~WHAT'S THAT~

There's an outbreak of some sort of South American parasitical disease that is working its way north that they're calling Morgellon's disease. The first pic is a 60X shot of a fiber protruding from the original lesion. The photo on the right is a 10X pic of the lesion on the lip of a sufferer with this fiber sticing out of it. Untreatable directly and is currently treated symptomatically. What the hell is that? Fibers? Nobody knows. Actually, the doctors have no idea what the stuff is and there is no treatment protocol as yet. No data. No cure. No clear procedures of treatment. Doesn't appear to be catching but people are getting it in greater and greater numbers. Classic horror stuff. Some sort of fibers seem to come out of the lesion that looks like pieces of spagetti sprouting out of your skin. Ugh. And itches like crazy.

In my youth I spent a lot of time wandering around the Amazon basin in search of ibogaine and other sanity cures thru better pharmacology. At one point I managed to catch shistosomiasis (sp.?), a parasitic infection of the blood stream with something similar to the heart worms that dogs suffer from. Fatal if not treated. Fortunately for me it was treated successfully and I could continue my attempts at self abuse. Ah, youth! Shistosomiasis presents as a living worm sticking out of a sore on your leg, a living parasitic worm that is carried by flatworm eggs that are in moving water and uses a vector of water snails to do the deed. I think that about half of the children I met in Brasil suffer from that. Easily treated... just like the treatment you give your dog for heartworms... but this new visitor from south of the border is landing here with no medical history and is a real puzzler.

I don't know about you but that scares the hell out of me. Here's the link.

Bob