Investigating Morgellons Syndrome
Political Pressure
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has taken some time to organise an investigation into Morgellons Syndrome. This is despite the fact that the organisation had been under some pressure, public and political, before it eventually announced that it would convene a taskforce to investigate Morgellons. For example; senators Robert Graham, Dianne Feinstein, Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer had all written to the CDC between 2004 and 2006 to pass on concerns that had been expressed to them by constituents.
Taskforce
There had been rumours of an investigation for some time but in January 2008 a press conference was held in which it was announced that, in collaboration with Kaiser Permante, a retrospective study would be undertaken in Northern California into an outbreak of unexplained dermatology .
Any Kaiser policyholder who sought treatment for Morgellons during the 18 months up to the 31/12/07 will be included in the study. The study has an initial budget of $338,000, with more available and may take more than a year. It is notable that generally such CDC taskforces are put together as the result of information from specialists in the medical community, but with Morgellons the CDC is responding to political and lay pressure.
The full transcript of the CDC press conference to announce the task force can be found here