US to study bizarre medical condition
Updated: 2008-01-17 11:54
Randy Wymore, an Oklahoma State University pharmacologist, who believes the condition is not a psychiatric one, says there is distrust by some Morgellons sufferers toward the new study.
Some of these patients who are Kaiser Permanente members have said they don't like the way they've been treated by Kaiser doctors and probably won't participate, said Wymore, who formerly was a research director for a patient group and hears constantly from Morgellons patients.
"They felt that Kaiser was particularly unreceptive to treating them for anything other than a psychiatric disorder," said Wymore.
A Kaiser official said he had not heard such complaints. No patient will be excluded from participation, even if a doctor previously determined the problem was psychological, said Dr. Joe Selby, director of research for Kaiser Permanente Northern California.
Kaiser researchers will look in their records for previous patients who in the last 18 months reported Morgellons-like symptoms. They will be asked to participate in more medical evaluations.
Any fibers or specks that are collected will be analyzed at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Selby said. Doctors who believe the condition is psychiatric suspect fibers are likely just threads from clothing.
The CDC has been getting more than a dozen calls a week from self-diagnosed Morgellons patients for well over a year, and was urged to investigate by US Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and others.
Some say they've suffered for decades, but the syndrome did not get a name until 2002, when "Morgellons" was chosen from a 1674 medical paper describing similar symptoms.
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