes more sense that infected horses were received and served a as resevour for the virus- which in turn was picked up by blood sucking mosquitoes and transferred to birds / humans and horses.

In the beginning I worked for a company that made a larvicide and part of what I had to do was watch trends (similar to what I did in Bioterrorism in epidemiology) The Virus began to migrate and spread, not just following the bird migration pattern.. but also the HORSE TRADE. Places where horse shows, races etc... were dominant started to see clusters. Meanwhile, my uncle who works for Kansas state and breeds paint horses, worked with a vaccine manufacturer before the CDC even admitted that Horses could become infected.

posted May 25, 2006 01:32 PM            

There are too many cases spread around the country to be dismissed as a psychosis.

posted May 25, 2006 05:01 PM            

I do think it has to be some kind of parasite or virus... it could even be a prion since all the other tests have been inconclusive. Mad cow is caused by a prion (a protein that causes the shift in conformation on an otherwise normal protein transcriber). Basically, it causes the normal particle to function abnormally. In this case, I wonder if it affects cells that are responsible for constructing / maintaining muscle or connective tissue, which is sinewy as it is? So instead of creating new tissues, once in a while an abnormal one pops out, causes a reaction and the body tries to force it out like any foreign object?

The lab-rat from OHSU stated that it could be a byproduct from a parasite- similar to how elephantitis occurs in the body as a result of the microfilarial worms blocking the lymph nodes so the waste is deposited in other tissues?