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.