Genetically Modified Foods May Cause Strange New Disease

The online environmental newsletter "Grist" and a "Natural News" article from April 13, 2008 entitled "Morgellon's Disease May be Linked to Genetically Modified Food," raise a disturbing specter: Those who fought against or were uneasy about the prospect of genetically modified food may have had justified fears, and our worst fears are beginning to manifest.

"Natural News" reports that as of February 2007 more than 10,000 individuals and families had registered with the Morgellon's Disease Foundation. Just this month the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) gave Kaiser Permanente a $300,000 grant to study the disease in 150-500 patients in northern California. Symptoms of the disease are extremely wide-ranging though a few are very unique to the disease. Some such as a feeling of crawling underneath the skin, to fatigue, mental confusion and short term memory loss are consistent with a number of other diseases, including parasitic infestation, which was at one time thought to be the cause of Morgellon's even though the most aggressive anti-parasitic treatments were completely ineffective.

Other symptoms are more extreme and include suicidal ideation and the symptom most atypical of other diseases, lesions which can contain fibers, some of which are reportedly "as fine as spider webs" but capable of pulling on the skin when removal is attempted.

Examination of these fibers produced the first clue as to what might be underlying Morgellon's. As reported by both "Grist" and "Natural News" scientist at Oklahoma State University discovered that the fibers in Morgellon's patients matched each other but did not match any common environmental fibers. Further analysis by Vitaly Citovsky, a professor of biochemistry and cell biology at Stony Brook University in New York disclosed that the DNA of the fibers demonstrated the presence of agrobacterium, a genetically modified microorganism that is utilized for genetically modifying other materials including plants and is capable of modifying human cells. Analysis of biopsies from Morgellon's patients sent to Dr. Citovsky by the Morgellon's Foundation demonstrated the presence of agrobacterium in other Morgellon's patients but never in other patients.

The debate as to what exactly causes Morgellon's is far from settled, however. Morgellon's EU lists theories ranging from causation from cotton socks to meteorites. Sufferers of Morgellons state that they believe that there is a nanotechnological component, as Morgellon's fibers have allegedly managed to infiltrate their computer hard drives and DVD players. Others have blamed bottled water, Lyme disease and a host of other causes including late night talk show cause celebre, chemtrails spraying. Many medical professionals deal with alleged Morgellon's sufferers as hypochondriacs, including referring to the disease as "delusional scabies." In fact, as with HIV the birthplace of this new disease may also be a matter of controversy. Some experts believe it originated in Europe, while many Europeans believe it originated in China in 1994.

If true, Chinese origins for the disease might actually strengthen rather than weaken the possible genetically modified foods suspicions. When I first presented family and friends on my email list this information, one person expressed the hope that the link was not causual, as it would mean bad things for nutrition in the third world. The example cited was golden rice, a genetically modified rice that has been fortified to increase A vitamins and other nutrition that is not available in normal rice or as is likely the case, in likely elements of rice growers diets.

"Grist, "Natural News," Dr. Citovsky, and now I wonder if we ought not step back from our quite possibly extremely ill-advised attempts to change nature.