Morgellons (/mɔːrˈɡɛlənz/) is the informal name of a self-diagnosed, scientifically unsubstantiated skin condition in which individuals have sores that they believe contain fibrous material.
[7][8] Leitao and others involved in her Morgellons Research Foundation successfully lobbied members of the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to investigate the condition in 2006.
[9][10] CDC researchers issued the results of their multi-year study in January 2012, indicating that no disease organisms were present in the samples from the individuals examined and that the fibers found were likely cotton.
[6] Leitao chose the name Morgellons disease (with a hard g) from a description of an illness in the medical case-history essay, A Letter to a Friend (c. 1656, pub.
1690) by Sir Thomas Browne, where the physician describes several medical conditions in his experience, including "that endemial distemper of children in Languedoc, called the morgellons, wherein they critically break out with harsh hairs on their backs".
[7][17] The MRF website states that its purpose is to raise awareness and funding for research into the proposed condition, described by the organization as a "poorly understood illness, which can be disfiguring and disabling".
[7] The MRF claimed to have received self-identified reports of Morgellons from all 50 U.S. states and 15 other countries, including Canada, the UK, Australia, and the Netherlands.
[28] The Morgellons Research Foundation coordinated a mailing campaign via their website, in which thousands of people sent form letters to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) task force, which first met in June 2006.
[9][29][30] By August 2006, the task force consisted of 12 people, including two pathologists, a toxicologist, an ethicist, a mental health expert, and specialists in infectious, parasitic, environmental and chronic diseases.
[34][35][36] In 2006, Waddell and Burke reported the influence of the internet on people self-diagnosed with Morgellons: "physicians are becoming more and more challenged by the many persons who attempt self-diagnosis on-line.
In many cases, these attempts are well-intentioned, yet wrong, and a person's belief in some of these oftentimes unscientific sites online may preclude their trust in the evidence-based approaches and treatment recommendations of their physician.
"[39] A 2005 Popular Mechanics article stated that Morgellons symptoms are well known and characterized in the context of other disorders, and that "widespread reports of the strange fibers date back" only a few years to when the MRF first described them on the Internet.
[40] The Los Angeles Times, in an article on Morgellons, notes that "[t]he recent upsurge in symptoms can be traced directly to the Internet, following the naming of the disease by Mary Leitao, a Pennsylvania mother".