Being new to blogging I find I often have trouble coming up with topics to blog about.  So I was searching the internet for interesting topics when I came upon Morgellons disease and delusional parasitosis.  These are possibly interconnected diseases where in affected people believe they are host to parasites as evidenced by the sensation of crawling, itching, stinging, and biting under their skin (a wholly unpleasant sounding experience called formication).  In the case of delusional parasitosis this condition is psychosomatic – it is imagined, or can be caused by drug and alcohol use/abuse.  Morgellons has similar symptoms, but also includes the presence of fibers growing under and out of the skin (strange red and blue fibers which when examined were found to be neither any known textile or plant).  Morgellons sufferers also claim to have found bugs growing in their skin.  Patients of both diseases present with skin lesions, which are often assumed to be due to the itching and picking of the patients themselves as a response to the itching/crawling sensations they experience.  Other physical symptoms are often present such as fatigue, difficulty focusing, and musculoskeletal pain.

Now, it is unknown at this time whether Morgellons is a separate disease than delusional parasitosis.  Many health professionals believe that the two are one in the same and that Morgellons too is psychosomatic.  The CDC is currently conducting an investigation into this phenomenon.  However for those who suffer the effects of this disease it is very real and terrifying (it is also disfiguring, as the skin lesions – self-inflicted or not – are often not allowed to heal due to itching and picking, leaving these people susceptible to infection and  long-term scaring).    Some professionals are taking the disease seriously and they have a really pretty scary theory about what may be causing Morgellons.

Apparently biopsies of tissue samples from these lesions contain evidence of agrobacterium, a plant bacteria that causes something like plant cancer owing to its ability to transfer genes to plants.  Agrobacterium can also be responsible for opportunistic infections in humans with compromised immune systems.  This bacterium has been used extensively by the biotech movement to “improve” plants through genetic engineering.  You can see where this is going.

Apparently the FDA and the bioengineers don’t actually know what the long-term effects of genetic engineering might be, however this hasn’t stopped or even slowed the use of the technology at many levels of food production.  Something like 68% of the food in america is in part or in whole genetically modified.

And now, still at the beginning of my research into this subject (which has largely changed from Morgellons disease[which may be just the tip of the iceberg] to genetic engineering in our food supply and its potential effects on our health and well-being) I am, as the title of this blog suggests, severely mentally unrestful (ok, that is not a real term apparently, but lets just say I am pretty F-ing disturbed).  I am also angry, mostly at the FDA for allowing genetically modified foods into circulation without proper analysis of their dangers, but also at the bioengineering companies (and all the corporate fat cats who profit at one level or another) for pushing these technologies.

There are plenty of sinister theories about the FDA/Corporate connection, some of which are conjecture and some of which seems to be supported by fact – like I said I’m just beginning to become familiar with this topic.  I will however continue my research (and if you’re reading this I suggest you do some of your own), mental unrest notwithstanding, because sometimes not knowing is worse than knowing the terrifying, awful truth.