Investigating Morgellons Syndrome
More Fibre Tests
Wymore was not the only professional scientist who was unable to offer an informed opinion as to what the fibres actually were.
Ahmed Kilani, an infectious disease microbiologist with Clongen Laboratories, tested some fibres for leishmaniasis, or "Baghdad boil," a horrifying skin disease, caused by sandflies, that has recently been reported as being on the increase in Iraq as the health care system and hygiene conditions deteriorate under the U.S. occupation . He also carried out tests for protozoal infections and fungal diseases but was unable to find any match. Kilani, who has subsequently joined the MRF medical board, noted of the testing;
Unfortunately, this turned out to be more difficult than I thought. I still do not have an answer.
Vitaly Citovsky, a plant biologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook was contacted by the MRF and agreed to carry out some skin tests on Morgellons patients. He has been quoted as saying;
At the time I became involved, I knew nothing of the controversy that surrounds this thing. I didn't know that half the people were crazy. Ninety percent of the stuff on the Internet is absolute lunacy. Government conspiracies, nanotechnology.
Despite his misgivings he completed his test on the skin of five Morgellons patients and five control patients and found traces of agrobacteria only in the Morgellons patients.
Agrobacteria is a common bacterium which is used in genetic modification of plants; apparently it has one unique property: it is described as the only material that has been shown to be capable of genetically transforming any organism, including human cells, by transferring DNA into it.
Following tests on fibres Citovsky claims to have identified them as polysaccharides (sugar molecules), not lint or dirt as skeptics claim. However he balances this by pointing out that neither are they worms or any other type of living organism, he says;
They're made up of polysaccharides, sugars, long chains of sugar molecules. The problem is the people who deny the existence of the disease. They say this is lint or dirt that people find on their skin. But it's not dirt, it's not lint, it's not twigs. But on the other hand, it is not a living creature, because some people say they're worms.
There is an unadressed contradiction in the test results; according to Randy Wymore and the Tulsa P.D. forensics lab the fibres could not be burnt, even at 1400 degrees! Whilst for Citovsky and SUNY they are merely "a long chain of sugar molecules", but surely sugar cannot withstand such high temperatures?
So, however interesting some the findings may sound it must be remembered that, as of now, these details have only been reported in the popular press and not in peer-reviewed scientific journals and hence lack scientific legitimacy.